Chapter 9 - THE PACKAGE WITH HIS DEAD BROTHER’S NAME
Z
Three years after I left my wedding ring beside Adrien’s cold anniversary dinner, a dead man sent us a package.
At least, the return address belonged to a dead man.
MATTEO MORETTI.
I saw the name at 8:23 on a Tuesday morning while Lucia sat at the kitchen island wearing pink dinosaur pajamas and negotiating with her father over blueberries.
She was four now.
Four years old, stubborn, dramatic, and completely unimpressed by the fact that half of Manhattan still lowered its voice when Adrien Moretti entered a room.
“I want the big ones.”
“They’re all blueberries,” Adrien said.
“That one is bigger.”
“Lucia.”
She pointed.
“The big one.”
Adrien Moretti, former head of an organization that once controlled docks, warehouses, shipping corridors, and enough secrets to frighten politicians, carefully searched a bowl for the largest blueberry.
I smiled into my coffee.
Then Maria entered carrying a brown package.
“This came by private courier.”
Adrien looked up.
“Who signed?”
“No signature.”
That changed him immediately.
Not dramatically.
Adrien no longer jumped toward danger the way he once did.
But I saw the shift.
Father disappeared.
Strategist returned.
“Put it down.”
Maria placed the package on the far end of the counter.
Lucia reached toward it.
Adrien’s hand stopped her.
“No.”
His voice was gentle.
Final.
She frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Daddy said so.”
“That’s not a reason.”
I nearly laughed.
Adrien looked at me.
“Your daughter.”
“Our daughter when she asks difficult questions.”
He sighed.
“Maria, take her upstairs.”
Lucia protested.
Adrien crouched beside her.
“Five minutes.”
“Ten.”
“Seven.”
“Eight.”
“Fine.”
She accepted the deal and disappeared with Maria.
Then Adrien looked at the package.
I followed his gaze.
There was no explosive device.
No wires.
No suspicious ticking like bad television.
Just brown paper, black tape, and one impossible name written neatly in the upper left corner.
Matteo Moretti.
Adrien’s younger brother had died fourteen years earlier.
Car explosion.
Queens.
Two men inside.
Nothing recognizable afterward except a watch Adrien had given him for his twenty-first birthday.
I had only heard Adrien speak about Matteo a handful of times.
He was louder than Adrien.
Funnier.
Reckless.
Loved motorcycles.
Hated suits.
And according to Maria, he was the only person who could insult Adrien and make him laugh.
His death changed my husband.
Antonio Moretti died two years later.
Salvatore betrayed them both.
Now Matteo’s name sat on our kitchen counter.
Adrien called Luca.
Twenty minutes later the package was carried downstairs and scanned.
Nothing dangerous.
Luca returned wearing gloves.
“You want me to open it?”
Adrien said nothing.
I understood.
The name had done something no weapon could.
It had turned my husband back into the twenty-three-year-old who stood beside an empty coffin and was told his brother was never coming home.
I touched his wrist.
“Adrien.”
He looked at me.
“We open it together.”
Eventually he nodded.
Inside was a small black key.
An old photograph.
And a cassette tape.
The photograph showed Adrien and Matteo as teenagers standing beside Antonio Moretti near a boat on Long Island.
Adrien looked seventeen.
Matteo maybe fifteen.
Both smiling.
Written on the back were five words.
HE NEVER DIED IN QUEENS.
Nobody spoke.
Luca slowly lowered himself into a chair.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Adrien stared at the photograph.
“It means someone is playing games.”
Vanessa arrived within the hour.
She had married Rachel, moved back to Manhattan, and somehow become even more suspicious of everything than she had been before.
She examined the key.
“No manufacturer marking. Probably safe-deposit.”
“And the tape?” I asked.
“Old microcassette.”
Adrien stood at the window.
“Salvatore.”
Luca nodded.
“He could’ve arranged it before prison.”
Salvatore Rizzi was alive.
Seventy-two.
Serving what effectively amounted to a life sentence in federal prison.
He had exhausted almost every appeal.
But men like Salvatore did not require freedom to remain dangerous.
Adrien turned.
“Find out who sent it.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“And if Matteo really didn’t die?”
Adrien’s expression closed instantly.
“He died.”
“How certain are you?”
“I attended his funeral.”
Vanessa was quiet.
Adrien continued.
“I watched his car burn on surveillance footage.”
“You didn’t identify the body.”
“No body could be identified.”
There.
The first crack.
Vanessa carefully inserted the tape into an old recorder Luca had found in storage.
Static filled the kitchen.
Then a voice.
Male.
Young.
Breathing hard.
Adrien stopped moving.
The recording lasted only thirty-eight seconds.
“Adri…”
Adrien’s face drained of color.
The voice continued.
“If they tell you I’m dead, don’t believe them.”
Static.
“They found out I talked to Antonio about Salvatore. Dad thinks he can fix it. He can’t.”
A noise in the background.
Then:
“I’m leaving tonight. Daniel says he can get me out.”
More static.
“If you ever hear this…”
The young man exhaled shakily.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
The tape stopped.
No one moved.
Adrien stared at the recorder.
I whispered, “Was that him?”
His answer came almost silently.
“Yes.”
Luca stood.
“Who’s Daniel?”
Adrien shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa already had her laptop open.
“Daniel plus Moretti family, fourteen years ago. Employees, attorneys, drivers, security—”
“Daniel Voss,” Luca suddenly said.
Adrien turned.
Luca’s expression had changed.
“Your father’s attorney.”
Adrien stared.
“Voss died.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
Vanessa typed rapidly.
Then stopped.
“No.”
Adrien walked toward her.
“What?”
“Daniel Voss didn’t die.”
She rotated the screen.
A corporate registration appeared.
Daniel Voss.
Age seventy-one.
Living under the name Daniel Vale.
Monterey, California.
A photograph sat beside the record.
Adrien gripped the back of Vanessa’s chair.
Then another result appeared.
A photograph from a charity event eighteen months earlier.
Daniel Vale stood beside a man in his late thirties.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
A scar along his left jaw.
The caption identified him as Michael Vale.
But Adrien didn’t read the name.
He was staring at the man’s face.
Because the face belonged to the boy in our kitchen photograph.
Older.
Harder.
Alive.
I looked at my husband.
“Adrien.”
He backed away from the screen.
For the first time in years, he looked like he might fall.
“No.”
Vanessa whispered, “That’s Matteo.”
Adrien shook his head.
“No.”
The word broke.
Fourteen years of grief.
Fourteen years of guilt.
Fourteen years believing he had buried his little brother.
And two thousand nine hundred miles away, Matteo Moretti appeared to have spent those years living beneath another name.
Adrien finally looked at me.
There was anger in his face.
But beneath it was something worse.
Hope.
“Find him.”
Vanessa closed the laptop.
“We need to be careful.”
“I said find him.”
“Adrien—”
“If my brother is alive, I want to know why he let me bury him.”
His voice hardened.
“And if this is a trap, I want to know who thinks they can use my dead brother’s face against me.”
That afternoon, Adrien boarded a plane to California.
I went with him.
Because whatever waited there wasn’t just Moretti history anymore.
It was our family.
And twenty minutes before we landed in Monterey, Vanessa called.
Her first words changed everything again.
“Elena, do not take Adrien to Daniel Voss’s house.”
I straightened.
“Why?”
Vanessa went silent for one second.
Then:
“Because Daniel Voss was murdered this morning.”
I looked across the jet at Adrien.
He saw my face.
“What?”
May you like
Vanessa continued.
“And Matteo is missing.”
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