Chapter 11 - THE BLUE ENVELOPE
The envelope arrived three days after we sold my old wedding ring.
There was no stamp.
No return address.
Someone had simply placed it beneath the glass door of my foundation office sometime between midnight and six in the morning.
My assistant, Leah Moretti, found it.
“Savannah?”
I looked up from a grant application.
Leah stood beside my desk holding a pale blue envelope between two fingers.
“What?”
“This was outside.”
I frowned.
The building had security.
Not Roman security.
Normal security.
Cameras. Key cards. A night guard who spent most of his shift watching basketball on his phone.
I had specifically chosen normal.
“Did reception leave it?”
“No.”
Leah placed it down.
My name was written across the front.
Not Mrs. Vascari.
Savannah.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Roman was maybe seventeen.
Younger than I had ever seen him.
Thin.
Angry.
Standing beside his father outside an industrial building.
Another teenage boy stood beside him.
On the back someone had written:
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHAT HAPPENED TO ANGELO MORETTI.
My eyes moved immediately toward Leah.
She had gone pale.
“You know that name.”
Her mouth opened.
Then closed.
“Leah?”
She stared at the photograph.
“That was my father.”
The room became very quiet.
I looked again at her surname.
Moretti.
I had noticed it when we hired her.
Chicago had thousands of Morettis.
I had never connected it to Luca.
“Are you related to Luca?”
Leah looked directly at me.
“He’s my brother.”
I stood.
Everything inside me changed.
Leah raised both hands.
“I never lied on my application.”
“You omitted something enormous.”
“You didn’t ask whether my brother once helped kidnap you.”
I stared at her.
“That is not the defense you think it is.”
She nodded.
“No. It isn’t.”
I reached for my phone.
Not Roman.
Agent Hall.
Old Savannah would have called Roman first.
New Savannah knew exactly why that would be dangerous.
Leah watched me.
“I didn’t send the envelope.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you come here?”
Her eyes filled.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
“Because my brother destroyed our family for the Vascaris.”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“That’s the story Roman knows.”
My hand stopped above my phone.
“What does that mean?”
Leah looked toward the photograph.
“My brother didn’t betray Roman because he owed Carlo four hundred thousand dollars.”
Cold moved through me.
“Then why?”
She swallowed.
“Because twenty-three years ago, our father died inside a warehouse owned by Roman’s father.”
I said nothing.
Leah continued.
“Six men died.”
I knew nothing about six dead men.
Nothing about a warehouse.
Nothing about Angelo Moretti.
And after everything Roman had confessed, that seemed impossible.
May you like
Then Leah said the sentence that made my stomach drop.
“Roman was there that night.”
