Chapter 13 - Vanessa’s Real Name
Vanessa read the message twice.
Then laughed.
It was not amusement.
It was exhaustion.
“Of course.”
Luca looked at her.
“What?”
She handed back the phone.
“Dominic finally figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
Vanessa looked at me.
“My name isn’t Vanessa Bellini.”
Nobody spoke.
She sat.
“My legal name is Vanessa Caruso.”
Luca stared.
“Caruso.”
He knew it.
So did Salvatore when Daniel told him later.
The Caruso family had once controlled construction contracts along the South Side.
Anthony Moretti had destroyed them financially twenty years ago.
Vanessa’s father went to prison.
Her mother died before his release.
Vanessa grew up believing Moretti money had purchased the prosecution.
“Salvatore found me five years ago.”
She said.
“He showed me files.”
“Evidence Anthony bribed witnesses against my father.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“At least some of them.”
“Then Salvatore offered you revenge.”
“No.”
Vanessa’s voice cracked.
“He offered me answers.”
“He said if I got close to you, I could find proof.”
“So you dated me for access.”
“At first.”
Luca looked away.
That last phrase hurt him more than the first.
Vanessa continued.
“Then Angelo approached me separately.”
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
“He told me Salvatore was using me.”
“He said Anthony’s real files would prove Salvatore had been lying.”
“So you started working with Angelo.”
“Yes.”
“And Dominic?”
“I brought him in.”
Dominic believed Luca’s father had killed his father.
Vanessa believed Luca’s father had destroyed hers.
Angelo gave each of them enough truth to make the lie believable.
“What did Angelo want?”
I asked.
“The original ledger.”
“Why?”
“To destroy it.”
“No.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Then I saw one of his messages.”
“He wasn’t going to destroy anything.”
“He was selling it.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca paced.
“What did you do to Claire in the linen room?”
Vanessa looked at my hand.
Guilt appeared.
“I thought she had the card.”
“She did.”
“I know.”
“You grabbed her.”
“Yes.”
“You crushed her hand.”
Vanessa looked down.
“Yes.”
“No excuses?”
Luca asked.
“No.”
She met my eyes.
“I was afraid.”
“I hurt you.”
“I’m sorry.”
I did not forgive her.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
But the apology was more honest than anything else she had given me.
“Why did Dominic write not to trust you?”
Vanessa looked confused.
“He shouldn’t.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
Then she froze.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Angelo knows Dominic suspects him.”
“So?”
“So Dominic would never write something obvious.”
She stood.
“He’s telling us something.”
Luca looked at the photograph again.
The sign.
BRING THE LEDGER.
NO FBI.
NO LUCA.
DON’T TRUST VANESSA.
I noticed Dominic’s hand.
His index finger touched the word VANESSA.
Not the whole name.
Specifically the last four letters.
NESSA.
“No.”
Vanessa whispered.
“He means my old apartment.”
“What?”
“My mother called me Nessa.”
“Dominic knows that.”
“I had an apartment under the name Nessa Caruso before I met Luca.”
“Where?”
“River North.”
Luca understood.
Dominic was giving us a location.
We arrived forty minutes later with Evelyn’s team two blocks away.
The apartment had been empty for years but still leased through a shell company.
Door unlocked.
Inside, everything was covered in dust.
Except the dining table.
A laptop sat open.
One video file.
Luca pressed play.
Dominic appeared.
Not restrained.
Recorded earlier.
“If you’re watching this, Angelo probably has me.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“I saw Daniel Dawson die.”
I gripped the table.
Dominic swallowed.
“I was twenty-three.”
“I had been drinking.”
“I left a club and drove north.”
“I saw Daniel’s car.”
“A black Cadillac was behind him.”
“It hit him twice.”
“The second hit sent him through the guardrail.”
I stopped breathing.
“Angelo was driving.”
Dominic continued.
“I followed.”
“When he saw me, he stopped.”
“He told me Daniel was a state investigator who had tried to kill Anthony.”
“I believed him.”
“By morning, Salvatore knew I had witnessed it.”
“He paid me to stay quiet.”
Luca whispered, “You took money?”
Dominic answered from the recording as though he had heard.
“I took it.”
“I was a coward.”
“Three years later, I learned the truth.”
“By then I was already part of the machine.”
He looked away.
“I kept telling myself exposing Angelo would expose Luca too.”
“So I stayed silent.”
The image glitched.
Then Dominic said the thing that broke the room open again.
“Vanessa isn’t the person Angelo fears.”
“Claire is.”
I stared at the screen.
“Why?”
The recorded Dominic continued.
“Because Daniel Dawson left Claire something besides the ledger.”
My father’s key.
The box.
But we had already opened it.
Then Dominic shook his head.
“Not the box.”
“He left her a code.”
I remembered the letter.
No code.
Unless—
I pulled it out.
The first letter of every paragraph.
T.
M.
A.
I.
D.
Meaningless.
Then I noticed each paragraph ended with a number written as a word.
Two.
Seven.
One.
Nine.
Daniel entered them.
A file on the flash drive unlocked.
Inside was a list of twelve names.
Judges.
Officials.
Officers.
Business owners.
The final name made Luca step backward.
ANGELO FERRARO.
Beside it:
FEDERAL INFORMANT - PROTECTED SOURCE.
Evelyn whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Luca stared.
“If Angelo was a federal informant—”
Evelyn finished.
“Then somebody inside the government has been protecting him for years.”
The laptop chimed.
New message.
LIVE VIDEO AVAILABLE.
We opened it.
Dominic appeared again.
This time truly restrained.
Angelo stood beside him.
He looked into the camera.
“Claire.”
Then he smiled.
“Now you understand why your father had to die.”
Behind Angelo was a seal painted on the wall.
A federal seal.
May you like
They were not in a warehouse.
They were inside a government building.
