Chapter 34
MIA
“Why are we meeting here?” Keith asks, spinning around one of the abandoned warehouses Vince and Dante used to use.
“I couldn’t work in Dante’s office. The man is a pig,” I say, keeping my head pointed toward my makeshift evidence board.
That and I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder every time I heard the door swing open, expecting Leo to walk through it. I even turned off my phone because I was waiting on his call like a thirteen-year-old girl.
If this is what being in love feels like, then I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
“It’ll work,” Keith says, setting down his bag and taking out his laptop with a loud clunk. "But I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. I’m still coming up empty. Adrian Moretti is clean as a whistle, and our other suspect is dead. Are you sure Leo is—”
“He’s innocent,” I snap, cutting him off. “You can’t find anything on Adrian’s connection to the Carusos?” I ask, quickly changing the subject while writing a big question mark on the whiteboard under Marco Bellini’s name.
Keith exhales, sliding a metal chair across concrete, making my ears cringe. “I can’t find anything official. No shared shell companies, flagged transactions, or mutual associates that aren’t already public knowledge. If your gut is right, he’s going to be hard to pin down.”
I bite the inside of my cheek and stare at the board, feeling my vision go blurry from looking too long. “Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place.”
I tap my marker against my side as I scan the mess of names, arrows, and half-formed theories that will never hold up in court.
I was able to piece together some things based on Vince’s files Alice sent me and the stuff he compiled for Leo before he died, but they’re messy and barely legible.
“Walk me through what you were able to dig up,” I ask, tossing my hair over my shoulder.
He nods and starts rambling off things I already know, but I lock in on the new information. “Any property records tied to Marco Bellini went cold a few years after he died in that warehouse fire. The body was never recovered, but—”
“Wait, what?” I ask, almost snapping my neck.
“The body was never recovered?” he says again, but this time as a question.
I turn back to the board and feel my pulse picking up again.
“Would it be crazy if—” I stop midsentence, my eye drifting to the corner of the board. There’s a small note from Vince’s files. The first time I saw it, I thought it was gibberish.
“Keith,” I say, stepping back. “What if Marco Bellini never died?”
He blinks. “That’s insane.”
“Maybe not,” I say, turning back to him. “My family started out in the counterfeiting business. They’d make fake products like purses or clothes, but they also did IDs and other shit that could be used to create a new identity.”
Keith’s expression slowly morphs from disbelief to plausibility. “You’re saying Bellini faked his death and what…became someone else?”
I nod, turning back to the board. “It makes sense,” I explain, feeling focused and reenergized for the first time in a long time. “He died a few days before his arraignment, and the case against him was ironclad. He would’ve been in prison for the rest of his life.”
Keith leans forward, resting his chin on his hand. “How did he walk away? Surely, someone recognized him. His mugshot would’ve been blasted out across the city.”
I tap on Vince’s note on the board: Check shipment routes from 2006
“My family moved things that people didn’t want traced. No customs, paperwork, or questions. That could’ve been his way out undetected.”
“Do you have the logs? I can look at the ones that happened before the fire.”
I nod, tossing him the flash drive that Vince left behind. Technically I stole it from Leo, but I don’t feel guilty about it now. If anything, I want to rub it in his face that I caught something he didn’t.
Keith goes to work, plugging in the flash drive and typing away on his keyboard.
After a while, he murmurs, “Most of this is junk, but maybe this—there. I think there’s a gap right here,” he explains, turning the screen toward me. “Does three days sound off to you?”
“Yeah,” I say, my pulse hammering against my skin. “What left before that gap?”
He pulls the screen back toward him and scrolls down. “Looks like there was one truck, but no record of cargo or a driver ID.”
It’s a crazy theory. A fucking long shot at this point. But it’s the first time I feel like I am onto something, and I can’t ignore it. “Can I see his mugshot?”
“Sure,” Keith says, quickly pulling up the photo on his laptop and sliding it to me.
Bellini looks young. Probably in his late twenties.
He’s striking with a thinning hairline and sharp facial features that would be hard to miss in any line-up.
It’s the kind of face that makes you want to lean in closer until you see two cold eyes accompanied by an eerie smile that cuts deep even in this old photo. It’s strangely familiar.
“Say he did fake his death, why the hell would he stay here? If it was me, I’d be living in Mexico.”
“That’s a great question,” I reply, squeezing the edge of the desk. I’m so close, I can feel it. “Maybe he had plastic surgery or something.”
