Chapter 9 - THE LOYAL TRAITOR
Rafe did not touch the photograph.
He stood three feet from Luca's desk and stared at the image of a pregnant Elena as though it had come from a grave.
"That was not in my safe," he said.
Elena's voice was flat.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No."
Rafe looked at her.
"I expect you not to believe anything until you have evidence."
"That has become the house motto."
"It should have been twelve years ago."
Luca turned the photograph over again.
WATCH THE GIRL.
The handwriting was block print.
No obvious signature.
No date beyond the one written beneath the image.
The date was seven weeks after Luca's collapse.
Two weeks after Elena later learned she was carrying a girl.
Luca looked at Rafe.
"Did you know Elena was pregnant?"
Rafe did not answer immediately.
That silence answered enough.
Elena's face changed.
"You knew."
Rafe looked toward the door.
Then back at Luca.
"Yes."
The word landed harder than a denial would have.
Luca's fingers curled around the armrest.
"How long?"
"From the beginning."
Elena stepped toward him.
"You knew who I was before I ever worked here."
"Yes."
"You knew Maya was his daughter."
"I knew she might be."
"For twelve years."
"Yes."
Luca's voice became dangerously quiet.
"Explain."
Rafe looked at him with the expression of a man who had waited years for a sentence he knew would not save him.
"Your father hired me fourteen years ago."
"Not as security chief."
"As private protection."
"Protection for whom?"
"You."
Luca almost laughed.
"Excellent work."
Rafe accepted the blow.
"You started seeing Elena on the South Side."
"Your father found out."
"He thought someone might use her to get to you."
Elena's mouth tightened.
"So he had me followed."
"Yes."
"By you."
"At first."
Luca stared at him.
"I never saw you."
"That was the job."
"And after I collapsed?"
Rafe looked at the photograph.
"Your father changed the job."
"He told me to watch Elena."
"Not approach her."
"Not contact her."
"Not let anybody else get too close."
Elena's hands trembled.
"Did you know Vincent came to my apartment?"
"No."
"Did you know Alessandro was moving me through landlords and jobs?"
"Some of it."
"Did you know I was pregnant?"
"Yes."
"Did you know I was alone?"
Rafe's jaw tightened.
"Yes."
"And you did nothing."
Rafe did not defend himself.
"I followed orders."
Elena laughed once.
"Men in this family say that as if it turns cowardice into a profession."
Rafe's eyes lowered.
"You're right."
Luca looked at him sharply.
Rafe continued.
"I told myself I was keeping you alive."
"I told myself if I broke cover, the people watching would know Elena mattered."
"I told myself your father knew more than I did."
"All of that may have been true."
"It also meant I watched a pregnant woman carry groceries up three flights of stairs while I sat in a car."
Elena turned away.
"Did you see Maya born?"
Rafe swallowed.
"Not the birth."
"I saw you leave the hospital with her."
Elena closed her eyes.
"Did you tell Alessandro?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He asked if the baby was healthy."
"Then he asked if anyone had followed you home."
Luca's anger found a new direction.
"Did you ever tell my father to tell me?"
"Yes."
"How many times?"
"Three."
"And?"
"The first time he said Keane warned that stress could kill you."
"The second time he told me Matteo had started asking questions about a woman on the South Side."
"The third time he told me if I ever mentioned Elena or Maya to you, I was fired and they were unprotected."
Luca looked at the floor.
"So you chose them."
Rafe's voice was low.
"I chose what I thought kept them alive."
"And me in the dark."
"Yes."
"For twelve years."
"Yes."
Luca felt something inside him shift.
Not break.
That had happened too many times already.
This was worse.
A rearrangement.
Rafe had been the man Luca trusted when he trusted no one else.
The man had also known his daughter existed and never told him.
Both things were true.
Luca hated the room for requiring him to hold them at the same time.
"Why is the photograph in your safe now?"
Rafe looked at the image.
"Because whoever planted it knew the truth would hurt more than a lie."
"Was this photograph yours?"
"No."
"Did you take photographs of Elena?"
"Yes."
"Where are they?"
"Most were destroyed."
"Most?"
Rafe exhaled.
"I kept a private file."
Elena turned back.
"Why?"
"Insurance."
"Against whom?"
"Everyone."
Luca's eyes narrowed.
"Where?"
"Storage facility in Cicero."
"Who knows?"
"Nobody."
"You just told us your badge had a duplicate for nine years."
"Then maybe somebody knows."
Rafe looked at Luca.
"If they found it first, we're already late."
They left twenty minutes later.
Elena refused to stay behind.
Luca argued once.
Elena reminded him she had spent twelve years being moved around by Costello men who decided what was safe for her.
Luca stopped arguing.
Maya stayed at the estate with Dr. Shah, two security teams, and Tommy, whose mother had reluctantly agreed that the Costello compound was currently safer than the street outside her apartment because reporters were camped there too.
Before Luca left, Maya stopped his wheelchair near the front door.
"Are you going somewhere dangerous?"
"Potentially."
Elena looked at him.
Maya did too.
"Mom usually says 'errand.'"
"Your mother is smarter."
