Chapter 13 - The Enemy Without a Name
Anthony’s death changed the investigation.
Someone had reached him inside a secure holding facility.
That meant the conspiracy extended beyond Carlo.
Carlo refused to talk.
Until agents showed him the photograph of Anthony.
Then fear appeared.
Real fear.
“There’s someone else,” I said.
Carlo looked at me through reinforced glass.
“There’s always someone else.”
“Who?”
He smiled weakly.
“The people who survived because Salvatore never finished cleaning house.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Names.”
Carlo shook his head.
“They’ll kill Sofia.”
Vanessa’s sister.
Luca looked at him.
“We can protect her.”
“You couldn’t protect your father.”
That ended the interview.
But Sofia disappeared from Rome that afternoon.
Her apartment was empty.
Passport gone.
Security footage showed her leaving voluntarily with a woman.
Vanessa watched the video.
“I know her.”
“Who?”
“Elena Caldwell.”
Dr. Henry Caldwell’s daughter.
The physician who falsified the death certificates had died three years earlier.
His daughter had inherited his private clinic.
And apparently his secrets.
We found Sofia at Caldwell Clinic outside Chicago.
Alive.
Elena surrendered.
She had taken Sofia to protect her.
Not harm her.
Then she gave us boxes of her father’s files.
One contained names.
Judges.
Police officers.
Business owners.
Politicians.
But one name shocked Luca.
Peter Russo.
The guard who disappeared.
He had not betrayed Luca because Anthony ordered him to.
He had been working for federal investigators.
Undercover.
Then why had he vanished?
Elena knew.
“He found someone inside the Moretti house who was still helping the old network.”
“Who?”
“He never told me.”
Then Bruno barked at Marco.
Everyone froze.
Marco stared at the dog.
Bruno continued barking.
Dante joined him.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Empty your pockets.”
Marco’s face went pale.
“Luca—”
“Now.”
Marco removed his wallet.
Keys.
Phone.
Then a small tracking device.
He stared at it.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Luca took it.
Someone had planted it on him.
Meaning Marco was not the traitor.
He was bait.
That night we reviewed every security camera.
One person had entered Marco’s room repeatedly.
One person trusted by everyone.
Dr. Rachel Monroe.
Bruno’s veterinarian.
The woman who had treated Luca’s dogs for six years.
When officers arrived at her clinic, she was gone.
And so were Bruno’s medical files.
Then Luca remembered something.
Rachel had been the veterinarian who called him five days earlier.
The person who first told him Bruno’s health was declining.
Vanessa had used the lie.
May you like
But Rachel had prepared it.
The deeper betrayal had been standing beside Bruno all along.
