Chapter 3 - Three Black SUVs at the Gate
By sunset, the mansion had become a fortress.
No one came in.
No one went out.
The boys were upstairs in Sofia's old sitting room with Elena, eating grilled cheese sandwiches and watching an animated movie at a volume low enough that the security radios downstairs could still be heard.
I stood in my study staring at seven names.
Sofia's suspects.
One of them was Victor Moretti.
My uncle arrived at 6:40 p.m.
I hadn't invited him.
That alone made every nerve in my body sharpen.
He walked into my study using the silver-handled cane he'd carried since hip surgery three years earlier.
At sixty-eight, Victor remained an imposing man.
Silver hair.
Dark suit.
Eyes that missed very little.
“Alejandro.”
“Uncle.”
He looked around.
“Your men stopped my driver at the gate.”
“Security issue.”
“So I heard.”
Of course he had.
Victor knew almost everything that happened in Chicago before anyone thought to tell him.
He lowered himself into a chair.
“Three unfamiliar vehicles outside your home isn't a small security issue.”
“No.”
“Do we know who?”
“Not yet.”
That was a lie.
I watched his face.
Nothing changed.
Then he said, “Daniel Rourke.”
I felt cold.
“What?”
“One of the vehicles was registered through a company he has used before.”
“How do you know that?”
Victor smiled without humor.
“Because I spent thirty years learning not to wait for other people to bring me information.”
I leaned against the desk.
“When did you last speak to Rourke?”
“Years ago.”
“How many?”
He considered.
“Six, perhaps.”
Elena had seen Rourke at the clinic five years earlier.
“Why did he work for you?”
“Investigations.”
“Into what?”
“Anything I paid him to investigate.”
He studied me.
“What is this really about?”
I didn't answer.
Victor's gaze moved toward the ceiling.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps.
Small ones.
A child's voice.
“Don't push me.”
Another whispered, “I'm not pushing.”
Victor's face changed.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
He looked at me.
“Alejandro.”
I said nothing.
“What children are upstairs?”
There are moments when instinct speaks more clearly than evidence.
Sofia had written his name.
Rourke had worked for him.
And Victor had appeared at my house without invitation less than five hours after Rourke came to my gate.
I walked to the study door and closed it.
Victor watched me.
“Whose children?”
“Why?”
“Because I have never heard a child in this house since Sofia died.”
His use of her name irritated me.
“Perhaps you don't know everything that happens here after all.”
He stood.
“Alejandro.”
I stepped between him and the door.
His expression hardened.
“Move.”
“No.”
For twenty years, I had treated Victor as something between an uncle and a father.
That evening was the first time I saw him calculate whether I had become an enemy.
Then a small knock came at the door.
Before I could respond, it opened.
Mateo entered.
He was holding a toy dinosaur.
“Elena says dinner is—”
He saw Victor.
Victor saw him.
Neither moved.
Mateo tilted his head.
Victor's face lost all color.
“Sofia,” he whispered.
I watched him closely.
Not Alejandro.
Not impossible.
Sofia.
Mateo looked at me.
“Who's the old man?”
Under any other circumstances, I might have laughed.
Victor took one step forward.
I blocked him.
His eyes snapped to mine.
“How many?”
My blood went cold.
I had not told him there were more.
“How many what?”
His mistake registered immediately.
Too late.
I moved closer.
“How many, Victor?”
He said nothing.
Mateo sensed the tension.
I opened the door.
“Elena.”
She appeared quickly.
“Take Mateo upstairs.”
Mateo frowned.
“But dinner.”
“I'll come.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
He handed me the dinosaur.
“You can borrow him.”
Then he followed Elena away.
I closed the door.
Victor looked suddenly older.
“You knew,” I said.
“No.”
“You asked how many.”
“I suspected.”
“From one child?”
“He looks exactly like you at that age.”
“Try again.”
Victor's jaw tightened.
I pulled Sofia's letter from my desk.
I did not hand it to him.
I only showed him the final page.
His eyes moved down the names.
Then stopped.
At his own.
He sat slowly.
“So she suspected me.”
“Yes.”
“I wondered if she had.”
That was not the answer I expected.
“You knew she was investigating someone?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because she asked me not to.”
My anger rose.
“Everyone apparently respected my wife's requests except the one person who was married to her.”
Victor looked at me.
“She was trying to keep you alive.”
“By lying to me?”
“Sometimes those are the same thing in our world.”
“Our world killed her.”
The words silenced him.
I leaned across the desk.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“No.”
“Did Rourke?”
“I don't know.”
“He was at the clinic.”
Victor's expression sharpened.
“What clinic?”
“The night my sons were born.”
For the first time, Victor looked genuinely stunned.
“Sons?”
“Four.”
He sat back.
“Dear God.”
I studied every movement.
Either Victor was the finest actor I'd ever met, or he had not known.
But Sofia had suspected him for a reason.
“Why is your name on her list?”
Victor stared at the fire.
“Because six months before Sofia died, she caught me paying Rourke.”
“For?”
He hesitated.
“Watching you.”
I went still.
“Explain.”
“You were taking risks.”
“So you had me followed?”
“You were meeting people without security. Driving yourself. Sofia was worried.”
