Chapter 4 - ROOM 317
Vincent recovered quickly.
Men who survive beside powerful families learn how.
“What are you doing here this early?” he asked.
I closed my hand around the key.
“My mother needed me.”
His eyes stayed on my fist.
“Is she all right?”
“You tell me.”
A tiny change crossed his face.
“What does that mean?”
I walked toward him.
Vincent was sixty-two.
Silver hair.
Perfect suits.
Calm voice.
He had taught Ewan and me to play cards when we were boys.
He had stood between my father and three bullets outside a restaurant when I was thirteen.
There had never been a version of my adult life without him in it.
That made what came next harder.
“Who told Saul my mother approved Celeste’s agreement?”
He stopped breathing for half a second.
Then he smiled.
“Is that what this is about?”
“Answer.”
“She indicated approval.”
“How?”
“You know your mother.”
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“That’s why I know you’re lying.”
His jaw tightened.
I held up the key.
“Room 317.”
Something broke behind his eyes.
Not guilt.
Fear.
“Give me the key.”
That was all I needed.
I put it back in my pocket.
“Where is he?”
“Matteo.”
“Where is my brother?”
“Lower your voice.”
I grabbed the front of Vincent’s coat and pushed him against the wall.
My mother’s monitor began beeping faster behind me.
Vincent did not fight.
“Your mother can hear you.”
“Then tell me.”
His eyes moved past my shoulder toward her room.
“She did it to protect him.”
“From whom?”
His answer came quietly.
“Your father.”
I let him go.
For several seconds neither of us moved.
“My father is dead.”
“That doesn’t mean the people who carried out his orders are.”
I thought of Celeste.
Leonard Vandermark.
The missing folder.
“Address.”
“No.”
I stepped toward Vincent again.
“Matteo, if you go there without understanding what happened, you may finish what Antonio started.”
My father’s name sounded wrong in his mouth.
“What did he start?”
Vincent looked twenty years older.
“He ordered Ewan killed.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“Your mother found out.”
“No.”
“She got Ewan out before the men reached him.”
“No.”
“The fire was supposed to make his death look clean.”
I hit Vincent once.
Not because I planned it.
Because my body moved before my mind caught up.
He struck the wall and dropped to one knee.
My mother made a broken sound from the bed.
I froze.
It was the closest thing to a scream she had produced in four years.
I went to her immediately.
She was crying.
I took her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Her fingers moved weakly around mine.
Vincent stood behind me.
When he spoke again, there was blood at the corner of his mouth.
“Lake Forest.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“St. Augustine Rehabilitation Center.”
“Room 317?”
He nodded.
“Who is he registered as?”
“Evan Martin.”
Ewan’s middle name was Martin.
I stood.
Vincent caught my arm.
“If Celeste knows you’re going there, she’ll tell Leonard.”
“She already knows enough.”
“You don’t understand.”
“What?”
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“Leonard Vandermark has spent six years making sure Ewan Moretti stays dead.”
I pulled away.
May you like
“Then today is going to be a very disappointing day for him.”
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