Chapter 4
The story Salvatore had been given was simple.
Elena packed a suitcase.
Elena left her wedding ring on the bedroom dresser.
Elena was seen entering a car with an unidentified man.
Elena chose another life.
Eight months of humiliation had been built on those four facts.
Now Adelaide destroyed them one by one.
“I saw the suitcase,” she said. “Nolan carried it.”
Nolan looked up.
“The ring?” Salvatore asked.
“Hattie had it.”
Hattie laughed too quickly. “Everyone had access to that bedroom.”
“And the car?”
Adelaide closed her eyes.
“Elena did not enter it willingly.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
“She fought.”
“Yes.”
“Who forced her inside?”
“Nolan.”
The room went silent.
Nolan stood. “That old woman has been starved for six days. She doesn’t know what she saw.”
Anthony stepped in front of him.
“Sit.”
Nolan did not.
Anthony smiled faintly.
“Make me ask twice.”
Nolan sat.
Adelaide continued. The car had been parked near the rear service gate. Elena had one wrist pinned behind her while Hattie searched her coat. Nolan forced her toward the open rear door.
Another man was already inside.
Salvatore leaned forward. “Describe him.”
“Forties. Dark coat. Scar near his jaw.”
Anthony’s face changed.
Salvatore saw it.
“You know him.”
Anthony looked toward Adelaide. “Which side?”
“Left.”
Anthony whispered a name.
“Matteo Vieri.”
Salvatore had heard it before.
Every Carbone child had.
Matteo Vieri was an old family ghost—a former Carbone enforcer expelled fifteen years earlier after being blamed for selling information to rivals. Salvatore had been a teenager when it happened. His father had forbidden anyone from mentioning him again.
“He’s alive?” Salvatore asked.
Anthony nodded slowly. “Apparently.”
Hattie smiled.
That frightened Salvatore more than denial.
“You wanted me to hear that name.”
Hattie leaned back. “Maybe your wife ran away with the traitor after all.”
Adelaide struck the table with her palm.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Elena was screaming at him too.”
Salvatore froze.
May you like
The stranger had not been waiting to rescue her.
He had been a prisoner in that car as well.