Keith stands up and walks over to the board. “I had an old FBI buddy that told me a story about someone who did it in the witness protection program. But that was a high-profile case.”
He turns, looking over my shoulder at the mugshot on the screen. “That seems like a lot of trouble to go through for someone who was trying to escape their fate.”
My stomach twists.
Maybe he didn’t want to escape.
I stare at the photo again. This time, I look more closely at the eyes and mouth. The features are cold and predatory—something that distinguishes a psychopath from a criminal.
And then it hits me.
“Keith,” I whisper.
His head snaps up, quickly rushing to my side. “What?”
I don’t say anything. I just minimize Bellini’s mugshot and pull up another image so we can look at them side by side.
He may be younger in this photo with less hair and a different nose, but the dead look in both of their eyes is unmistakable.
“Holy shit,” Keith breathes, speaking up before I can say anything. “Adrian Moretti is Marco Bellini.”
All the missing pieces pull together so quickly it makes me physically ill.
“He didn’t just survive,” I say lowly, feeling the gravity of my own statement. “He rebuilt himself into someone untouchable. Enzo’s own personal mole.”
Keith’s face drains. “Do you think he—”
“I don’t think. I know he killed my brother,” I say, shock hastily replaced by unfiltered anger. “And I’m going to bury him for it.”
“Does Leo know?” Keith asks.
“Shit. He was supposed to meet with him today,” I answer, scrambling for my phone. “I need to call him. If Adrian has connections within the NYPD, he knows I was looking at Bellini and—”
A door slams. Both of us freeze.
The sound ricochets through the empty concrete room like nails on a chalkboard.
I slide my hand to my waistband where my gun sits snugly. Keith does the same.
It happens so fast, I barely have time to blink.
Three men appear in the entrance, adorned in dark clothes and masks that make them completely unrecognizable. Their weapons are pointed and ready.
I raise my gun in one swift motion. I hear Keith’s gun click too. But the men don’t back down. One of them even laughs.
“Looks like the boss was right,” the leader says. My fingers feel numb, ghosting over the trigger.
This entire time, we thought Enzo was calling the shots. But it’s been Adrian.
“We’re not here to kill you,” he says, his voice grating against my ears. “If you come with us willingly, no one gets hurt.”
I scoff, keeping my gun raised. “I’ve heard that one before.”
The intruder’s eyes gleam underneath his mask. “Very well,” he begins, taking a step forward. “I like a woman that plays hard to get.”
I sneer at him, but before I can respond, chaos erupts.
Keith lunges for the metal chair beside him, causing one of the men to fire their gun. The sound explodes through the warehouse, and the distraction gives Keith the opportunity to throw the chair, buying us a half second to sprint toward the side exit.
“Run!”
I pump my legs as hard as I can, concrete pounding underneath my boots and my breath rattling inside my lungs.
Another gunshot goes off, exploding the glass window beside us. I cover my face to block the glass shards, stumbling a little. Keith grabs my arm and yanks me upright.
We make it through the exit and almost onto the loading dock before another man appears around the corner. I slam straight into him.
A strong arm locks me against the man’s chest. I thrash my head against him, kicking and screaming. Anything to get free. But then a gloved hand clamps over my mouth, silencing me.
Keith is stuck in place, staring at me, but I can hear footsteps getting closer. I plead with my eyes for him to run, but it’s too late.
One of the men from inside emerges and drives the butt of their gun into Keith’s temple. His entire body goes limp before collapsing to the ground.
Terror rips through me, and I can feel angry tears welling up. I force them back inside as a scream dies against the palm of the hand crushed over my mouth.
“Are we taking him too?” one of the masked men asks.
I can feel my captor nod his head before he bends down close to my ear. “We’re going to need something to make you behave, aren’t we, sweetheart?”
I groan, narrowing my eyes. He lets down his guard long enough for me to fling back my head as hard as I can. The hit lands, but it’s not enough to make him release his hold.
“Fucking, bitch,” he mutters. “Now I don’t feel bad about this,” he says right before something sharp presses into my neck.
A harsh coldness spreads through my veins, and soon I can’t feel my legs or hands. Every part of my body feels heavy and lifeless.
Next, the warehouse blurs and the darkness seeps in.
I try to fight the drowsiness, but whatever they gave me is too powerful.
Instead, I focus on the last thing I see before everything goes black.
Leo.
Everything hurts.