“Sofia asked you?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Your father asked me to protect you. I intended to keep that promise.”
I almost laughed.
“My father had been dead sixteen years.”
“A promise doesn't expire because the man who asked for it is buried.”
That sounded like Victor.
Which made it more difficult.
“Did Rourke have access to this house?”
“Never.”
“My medical information?”
“No.”
“Sofia's?”
“No.”
“Then someone else did.”
Victor nodded.
“Yes.”
I showed him the photograph of Rourke at my gate.
His expression darkened.
“If Rourke is involved, you need to find him before he disappears.”
“We are.”
“No. You need to find him before whoever he's working for realizes he failed.”
“What makes you think he failed?”
Victor looked toward the ceiling.
“Because those children are still upstairs.”
That night, I went to St. Catherine's.
Not alone.
Marcus drove.
Elena insisted on coming.
The boys remained at the mansion with twelve guards and a woman Elena trusted.
The church had been closed for hours, but Father Brennan opened the side door when he saw me.
He had married Sofia and me.
He had buried her.
He had aged considerably in five years.
“Alejandro.”
“Father.”
His eyes moved to Elena.
Something in his face changed.
“You finally came.”
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
He sighed.
“Come inside.”
The church smelled exactly as I remembered.
Wax.
Old wood.
Incense.
Memory.
I followed Brennan past the altar.
“Five years ago,” he said, “Sofia gave me a sealed box.”
My heart began pounding.
“She said one day you might come asking for it.”
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
“She made me promise not to unless you specifically asked what was beneath St. Catherine's.”
I looked at Elena.
She nodded.
Brennan led us through a side door and down narrow stone steps.
Beneath the church was an archive room.
Old baptism records.
Marriage books.
Storage cabinets.
He moved a shelf aside.
Behind it was a small wall safe.
Inside sat a blue metal box.
My wife's name was written on top.
Brennan handed it to me.
“You should open it.”
Inside were financial records.
Photographs.
A flash drive.
And a handwritten notebook.
Sofia's notebook.
I opened it.
Page after page documented names, dates, bank transfers, meetings.
She had been investigating something far larger than I imagined.
Money was disappearing from Moretti businesses.
Not thousands.
Millions.
The transfers led through shell companies.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Rourke Consulting.
But Rourke wasn't the final recipient.
Sofia had drawn arrows toward another company.
Halcyon Holdings.
“Do you know it?” Elena asked.
“No.”
Marcus, standing behind me, did.
“Boss.”
I turned.
“Halcyon was created by one of our attorneys.”
“Which attorney?”
He hesitated.
“Samuel Vale.”
I knew Samuel.
Everyone did.
He had been Moretti family counsel for twenty-seven years.
He had drafted my father's will.
He had handled Sofia's estate.
He had been one of the men who assured me her death was an accident.
My stomach tightened.
I turned pages faster.
Near the end, Sofia had written:
Victor may be innocent. Rourke works for whoever pays him. Samuel controls the paper trail. Need proof before I tell A.
I stopped.
Victor may be innocent.
Not proof.
But enough to change the direction of my suspicion.
Then something fell from the notebook.
A key.
Small brass key.
A number engraved into it.
317.
Elena picked it up.
“What's that?”
I didn't know.
Father Brennan did.
His face changed.
“Union Station.”
I looked at him.
“Those are old private storage locker keys.”
Within thirty minutes, we were driving toward downtown Chicago.
Locker 317 still existed in an older storage corridor beneath the station.
Inside was one item.
A cheap prepaid phone.
Dead.
Marcus connected it to a portable battery.
The screen flickered.
There was one saved audio file.
Dated the night Sofia died.
I pressed play.
Static.
Then Sofia's voice filled the corridor.
My dead wife's voice.
“Alejandro, if you're hearing this, I didn't make it back.”
I couldn't breathe.
Elena began crying beside me.
Sofia continued.
“Samuel knows about the babies.”
I closed my eyes.
“He knows I found the accounts. I think he knows where Elena is taking them.”
A noise sounded in the recording.
Sofia inhaled sharply.
Then she spoke faster.
“Don't trust the accident report. And don't trust anyone who tells you Rourke is the man in charge. He's afraid of someone.”
The recording crackled.
Then came the final sentence.
“I know who ordered it.”
Silence.
I stared at the phone.
“That's it?”
Marcus checked.
“No. There's another seven seconds.”
I pressed play again.
Sofia whispered a name.
But before we could hear it clearly, a loud impact overwhelmed the recording.
Then the file ended.
Marcus replayed it.
Again.
Again.
The name remained buried beneath noise.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Our people found Daniel Rourke.”
“Where?”
“An apartment near the river.”
“Bring him in.”
Marcus didn't move.
“Boss…”
“What?”
“He says he'll speak only to you.”
“Fine.”
“There’s something else.”
Marcus swallowed.
“He says Sofia's sons aren't the reason he came to the mansion today.”
I stared at him.
“Then why did he come?”
Marcus listened to the voice on his phone.
Then repeated Rourke's answer.
“He came to warn you.”
“About what?”
Marcus looked at the four-year-old photograph of Sofia still lying beside the phone.
May you like
“Someone inside your house is planning to take the boys tonight.”
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