Chapter 3 - The Tracker Beneath My Car
I moved Mara and Sophie that afternoon.
Not because I wanted to control them.
Because someone had photographed a six-year-old through her kitchen window.
Mara fought me for twenty minutes anyway.
“I am not moving into some guarded mansion.”
“I didn't ask you to.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to suggest a private property.”
“Owned by you.”
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
I stared at her.
“You understand someone is watching this house.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Then why are we arguing?”
“Because you think your answer to every problem is putting people somewhere you control.”
The sentence irritated me because it was accurate.
Sheriff Keller arranged temporary patrols.
I called Marco DeSantis.
This time I told him everything.
There was a long silence.
Then:
“You have a brother.”
“Had.”
“And a niece.”
“Apparently.”
“And Nico knew.”
“Yes.”
“Please tell me you're not standing somewhere unsecured while having this conversation.”
Mara looked at me.
I said, “Define unsecured.”
Marco swore.
We compromised.
A small farmhouse owned by a retired judge Marco trusted.
Not mine.
Not Moretti property.
Location known only to four people.
Mara accepted because the retired judge, Ruth Harlan, personally called and told her:
“If Moretti attempts to boss you around, I have a spare bedroom and several heavy frying pans.”
Mara liked her immediately.
Before leaving Reed Motor & Repair, I inspected my sedan with Mara.
She put it on a lift.
Twenty minutes later, she found the device.
A GPS tracker mounted behind the rear wheel well.
Professional installation.
No serial number.
I held it in my palm.
“Nico?”
“Probably.”
Then Mara found the damaged coolant line.
It had been cut.
Not enough to fail immediately.
Enough to leak gradually.
My engine had not simply died near her road.
Someone had engineered the failure.
“That doesn't make sense,” Mara said.
“Why?”
“If Nico knew where I lived, he wouldn't need you to lead him here.”
I stared at the tracker.
“He didn't.”
She understood.
“He followed you.”
“He knew where I was going generally, not where you were.”
“But you finding us was accidental.”
“Maybe.”
That bothered me more.
Someone sabotaged my car expecting me to become stranded in the hills.
Then followed.
Why?
Mara crossed her arms.
“Could they have wanted you dead?”
“Easier methods exist.”
“You say that disturbingly casually.”
“Professional habit.”
She did not appreciate the joke.
I called Marco.
“Find out who had access to my car during the last service.”
“Moretti garage?”
“Yes.”
“That's half your security department.”
“Start with Nico.”
By evening, we were inside Judge Harlan’s secluded farmhouse thirty miles away.
Ruth Harlan was seventy-two, retired from the state appellate court, and apparently immune to intimidation.
She met me at the door.
“You're taller than newspapers make you look.”
“You're more direct.”
“I spent forty years listening to lawyers lie slowly.”
Sophie loved her.
Within an hour, the two were baking cookies.
Mara and I sat in the library.
I examined Julian’s box again.
“What was he like?”
Mara looked toward the window.
“Kind.”
“My family doesn't specialize in that.”
“He didn't either at first.”
I glanced at her.
She smiled sadly.
“Julian had walls.”
“So do I.”
“His were cheaper.”
I almost smiled.
“He didn't tell me who he was until we had been married two years.”
“That would upset most wives.”
“I threw a frying pan.”
“At him?”
“Past him.”
“Important legal distinction.”
“He slept on the couch.”
“What changed?”
“Sophie.”
Mara's expression softened.
“When she was born, he started thinking about everything differently.”
That sounded familiar.
“He wanted to contact me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said if he died without telling you, then Vittorio won.”
I looked at the recorder.
“Why didn't he?”
“Fear.”
“For us?”
“For you too.”
“Me?”
Mara nodded.
“He thought your uncle had shaped your life. Julian didn't know whether you'd believe him or kill him.”
I said nothing.
Fair concern.
“What happened the day he died?”
Mara looked down.
“He received a call.”
“From?”
“I don't know.”
“He left the house?”
“No. Someone came to the garage.”
“Nico?”
“I never saw who.”
“But Nico visited five days earlier.”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“The box.”
“Did Julian give it?”
“No.”
“He hid it.”
Mara nodded.
“Then the fire.”
Her hands tightened.
