Chapter 11 - ROOM 314
Room 314 wasn’t a hotel room.
It was a storage unit.
Queens.
Facility C.
Unit 314.
Adrian was still in the hospital.
So naturally, I went without telling him.
Thomas came with me.
I wasn’t ready to call him Dad.
Maybe I never would be.
But he had a gun, and my recent experiences had changed my opinion of armed company.
The brass key from my grandmother’s ring fit the lock.
Inside the unit were boxes.
Dozens.
My mother’s handwriting covered them.
Tax returns.
Bank records.
Photographs.
Cassette tapes.
Files.
A whole secret life.
I touched one folder.
ISABELLA CARTER.
Inside was a letter addressed to me.
My hands trembled.
Emma,
If you are reading this, then the past has found you.
I sat on the floor.
Thomas turned away while I read.
My mother explained everything.
She had worked for Adrian’s father, Lorenzo Moretti.
Not as a criminal.
As an accountant.
Lorenzo wanted to pull his legitimate businesses away from the family’s violent operations.
Victor fought him.
Corrupt federal officials also fought him because they had been taking Moretti money for years.
My mother copied the records.
Thomas was assigned to investigate.
They fell in love.
Then she became pregnant.
When Lorenzo was murdered, everything collapsed.
My mother disappeared with me.
Thomas stayed away because Victor and several corrupt agents believed I might lead them to the ledger.
One line destroyed me.
Thomas wanted to come with us. I made him stay away. Hate me if you need to, sweetheart. But please don’t hate him for keeping a promise I forced him to make.
I lowered the letter.
Thomas stood by the door, crying silently.
I had never seen an older man cry like that.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I didn’t forgive him.
But I stood.
And hugged him.
For ten seconds.
Maybe eleven.
Then a gun clicked.
“Beautiful.”
Victor stood in the doorway.
Three armed men behind him.
Thomas pushed me behind him.
Victor shot him.
“Dad!”
The word escaped before I could stop it.
Thomas fell.
Victor smiled.
“How touching.”
I dropped beside Thomas.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
He was alive.
Victor walked toward the boxes.
“Sixteen years.”
He touched one.
“Your mother made me search for sixteen years.”
“You killed her?”
My voice shook.
His expression changed.
“No.”
I believed him.
That somehow made it worse.
“Cancer did something I couldn’t.”
I wanted to kill him.
Victor crouched.
“Where’s the ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
He pointed the gun at Thomas.
“Try again.”
I looked around.
Boxes.
Files.
Numbers.
Then I noticed my mother’s star drawn beneath a metal shelf.
One long point facing left.
I followed it.
Toward a vent.
“I know where it is.”
Victor smiled.
“Good girl.”
I opened the vent.
Inside sat a black notebook.
Victor reached for it.
I held it back.
“Let him go.”
“You’re bargaining again.”
“Apparently I spend too much time around Morettis.”
He laughed.
Then a voice came from the doorway.
“Give her father back.”
I turned.
Adrian stood there.
Hospital bracelet still around his wrist.
Gun in his hand.
Face pale.
Stitches hidden under his shirt.
Victor stared.
“You should be in bed.”
May you like
Adrian’s eyes never left him.
“I had somewhere to be.”