"When will you be back?"
"Tonight."
"Promise?"
Luca hesitated.
He had made promises casually when he was younger.
Promises were useful tools until life taught him they could also become evidence.
"I promise I will do everything I can to come back tonight."
Maya frowned.
"That's not the same."
"No."
"But it's more true."
"Yes."
She nodded.
"Okay."
Then she touched his shoulder once and walked away.
Rafe saw it.
He said nothing.
The storage facility was a low concrete building between an auto-body shop and a warehouse that sold restaurant equipment.
Rafe had rented Unit 314 under his mother's maiden name.
The lock was intact.
The dust on the door track was not.
Someone had opened it recently.
Rafe drew a replacement weapon.
Elena stayed behind Luca.
The metal door rolled upward.
Inside were four filing cabinets, two plastic bins, a folding chair, and an old television with a built-in VCR.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Rafe checked the cabinets.
The first held surveillance logs.
The second held photographs.
The third was empty.
Rafe stared at it.
"That wasn't empty."
"What was in it?" Luca asked.
"Hospital material."
"Mine?"
"Yes."
"Copies?"
"Everything I could get without your father knowing."
Luca's voice hardened.
"You were investigating him."
"I was investigating everybody."
Rafe opened the fourth cabinet.
Inside were VHS tapes labeled only by date.
"Security copies from St. Catherine's," he said.
"I bribed a maintenance supervisor before the originals were overwritten."
Elena stared at him.
"You had hospital video for twelve years."
"I had corridors."
"No patient rooms."
"No audio."
"And I never saw anything I could prove was a crime."
They set up the old television.
The image shook when the first tape played.
The date was the night Luca collapsed.
A younger Matteo appeared in a hospital corridor at 10:07 p.m.
He carried nothing.
At 10:14, Vincent arrived.
At 10:19, Alessandro entered.
At 10:31, Dr. Keane appeared for the first time.
Luca leaned closer.
Keane had told him for years that they met two weeks later.
The video was proof of at least that lie.
At 11:02, Nora Bell entered Luca's room carrying a normal saline bag.
At 11:09, she came out without it.
At 11:13, Matteo entered.
He remained inside for four minutes.
When he emerged, he was carrying a folded newspaper.
No visible IV bag.
No proof.
Rafe fast-forwarded.
At 11:24, Nora returned.
She ran out less than two minutes later.
Vincent intercepted her in the corridor.
They spoke.
Vincent took something from her hands.
The resolution was poor.
It could have been a bag.
It could have been papers.
It could have been nothing useful.
Then Alessandro arrived.
Nora pointed toward Luca's room.
Alessandro looked at Matteo.
Matteo looked back.
The tape had no sound.
But whatever passed between them made Alessandro shove Matteo hard against the wall.
Elena inhaled.
Luca watched his father strike Matteo once across the face.
Matteo did not hit back.
Vincent stepped between them.
The tape ended three minutes later.
"That doesn't look like your father and Matteo were on the same side," Elena said.
"No."
Rafe changed tapes.
The next relevant recording came eleven days later.
This was the day Luca's condition suddenly worsened after a brief period in which his toes had reportedly shown reflexive movement.
Luca had no memory of it.
The chart said the movement had been involuntary.
The video showed Alessandro arriving alone at 7:15 a.m.
He carried a black medical pouch.
At 7:18, he entered Luca's room.
At 7:41, he came out without the pouch.
At 8:05, Luca's chart recorded a sudden loss of lower-limb response.
No Matteo.
No Vincent.
No Keane on camera.
Only Alessandro.
Luca stared at the frozen image of his father outside the hospital room.
"What's in the pouch?" Elena asked.
Rafe shook his head.
"I never knew."
"You didn't ask?"
"I did."
"What did he say?"
Rafe looked at Luca.
"He said it was the thing keeping his son alive."
The words entered Luca slowly.
He looked again at the timestamp.
The first time his legs had shown signs of returning, his father had entered the room carrying something.
Forty-seven minutes later, the response was gone.
Rafe rewound the tape.
This time they watched Alessandro's face as he left.
He was crying.
Luca had seen his father cry only once in his entire life.
At his mother's funeral.
"Maybe he knew exactly what was in that pouch," Elena said.
Luca thought of the letter.
You will hate me for what I did next.
He had assumed Alessandro meant the secrecy around Maya.
Now he realized the sentence might have meant something else.
Rafe reached behind the television and found a small envelope taped to the back.
He frowned.
"I didn't put this here."
Luca almost laughed at the repetition.
Rafe opened it carefully.
Inside was a photocopy of a medical authorization.
The patient was Luca Costello.
The treatment field listed an experimental neuromuscular suppression protocol under emergency compassionate use.
The physician signature belonged to Samuel Keane.
The family authorization belonged to Alessandro Costello.
The date was the same day as the black pouch.
Elena read the document twice.
"Your father signed permission to give you the drug."
Luca stared at his dead father's signature.
May you like
The man who had left a letter saying someone made him sick had also authorized the treatment that kept him that way.
For the first time, Matteo was no longer the most disturbing suspect in the room.
