Chapter 2 - The Woman Mateo Remembered
Two years earlier, before bullets changed the shape of the Moretti family, Mateo had still been able to walk.
That fact existed inside Lorenzo's memory like a photograph someone had burned around the edges.
Mateo laughing as he came down the stairs two at a time.
Mateo driving too fast.
Mateo leaning against Lorenzo's office door and complaining that his twin was turning thirty-five years old at twenty-nine.
They had the same face but almost nothing else in temperament.
Lorenzo distrusted everyone.
Mateo believed people deserved a chance to prove him wrong.
Lorenzo built walls.
Mateo opened doors.
Then came the ambush.
Three vehicles.
Four shooters.
A blocked intersection beneath Chicago.
Mateo had been driving because Lorenzo was supposed to be in the passenger seat.
That was the secret Lorenzo carried every day.
The attack had been meant for him.
Mateo had taken the bullets.
Now, in the bedroom where his twin spent most of his life, Lorenzo stared at Lydia Coppola.
"Explain."
Lydia folded her hands in her lap.
The cut above her eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but the bruise on her shoulder was darkening beneath her torn uniform.
"I wasn't using Coppola then."
"When?"
"The night Mateo was shot."
Lorenzo went completely still.
The doctor glanced between them.
Mateo's eyes remained fixed on Lydia.
"What name were you using?"
"DeLuca."
Lorenzo knew that name.
Not personally.
But something in his memory shifted.
He pulled out his phone.
His security chief answered instantly.
"Find every civilian witness from Mateo's ambush. Two years ago. Look for DeLuca."
Lydia spoke before he ended the call.
"Elena Lydia DeLuca."
Lorenzo stared at her.
His security chief heard.
"Give me five minutes."
"You have two."
Lorenzo hung up.
Lydia looked toward Mateo.
"He remembers because I stayed with him."
Lorenzo's jaw tightened.
"Tell me."
"I was working evenings at a rehabilitation hospital then. Nursing assistant. I had just finished a double shift. My car had broken down, so I was taking a rideshare home."
Her voice was calm, but her eyes had gone somewhere far away.
"We heard gunfire."
Lorenzo said nothing.
"The driver panicked and stopped. I got out."
"You got out during a shooting?"
"I wasn't thinking."
"Clearly."
Lydia gave him a tired look.
"Someone was screaming."
Mateo closed his eyes.
Lorenzo noticed.
Lydia continued.
"When I reached the cars, your men were trying to secure the area. One was dead. Another couldn't move. Mateo was conscious."
Her gaze shifted toward him.
"There was blood everywhere."
Lorenzo's hand tightened around his phone.
He had arrived seven minutes later.
Seven minutes that had tortured him for two years.
"What did you do?"
"I held pressure where I could. I stabilized his neck. He kept trying to ask where his brother was."
Mateo's eyes opened.
Lorenzo looked away for a moment.
Lydia's voice softened.
"He thought you were in one of the other vehicles."
"I wasn't."
"I learned that later."
"What else?"
"The ambulance was delayed because of the blocked streets. Mateo started losing consciousness."
She swallowed.
"I kept talking to him."
"About what?"
"Anything."
A faint sadness appeared in her eyes.
"The weather. The Cubs. Bad hospital coffee. My aunt's terrible lasagna."
Mateo made the smallest sound.
It was almost a laugh.
Lydia smiled despite herself.
"I told him if he died after making me kneel in dirty snow for twenty minutes, I'd personally bring him back just to yell at him."
Lorenzo stared at his brother.
Mateo's eyes were brighter than they had been before.
"And then?"
"The paramedics came."
Lydia's expression changed.
"I gave a statement. A detective took my name. Later, two men came to my apartment asking questions."
Lorenzo's body hardened.
"What men?"
"I don't know. They weren't police."
"Describe them."
"I can't. It was two years ago. One had a scar beside his ear. The other barely spoke."
"Did they threaten you?"
"They told me I had misunderstood what I saw. They told me people who remembered too much sometimes disappeared."
Silence settled across the room.
Lorenzo's security chief called.
Lorenzo answered.
"Talk."
"We found her. Elena Lydia DeLuca. Civilian witness, first on scene. Statement taken at 11:43 p.m. File was flagged restricted six hours later."
"By whom?"
"That's the problem."
Lorenzo waited.
"The authorization came from inside our organization."
His gaze moved to Lydia.
"Name."
"Still tracing it."
Lorenzo ended the call.
Lydia rubbed her hands together.
"After those men came, I quit the hospital. Changed apartments. Eventually started using my mother's surname."
"Coppola."
"Yes."
"And then two years later you conveniently apply for a job in my house."
Her eyes flashed.
"Not conveniently."
"Then explain."
"I saw the posting."
"Thousands saw the posting."
"I recognized the address."
Lorenzo stepped closer.
"You deliberately came here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Lydia looked at Mateo.
"Because I wanted to know if he survived."
Something inside the room changed.
Mateo blinked hard.
Lorenzo studied her face for a lie.
"What stopped you from searching online?"
"Nothing. I knew he lived. But I also knew the Moretti family doesn't advertise medical details."
"And you thought becoming a maid was reasonable?"
"No."
"Yet you did it."
Lydia sighed.
"I didn't plan to stay."
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed.
"The first day, I saw Mateo through the garden window. The second day, I was assigned to his floor. On the fourth, his nurse asked me to hold a tray while she adjusted him."
