Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE PAPER
“That’s yours?”
Nora stared at Lorenzo as if the answer might somehow rearrange itself if she waited long enough.
He did not blink.
“Costa Atlantic Freight is one of my companies.”
“One of?”
Vincent leaned against the kitchen doorway.
“Lorenzo likes diversification.”
Nora ignored him.
Her gaze remained on Lorenzo.
“So Greg was printing financial statements from your company.”
“Apparently.”
“And the Bertinellis wanted sixty thousand dollars from him.”
“Yes.”
“And last night they tore apart my apartment looking for something.”
“Yes.”
She slowly placed both palms flat on the countertop.
“Then this has nothing to do with gambling.”
“No.”
Her stomach turned.
Lorenzo’s face had changed completely.
The man who had been negotiating rules with her minutes earlier was gone.
Now he looked exactly like the person strangers whispered about.
Still.
Cold.
Calculating.
“What exactly is Costa Atlantic Freight?” Nora asked.
“A legitimate shipping company.”
Vincent coughed.
Lorenzo looked at him.
“Do you require water?”
“No.”
“Then stop making noises.”
Nora frowned.
“You said legitimate in a tone that makes me think there’s an asterisk.”
“There are always asterisks in transportation.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Lorenzo stood.
“This conversation is finished for now.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Nora.”
“You just told me my violent ex-boyfriend had secret paperwork from your company, men connected to organized crime are searching for it, and your solution is to tell me the conversation is over?”
“You have a concussion.”
“So?”
“So your brain needs rest.”
“My brain would rest better if I knew why people are tearing apart my life.”
Lorenzo studied her.
Then he looked at Vincent.
“Bring the employment files.”
“Which ones?”
“Everyone who had access to internal freight audits during the last twelve months.”
Vincent’s expression tightened.
“That’s not a short list.”
“Make it shorter.”
He disappeared.
Nora touched her temple.
A headache had begun growing behind her injured eye.
Lorenzo noticed.
“You need the pain medication Dr. Patel left.”
“I don’t like painkillers.”
“You don’t need to like them.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“Careful.”
He paused.
Then corrected himself.
“You may choose whether to take them.”
“Better.”
Something passed through his eyes.
Annoyance.
Respect.
Maybe both.
A housekeeper brought water.
Nora accepted two tablets after checking the label herself.
Lorenzo watched without comment.
Twenty minutes later, Vincent returned carrying a folder and a tablet.
He placed both on the island.
“We’ve got a problem.”
Lorenzo opened the folder.
“You’re going to need to be more specific.”
“Greg Fowler never had authorized access to Costa Atlantic financials.”
Nora frowned.
“He was definitely looking at them.”
“I believe you,” Vincent said. “But he didn’t obtain them through us officially.”
He tapped the tablet.
“His insurance agency had a contract with Pierce Risk Management. Pierce handles liability coverage for several port businesses.”
Lorenzo’s jaw hardened.
“Including us.”
“Exactly.”
Vincent opened another page.
“And Pierce subcontracted Greg’s firm for administrative reviews six months ago.”
Nora leaned forward.
“That’s exactly when he started acting strange.”
Lorenzo glanced at her.
“Describe strange.”
“He stopped sleeping. Bought two prepaid phones. Started locking his car. He began asking me questions about spreadsheets.”
“You work in finance?”
“Corporate compliance.”
Vincent slowly looked up.
Nora noticed.
“What?”
“You never mentioned that.”
“You never asked.”
Lorenzo’s attention sharpened further.
“What kind of compliance?”
“Regulatory investigations. Internal fraud review. Mostly healthcare and mid-sized companies.”
Vincent let out a quiet breath.
“Well.”
Nora narrowed her eyes.
“Well what?”
“You may be significantly more useful than Greg understood.”
She stared at him.
“I’m not helping your criminal organization.”
Lorenzo’s voice cooled.
“Costa Atlantic is legitimate.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it is.”
“Then why does an underboss work in the kitchen?”
Vincent raised one finger.
“In fairness, I’m not technically working.”
Lorenzo ignored him.
“Nora, if someone inside Costa Atlantic is using legitimate shipments to conceal illegal activity, I want to know.”
“Why?”
“Because I built that company clean.”
The answer came fast enough that she believed him.
At least partly.
“My father started in trucking,” Lorenzo continued. “One truck. Then six. Then warehouses. Costa Atlantic was the first thing in my family that didn’t depend on favors, threats, or people being afraid to say no.”
