Chapter 3 - The Envelope
“Your family was listed in the trust,” Carlo said.
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
Salvatore stared at his nephew.
“You told me Rosalia left no survivors.”
“That was the information we received.”
“From whom?” Mateo asked.
“I’ll retrieve the file tomorrow.”
“I’d prefer tonight.”
For the first time, Carlo looked annoyed instead of concerned.
I stood.
“I need my coat.”
Mateo stepped aside.
No order.
No hand around my arm.
Just room to leave.
In the staff hallway, Paul caught up with me.
“What did you tell them?”
“What you heard.”
“People like that don’t give anything away.”
He reached for my elbow.
I pulled back.
“I know.”
My locker stood open.
I was sure I’d closed it.
Nothing obvious was missing, but my tote had been moved from the hook to the bottom shelf.
Inside, beneath my nursing textbook, lay a cream envelope.
My name was written across it in block letters.
There was no stamp.
No return address.
I opened it with a thumbnail.
One sheet.
Your mother asked questions too.
For a moment, the hallway tilted.
Eight years earlier, a state trooper had stood outside our apartment and explained that my mother’s car had gone through a guardrail.
Wet road.
Old vehicle.
A terrible accident.
I’d built my entire adult life around those words.
“Tessa?”
Mateo stood at the other end of the hall.
I held out the note.
He read it without taking it from me.
Then he looked at the open locker.
“Who has access?”
“Staff.
Management.”
Paul had disappeared.
Mateo called a woman named Nadia and told her to preserve the restaurant’s security footage.
Then he gave me a business card.
“Nadia handles security for my legitimate companies.
You can speak to her without going through me.”
“I want the police.”
“Then we call them.”
“Even if I give them your cousin’s name?”
His eyes moved back to the envelope.
“Especially then.”
I studied him, looking for the trick.
Powerful men usually offered help the way landlords offered repairs: with a reminder of what you owed them.
“If I leave with you, I still keep my phone.”
“Yes.”
“And I can leave again whenever I want.”
His expression tightened, but not with anger.
“Tessa, you’re not a prisoner.”
“Then don’t make decisions like I am.”
That answer surprised me more than a threat would have.
While we waited, I called my downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez.
She had a spare key for emergencies.
“Don’t go upstairs,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Just stay in your apartment.”
She went quiet.
“Tessa, there are men outside your door.”
I gripped the phone.
“What men?”
“They told me your landlord sent them.”
May you like
Across from me, Mateo reached for his own phone.
Then I heard wood crack through the line.