“I woke at 1:40 because I smelled smoke. Garage already burning. Julian had gone out after hearing something.”
“Was his body found?”
“Yes.”
“Cause?”
“Smoke inhalation and burns.”
I closed my eyes.
Someone had murdered my brother less than ninety miles from Manhattan, and my organization never told me.
My phone rang.
Marco.
“I pulled maintenance access.”
“And?”
“Nico authorized your car inspection personally.”
Of course.
“Who performed it?”
“Technician named Caleb Frost.”
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
A familiar pattern.
People vanished whenever their usefulness expired.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Marco hesitated.
“Nico accessed archived Moretti family files six months ago.”
“What files?”
“Lorenzo’s estate records.”
My father's records.
“Why?”
“No recorded reason.”
I stared at the wall.
Six months ago.
Something had changed six months ago.
Mara saw my expression.
“What?”
I remembered.
“Vittorio was hospitalized.”
“For what?”
“Heart procedure.”
“And?”
“He updated several trusts.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“So someone reviewed family heirs.”
Exactly.
Maybe Vittorio had discovered Julian’s daughter would inherit automatically under a dormant clause.
Maybe he needed Sophie found.
Maybe Nico had been tasked with locating her.
And maybe my unscheduled trip created the opportunity.
“There's something else,” Marco said.
“What?”
“The tracker transmitted to a server owned by Bellandi Protective Services.”
“Nico’s company.”
“Yes.”
“Send everything to Rachel Voss.”
Mara frowned.
“Who's Rachel?”
“Former federal prosecutor.”
She stared.
“You work with federal prosecutors?”
“I usually work against them.”
“Comforting.”
Rachel Voss was now a private investigator specializing in corporate fraud. More importantly, she hated my uncle.
That made her useful.
She arrived the following morning.
Forty-two.
Sharp eyes.
Zero patience.
She looked at Sophie fixing the loose wheel on a toy wagon.
“That's the niece?”
“Apparently.”
Sophie looked up.
“I’m Sophie.”
Rachel nodded.
“I’m Rachel.”
“Can you fix cars?”
“No.”
Sophie looked disappointed.
Rachel turned toward me.
“I've already failed the interview.”
We spent hours reviewing Julian’s materials.
Rachel stopped at one document.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“This codicil.”
“What about it?”
“If authentic, Vittorio had a legal obligation to disclose Julian’s existence when controlling Lorenzo's estate.”
“He didn't.”
“That creates fraud.”
“And motive.”
“Yes.”
Then she examined the recorder.
“There's a second file.”
Mara frowned.
“What?”
“I only heard one.”
Rachel connected it to her laptop.
A hidden audio file appeared.
Short.
Thirty-eight seconds.
Julian.
Alone.
His voice sounded tired.
“Adrian, if you're hearing this, then I didn't get to you in time.”
I stopped breathing.
Mara covered her mouth.
“You don't know me. That's not your fault.”
My hands went cold.
“Our father loved both of us badly because he was afraid of his own father and worse at courage than he admitted.”
A weak laugh.
Then:
“Don't blame yourself for what you inherited.”
Pause.
“But don't keep it just because someone told you it was yours.”
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Sophie wandered into the room holding a cookie.
“Why everybody sad?”
Mara opened her arms.
Sophie climbed into her lap.
I looked at the little girl.
Julian’s daughter.
My niece.
Maybe.
Rachel closed her laptop.
“DNA test.”
“Yes.”
“For legal purposes and because you need certainty.”
I nodded.
Sophie offered me half her cookie.
“You want?”
I accepted.
Then Rachel's phone buzzed.
She read a message.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“Nico just returned to Manhattan.”
“Where?”
“Moretti headquarters.”
I stood.
“Why?”
Rachel looked at me.
“Because your uncle Vittorio called an emergency board meeting.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
I almost laughed.
“About what?”
She turned the phone toward me.
The agenda contained one item.
Removal of Adrian Moretti as Chief Executive and controlling representative of Moretti Holdings due to incapacity and undisclosed security concerns.
Mara stared.
“They're trying to take your company.”
“No.”
I looked at Julian’s photograph.
“They're trying to make sure I lose control before I can give his family back what they stole.”
May you like
And for the first time, the battle stopped being about my power.
It became about Sophie's future.