Nora looked at him.
For the first time, she heard something personal beneath the control.
Pride.
“If somebody has contaminated it,” he said quietly, “they made a mistake.”
Nora folded her arms carefully.
“What kind of numbers was Greg looking at?”
Vincent turned the tablet toward her.
“Can you tell us if any of these companies look familiar?”
There were dozens.
Vendors.
Port contractors.
Equipment suppliers.
Customs brokers.
Then Nora saw one.
“Wait.”
She touched the screen.
HARROW MARINE CONSULTING.
“I’ve seen that.”
Lorenzo leaned closer.
“Where?”
“Greg had a folder with that name.”
“When?”
“A month ago.”
“What was inside?”
“I don’t know. He shut it the moment I walked into the room.”
Vincent searched.
“Harrow Marine Consulting formed fourteen months ago in Delaware.”
“Revenue?” Lorenzo asked.
“Eight point three million from Costa Atlantic last year.”
Nora stared.
“For consulting?”
Vincent nodded grimly.
“That’s a lot of consulting.”
“Who approved the payments?” Lorenzo asked.
Vincent hesitated.
“That’s the problem.”
“Who?”
“You.”
Silence.
Lorenzo did not move.
Nora looked between them.
“He approved them?”
“No,” Vincent said carefully. “The system says he did.”
Lorenzo took the tablet.
His eyes moved across the screen.
“Electronic authorization.”
“Your credentials.”
“I never approved this company.”
Vincent swore under his breath.
Nora’s headache disappeared beneath adrenaline.
“You’ve been hacked?”
“Or someone with internal access is using his credentials,” Vincent said.
Lorenzo stared at the entries.
“There’s another possibility.”
“What?” Nora asked.
“Someone wants it to look like I approved them.”
She felt cold.
“Why?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“To create leverage.”
“Against you?”
“Against the company.”
Vincent tapped another screen.
“Harrow transferred money to three more entities. Two are shell companies. The third…”
He stopped.
Lorenzo’s voice hardened.
“Say it.”
“Bertinelli Construction.”
Nora’s stomach dropped.
The same family hunting Greg.
“What does that mean?”
Lorenzo did not answer immediately.
Vincent did.
“It means somebody inside Costa Atlantic may have been paying the Bertinellis through fake invoices.”
Nora stared at the spreadsheet.
“And Greg found it?”
“Maybe.”
“Then why did he owe them money?”
Lorenzo’s gaze lifted.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
The idea settled like ice.
Nora remembered Greg shouting the night before.
You don’t understand what I owe them.
She had assumed money.
Maybe Greg meant something else.
“What if the sixty thousand wasn’t a loan?” she asked.
Vincent looked at her.
“What if it was payment?”
“For what?”
Nora thought.
Greg’s second laptop.
His fear.
His sudden expensive watch despite constant complaints about money.
“The first time he hit me,” she said quietly, “was three weeks after he started that subcontracting job.”
Neither man interrupted.
“He came home drunk and accused me of going through his briefcase. I hadn’t. Then later he apologized and said work pressure was making him crazy.”
Lorenzo’s expression darkened.
Nora forced herself to continue.
“After that, everything got worse. He started checking my phone. Controlling accounts. He made sure I didn’t use our home computer.”
“Because he was hiding something,” Vincent said.
“Yes.”
A terrible possibility formed.
“He wasn’t scared I would leave.”
She looked at Lorenzo.
“He was scared I would discover what he was doing.”
Lorenzo reached for his phone.
“Get me Pierce.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Already tried. Peter Pierce didn’t come home last night.”
“Family?”
“Wife says he left work yesterday at six.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“Find him.”
Nora suddenly remembered something.
“Wait.”
Both men looked at her.
“The laptop.”
“What laptop?” Lorenzo asked.
“Greg’s second laptop.”
“You said he kept it in his car.”
“He did.”
“His car was found outside your apartment.”
“It wasn’t there.”
Vincent checked.
“Police inventory?”
“No laptop.”
Nora closed her eyes.
There had been one night.
Greg had come home furious because his trunk latch stopped working.
He carried the laptop upstairs.
Nora remembered him hiding something.
Not in their apartment.
“Storage.”
“What?” Lorenzo said.
“We had a storage locker.”
“Had?”
“Greg told me he canceled it last year.”
“Where?”
“South Loop. Near Canal Street.”
Vincent was already moving.
Lorenzo stopped him.
“No.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“If Greg lied about canceling it, someone else may know it exists.”
