Chapter 7 - The Shadow Council
The name hit the room like a physical explosion.
Mateo.
My father's oldest lieutenant. The man who had sat at my father's right hand for thirty years. The man who had wiped my tears when my mother died when I was twelve years old. The man who had spent the last twelve years running our real estate and dock operations while I sat in my wheelchair on the verandah, believing he was my most loyal protector.
"Dominic was terrified of you," Vance stammered, the floodgates of twelve years of secrets bursting open in a rush of panic. "When your father died, you were twenty-five, Luca. You were brilliant, you were relentless, and you were going to strip Dominic and Mateo of their cut of the shipping lines. They couldn't kill you—if they killed your father's only son, the capos in New York and Detroit would have started a blood bath that would have destroyed the entire family."
I listened, every muscle in my upper body locked tight, my jaw set like iron.
"So they found a middle ground," I murmured, finishing his thought. "They couldn't kill the king. So they rendered him useless."
"Yes!" Vance cried out. "Dominic brought in a specialist from Russia. They created the nerve compound. They put it in your daily blood pressure medication—the pills I prescribed to you every month! All I had to do was keep giving you the refills! Every time you took your morning pill, you were paralyzing yourself for another twenty-four hours!"
I looked down at the small plastic bottle of blood pressure pills sitting on the edge of my desk.
For twelve years, every single morning at 8:00 a.m., I had taken a white tablet with a glass of water, believing it was keeping my heart healthy.
I had been swallowing my own paralysis every day for four thousand three hundred and eighty days.
"Where did Elena Harper come from?" I asked suddenly, the piece of the puzzle that didn't fit suddenly rising to the surface of my mind. "Why did Mateo hire her three weeks ago?"
Vance blinked, looking utterly bewildered. "Elena? The cleaning woman? I... I don't know who she is, Luca! I swear to God I have nothing to do with the house staff! Mateo handles all the estate employment contracts!"
I looked at Marcus. "Bring Elena Harper to this room. Now."
"Sir," Marcus said quietly. "Elena left the estate twenty minutes ago. She signed out at the southern gate, saying her daughter was sick."
My eyes narrowed. "Did she take her personal belongings from the staff locker room?"
"Let me check," Marcus said, pulling his radio from his belt. He spoke two quick sentences to the gate guard, waited ten seconds, and then looked back at me, his face grim. "Her locker is completely empty, boss. She cleaned it out entirely before she walked out."
I leaned back in my wheelchair, my brain working at lightning speed.
Elena Harper hadn't walked into my house by accident. She hadn't left the gap in the hedge open by accident. She had brought her daughter—a girl with dark eyes and an uncanny ability to notice my legs—into my life for a reason.
Some things are better left where they are. Some doors... if you open them... you can never close them again.
"Marcus," I ordered, my voice dropping into the terrifying, absolute authority of the boss I used to be. "Find where Elena Harper lives. Get a team to her apartment in twenty minutes. Do not hurt her. Do not touch the child. Bring them both here."
"Yes, Mr. Costello."
"And Marcus?"
"Sir?"
May you like
"Call Mateo and Uncle Dominic. Tell them we have an emergency regarding the eastern docks. Tell them to be at this house by nine o'clock tonight for a private council meeting."
Marcus nodded, his eyes flashing with a cold, ruthless understanding. "It will be done, boss."
