Chapter 10 - The Signature
I went back to the mansion because I wanted him to say it to my face.
Ruiz drove me.
The dining room had been cleaned.
No broken plates.
No blood on the marble.
I hated how easy it was to make a room look innocent.
Luca waited in his study.
A letter lay on the desk.
Daniel Miller’s services are terminated, effective immediately.
Beneath it was Luca’s signature.
“Frank told me your father had been selling information about my vehicles,” he said.
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask my father?”
“No.”
The answer hurt more because he didn’t dress it up.
“Dad came home that week and told us work was slow.”
Luca looked down.
“He was trying to protect us,” I said. “While you were signing this.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
I picked up the letter.
My father had sat at our kitchen table doing bills with a pencil that week. I remembered him erasing the same number until the paper tore.
“I took a second job after he died,” I said. “Mom sold her wedding ring.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“Don’t do that.”
He opened them.
“You get to look at me.”
He did.
“I can pay—”
“You cannot finish that sentence.”
His mouth shut.
Ruiz stayed near the door, quiet.
I set the letter down.
“If you want to help, tell the truth. All of it. Even the parts that cost you something.”
Luca nodded.
“I will.”
“You have people who obey you because they’re afraid. That’s how Frank stayed close. Everybody waited for somebody more powerful to speak.”
He looked toward the hall.
I thought of every employee who had watched Vanessa corner me.
Every lowered eye.
Every quiet retreat.
“I made that house,” he said.
I had no comfort to offer him.
Ruiz’s phone vibrated.
She read the message.
“The lab got into Frank’s phone.”
Luca straightened.
“Anything useful?”
“Photographs of Daniel’s repair notes. Threats to Michael. Payments.”
“From Vanessa?”
“Some.”
Ruiz looked at the screen again.
Then at Luca.
“There’s also a message sent eleven minutes before your crash.”
She read it aloud.
“He switched seats. Luca’s driving. His brother is in the passenger seat.”
Luca’s hands went still on his wheels.
May you like
I had worked in his house for eleven months.
Nobody had ever told me he had a brother.