“Then we go now.”
“We check remotely first.”
Nora studied Lorenzo.
Careful.
Not reckless.
Different from the image she had formed.
Vincent made calls.
Within forty minutes, they confirmed the storage unit remained active.
Paid in cash for eleven months.
Registered under Nora’s name.
Her blood went cold.
“He used my name?”
Lorenzo looked at Vincent.
“Who else knows?”
“Storage company. Anyone Greg told.”
“That means the Bertinellis may assume Nora has whatever is inside.”
“They already do,” Nora whispered.
The apartment search suddenly made complete sense.
Lorenzo looked at her.
“You’re not going there.”
She laughed once.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“No?”
“I’m absolutely going.”
“Nora—”
“You don’t know what Greg hides. I do.”
“You have cracked ribs.”
“I can identify my own property.”
“The answer is no.”
She pushed herself upright.
“The answer is still not yours to give.”
Lorenzo’s jaw clenched.
For several seconds, the room felt dangerous again.
Then he exhaled.
“Fine.”
Vincent blinked.
Nora blinked too.
Lorenzo pointed at her.
“You stay in the vehicle until the building is secured.”
“Agreed.”
“You wear body armor.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“So was last night.”
She had no response.
An hour later, Nora sat in the back of a black SUV wearing a jacket over a lightweight protective vest.
Three security vehicles surrounded them.
Lorenzo sat beside her.
Vincent drove.
The city passed outside in gray winter light.
Nora looked at Lorenzo.
“What happens if the laptop proves somebody inside your company is working with the Bertinellis?”
“I remove them.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“Define remove.”
“From the company.”
“That sounded deliberately incomplete.”
“It was.”
She turned toward the window.
“I’m not helping anyone disappear.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“If this becomes illegal, I’m out.”
He watched her.
“You may leave whenever you choose.”
Something about hearing him say it without resistance surprised her.
She nodded.
“Good.”
The storage facility appeared ahead.
Vincent slowed.
One of Lorenzo’s security men stepped into the lobby.
Two minutes later, his voice came through the radio.
“Unit is clear.”
Nora exhaled.
They entered.
The storage locker smelled like dust and cardboard.
Greg had filled it with boxes from their old apartment.
A broken chair.
Christmas decorations.
Her mother’s ceramic bowl.
Nora froze.
“There.”
She walked toward it.
The blue-and-white bowl sat on top of a box.
Unbroken.
Lorenzo stopped behind her.
“You said some things couldn’t be replaced.”
She picked it up carefully.
“My mother made this.”
He said nothing.
She held it against her chest.
Then Vincent called from the back.
“Found something.”
A locked metal case sat beneath an old comforter.
Lorenzo looked at Nora.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
Vincent forced the latch.
Inside was Greg’s laptop.
Three USB drives.
Stacks of printed invoices.
And an envelope marked NORA.
Her hands went cold.
Lorenzo handed it to her without opening it.
She tore the seal.
Greg’s handwriting covered one page.
Nora,
If you’re reading this, something went wrong.
I know you hate me.
You should.
But you need to understand that I didn’t start this.
I found something inside Pierce’s accounts.
They paid me to ignore it.
Then they paid me to help.
When I tried to stop, they threatened you.
I made choices I can’t undo.
The sixty thousand isn’t debt.
It’s the amount they say I stole from them when I copied their records.
Do not trust anyone at Costa Atlantic.
Especially anyone named Costa.
Nora stopped reading.
Slowly, she looked at Lorenzo.
Vincent had gone very still.
Lorenzo’s face revealed nothing.
“Continue,” he said.
Nora read the final lines.
There is one file they will kill for.
It proves the Bertinellis were not stealing from Lorenzo Costa.
They were paying him.
And if Lorenzo says he didn’t know, he’s lying.
The locker became silent.
Then Lorenzo’s phone rang.
He answered.
A man spoke urgently on the other end.
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
“What happened?”
He listened.
Then looked at Vincent.
“Peter Pierce is dead.”
Nora gripped Greg’s letter.
“How?”
Lorenzo ended the call.
“He was found in the Chicago River.”
Vincent swore.
Nora looked down at the laptop.
Suddenly, Greg’s warning felt less paranoid.
Someone was erasing anyone connected to those accounts.
May you like
And for the first time since Lorenzo Costa saved her on the restaurant floor, Nora realized something much worse than the Bertinellis might be hunting her.
The person behind everything might already be standing inside Lorenzo’s own family.
