Chapter 6 - Elena CapelloLorenzo wanted to leave immediately.
Chloe blocked the door.
“Move.”
“No.”
“My mother knows something.”
“Which is exactly why Mercer wants you angry.”
“He said my father killed yours.”
“He also remotely accessed a building nobody was supposed to know existed.”
Adrian was already tearing open an electrical panel.
“He didn’t access it remotely.”
Chloe turned.
“What?”
Adrian held up a thin black device wired beside the intercom controls.
“Someone installed this.”
“When?”
“I haven’t used this place in six months.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“So you were compromised before tonight.”
“Maybe.”
“Your reassuring qualities continue to impress me.”
Adrian ripped the device free.
Chloe pointed toward the steel case.
“We leave.”
They moved within minutes.
No lights.
No phones.
No predictable route.
By dawn they were inside the basement of St. Gabriel’s Social Center, a church property on the West Side managed by Father Michael Serrano.
Lorenzo knew him.
More importantly, Victor didn’t.
Father Michael had met Lorenzo through Elena’s food program fifteen years earlier and had once threatened to throw him out of a church kitchen for swearing in front of children.
Lorenzo trusted almost no one.
He trusted Father Michael because the priest had never asked for anything.
At six in the morning, Lorenzo called his mother from the church office using a landline.
Elena answered immediately.
“Enzo?”
He closed his eyes.
No greeting.
No disbelief.
She knew.
“Mother.”
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“Victor told me you were missing.”
“Victor tried to kill me.”
Silence.
Not shock.
Chloe watched Lorenzo’s face change.
“You knew,” he whispered.
Elena exhaled.
“Not that.”
“But something.”
“Come home.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Did my father order Thomas Evans killed?”
The silence became unbearable.
Chloe stood absolutely still.
Finally Elena said, “Where did you hear that name?”
Lorenzo looked at Chloe.
“That is not an answer.”
“Enzo—”
“Did he?”
“No.”
Chloe released a breath she had not realized she was holding.
Then Elena continued.
“But Thomas died because Carlo asked him to help us.”
Chloe approached the phone.
“Put her on speaker.”
Lorenzo did.
“Elena,” Chloe said.
The woman on the other end stopped breathing.
“Who is that?”
“Chloe Evans.”
A small sound escaped Elena.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“Oh, Thomas’s girl.”
Chloe’s throat tightened.
“You knew me?”
“I saw photographs.”
“What happened to my father?”
Elena took several seconds.
“Not over the telephone.”
“Victor is watching you.”
“I know.”
“Then leave.”
“I can’t.”
Lorenzo’s voice sharpened.
“Why?”
“Because Isabella came here last night.”
His expression changed.
“My sister is with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She found something in her husband’s office.”
Isabella Capello had married Samuel Reed five years earlier.
Samuel was a corporate attorney at Hawthorne & Price.
The same firm connected to the forged succession amendment.
“What?” Lorenzo demanded.
“A file.”
Elena’s voice dropped.
“It contains your signature.”
Lorenzo looked at Adrian.
The trust documents.
“Is Samuel involved?”
“I don’t know.”
“Put Isabella on.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Elena began crying.
Chloe had not expected that.
Neither had Lorenzo.
“Mother.”
“She left twenty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“She said she was meeting Samuel.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo’s wounded hand tightened around the phone.
“Call her.”
“She left her phone here.”
That was worse.
Chloe stepped closer.
“Elena, did Isabella say anything else?”
“She said Samuel had been moving money from accounts created in her name.”
“How much?”
“She didn’t know.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
Family money.
Forged documents.
Surveillance.
Victor had not simply purchased loyalty among soldiers.
He had entered the legal structure of the family.
Through marriage.
“Elena,” Chloe said. “We need you out of that house.”
“How?”
Lorenzo looked at Father Michael.
The priest stood in the doorway holding coffee.
“No,” Father Michael said.
Lorenzo frowned.
“I didn’t ask yet.”
“You were going to.”
“I need a car.”
“You need a hospital.”
“I need my mother.”
Father Michael studied the blood seeping faintly through Lorenzo’s bandage.
Then he looked at Chloe.
“You’re the waitress.”
News footage had spread everywhere.
“Yes.”
“You saved him?”
“Yes.”
Father Michael sighed.
“My mother always said God works through strange people.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow.
“Strange?”
“You own casinos.”
“Restaurants.”
“Same sins, better tablecloths.”
Despite everything, Chloe smiled.
Father Michael gave them keys to an old parish delivery van.
Thirty minutes later Chloe wore a volunteer coat and baseball cap.
Lorenzo lay hidden beneath donated blankets in the rear.
Adrian drove.
They approached Elena’s Gold Coast townhouse from the service lane.
Chloe entered through the neighboring property using a garden passage Elena described over the landline.
Elena Capello opened the kitchen door.
Seventy years old.
Silver hair.
Black dress.
Perfect posture.
And a revolver in her hand.
Chloe stopped.
Elena stared at her.
“You have Thomas’s eyes.”
“My father had brown eyes.”
“I didn’t mean the color.”
She lowered the gun.
Lorenzo entered behind Chloe.
His mother saw the blood beneath his coat.
Her composure shattered.
“Enzo.”
He crossed the room.
Elena held his face with both hands.
For several seconds he was not Lorenzo Capello.
Not a boss.
Not feared.
Simply a wounded son.
Then he stepped back.
“Tell me the truth.”
Elena looked at Chloe.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
She sat at the kitchen table.
“Your father discovered Victor was stealing from the family. Thomas discovered something worse.”
“What?”
“He found out Victor wasn’t working alone.”
“Mercer?”
Elena nodded.
“And Samuel?”
“I don’t know.”
Chloe placed the encrypted drive on the table.
“Can you open this?”
Elena stared at it.
Her face changed instantly.
“I haven’t seen that in eight years.”
Lorenzo leaned forward.
“You know what it is.”
“Yes.”
Elena looked at Chloe.
“Your father called it the Crown Ledger.”
Chloe slid the biometric sensor toward her.
Elena placed her thumb on it.
A green light appeared.
The drive unlocked.
Hundreds of files filled the attached laptop screen.
Transfers.
Recordings.
Contracts.
Photographs.
One folder sat at the top.
IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH — CARLO CAPELLO.
Lorenzo opened it.
A video appeared.
His father sat behind the desk Lorenzo remembered from childhood.
Carlo looked thinner than he did in Lorenzo’s memories.
Sick already.
He stared directly into the camera.
“If you are watching this, Victor has probably convinced you that I was the traitor.”
Lorenzo stopped breathing.
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Carlo continued.
“Before you decide whether to hate me, you need to know who Victor Moretti really is.”
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