Mateo watched her.
Lydia's voice softened.
"He recognized me."
Lorenzo turned toward his brother.
"You knew for five days and said nothing?"
Mateo looked unapologetic.
Lorenzo almost laughed from disbelief.
"Wonderful."
The doctor pretended to check equipment.
Lydia continued.
"I told Mateo I would leave if he wanted. He blinked no."
Mateo blinked once now.
No.
"I stayed."
"And your medical training?"
"I wasn't hiding it because I'm dangerous. I stopped healthcare work after the men threatened me. I didn't put it on my housekeeping résumé because I didn't want anyone connecting me to DeLuca."
Lorenzo looked toward the shattered bookcase.
Someone had connected her anyway.
Or perhaps tonight had nothing to do with Lydia.
The target had clearly been Mateo.
But the timing felt wrong.
Too precise.
The guard rotation had changed that morning.
Only six people knew.
Lorenzo walked to the door.
"Who knew you were working tonight?"
Lydia frowned.
"My supervisor."
"Anyone else?"
"Housekeeping staff."
"Who assigned you to Mateo's floor?"
"Mrs. Carbone."
Lorenzo opened the door.
His security chief waited outside.
"Find Carbone."
"Already looking."
"Looking?"
"She isn't in the house."
Lorenzo's eyes sharpened.
"Her car?"
"Gone."
"Phone?"
"Off."
Lydia stood despite his earlier command.
"She assigned me this room fifteen minutes before the attack."
Everyone looked at her.
Lorenzo turned slowly.
"What?"
"I wasn't supposed to work Mateo's room tonight. Gina was."
"Gina who?"
"Gina Ferraro."
The security chief immediately spoke into his radio.
Lydia continued.
"Mrs. Carbone changed the assignment. Said Gina was sick."
The security chief looked up.
"Gina is downstairs. She's not sick."
Lorenzo felt the puzzle begin to align.
The traitor had not simply chosen a night to kill Mateo.
They had placed Lydia inside the room.
Why?
He looked at her again.
Maybe because she was disposable.
A new maid.
A woman with a hidden identity.
A witness to the original attack.
If Mateo died and Lydia died beside him, investigators would see chaos.
Perhaps even blame her.
"What exactly did Carbone say?" Lorenzo asked.
Lydia thought.
"She told me Mateo had spilled water and needed fresh towels. She insisted I go alone."
The security chief swore under his breath.
Lorenzo turned toward the hidden camera.
Someone had known the room was vulnerable.
Someone had known Lydia would be there.
Someone might also know Lorenzo was watching.
"Shut down every network connection leaving this property."
"Done."
"Lock the gates."
"Already locked."
"No one leaves."
Lydia stepped closer to Mateo.
He looked exhausted.
Lorenzo noticed how automatically she adjusted his pillow.
Not performatively.
Not waiting for permission.
She knew exactly how he liked his head positioned.
Five days.
She had learned that in five days.
Or perhaps Mateo had told her with nothing more than his eyes.
Lorenzo did not know why that bothered him.
Maybe because he had spent two years trying to give his brother everything, yet a woman who had been in the house for nine days had managed to return something Lorenzo couldn't buy.
Ease.
Normalcy.
Laughter.
"You need stitches," the doctor told Lydia.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"It's barely—"
"Lydia."
Mateo's weak voice silenced them all.
She immediately went to him.
"Yes?"
Mateo struggled.
"Stay."
Her face changed.
Lorenzo saw it.
A softness.
Something almost protective.
"I will."
Mateo relaxed.
Lorenzo watched the interaction and felt an unexpected certainty.
Whoever Lydia Coppola really was, she had not come to hurt his brother.
The problem was that someone else knew exactly who she had once been.
An hour later, the captured gunman was alive but refusing to talk.
Mrs. Carbone was missing.
The second attacker had escaped through an old service tunnel few employees even knew existed.
Lorenzo stood inside his study with his security chief, Antonio Bellini.
Antonio had served the Moretti family for eleven years.
"If Carbone arranged this, we find her," Antonio said.
"She wasn't alone."
"No."
"Someone gave her the new guard schedule."
Antonio nodded.
Lorenzo looked at the snow pounding the windows.
"Only six people had it."
"I know."
Lorenzo turned.
"You were one."
Antonio's face remained unreadable.
"So were you."
For a long moment neither man spoke.
That was the reality of Lorenzo's world.
Trust was never complete.
Not even with the men closest to him.
A knock came.
One of the guards entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
"We found this under the attacker's jacket."
Inside was a photograph.
Lorenzo took it.
It showed Lydia leaving a grocery store.
Taken three weeks earlier.
Before she had been hired.
On the back, handwritten in black ink, were five words.
THE WITNESS GOES WITH HIM.
Lorenzo's expression darkened.
They had not placed Lydia in Mateo's room by accident.
Tonight had been designed to kill them both.
Then frame the dead woman as part of the attack.
Antonio looked at the photograph.
"This means someone knew who she was before she applied."
Lorenzo stared at Lydia's unaware face in the image.
"Yes."
A sick certainty settled in his stomach.
Lydia had thought she came to the Moretti house to see whether a man she once saved had survived.
But someone had been waiting for her.
And whoever it was had also been waiting for another opportunity to finish what began two years earlier.
May you like
This time, Lorenzo Moretti intended to find them first.
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