Chapter 3 - THE FILE GREG STOLE
They did not open Greg’s laptop at the storage facility.
Lorenzo refused.
Nora almost argued until she noticed the look on Vincent’s face.
Not fear.
Professional alarm.
“If Pierce is dead,” Vincent said, “we assume the locker may already be compromised.”
Nora glanced toward the ceiling camera.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning whoever killed him may know Greg stored something here.”
Lorenzo took the laptop.
“We leave.”
This time, Nora did not debate him.
They returned to the estate by a different route.
Two SUVs changed positions behind them three times.
Nora noticed.
“So this is normal?”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
“Which part?”
“Being followed by three vehicles.”
She stared.
“We’re being followed?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“My people are checking whether we are.”
“Oh.”
He looked at her.
“You asked.”
“You could occasionally provide context before giving terrifying answers.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“That means no.”
“Yes.”
Despite herself, Nora almost smiled.
The smile vanished when they reached the estate.
Lorenzo’s security team took Greg’s laptop into a windowless room.
Nora followed.
Lorenzo blocked the doorway.
“You need rest.”
“I need to see the files.”
“You need medical supervision.”
“I can have both.”
Vincent lifted his brows.
“She’s going to win.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“After twenty years of watching everyone agree with you, yes.”
Nora walked past them.
“Thank you, Vincent.”
“Anytime.”
The technical specialist was a woman named Elise Ward.
No dramatic tattoos.
No hood.
No movie-style hacker nonsense.
She wore glasses, drank tea, and treated Lorenzo like an impatient client rather than a crime lord.
“I can access it,” Elise said.
“How long?” Lorenzo asked.
“As long as it takes.”
He stared at her.
Elise stared back.
Nora smiled.
Lorenzo noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“You really do surround yourself with women who ignore you.”
“Apparently.”
The laptop was encrypted, but Greg had used a password Nora recognized.
Milo1989.
Her brother’s childhood dog and the year Nora was born.
She felt sick when it worked.
“He used things from my life as passwords.”
Lorenzo stood beside her.
“People use familiar information.”
“He used my information while hiding crimes from me.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
The desktop opened.
Folders covered the screen.
INSURANCE.
PORT DATA.
HMC.
BERT.
NORA PERSONAL.
Her hand froze.
“What is that?”
Elise looked at her.
“Do you want me to open it?”
Nora wanted to say no.
Instead:
“Yes.”
The folder contained copies of her pay stubs.
Tax returns.
Passport.
Work calendar.
Photographs taken without her knowledge.
Nora leaving her office.
Nora buying coffee.
Nora visiting her mother’s grave.
Her skin crawled.
Lorenzo’s face became stone.
“He was tracking you.”
“For how long?”
Elise checked metadata.
“Eleven months.”
Nora pushed away from the desk.
The room narrowed.
She had lived with Greg.
Slept beside him.
Apologized when he accused her of being cold.
Changed her clothes because he said men at her office stared.
Stopped meeting coworkers for drinks because he said relationships had boundaries.
All while he cataloged her movements like an investigator.
“I need air.”
Lorenzo followed her into the hallway but maintained several feet of distance.
“Nora.”
“I’m fine.”
“You aren’t.”
“I know.”
She turned sharply.
“That’s the worst part. I know exactly how not fine I am.”
Her voice cracked.
“I kept thinking if I was calmer, if I didn’t argue, if I came home exactly when I said I would, if I stopped giving him reasons…”
She stopped.
Lorenzo said nothing.
“God, that sounds pathetic.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
He leaned against the opposite wall.
“It sounds like someone systematically trained you to believe his choices were your responsibility.”
Nora swallowed.
“You know a lot about control.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised her.
“My father controlled my mother,” he said. “Money. Friends. Where she went. What she said in public.”
Nora stared.
“Did he hit her?”
Lorenzo looked away.
“Yes.”
The answer came quietly.
“I was fifteen the first time I stopped him.”
“What happened?”
“I became useful to him after that.”
She understood there was more behind that sentence.
“What does useful mean?”
“Another story.”
“You don’t get to interrogate me and hide behind mysterious mafia sentences.”
His mouth almost moved.
“I’m learning that.”
They returned to the room.
Elise had opened the HMC folder.
Thousands of invoices.
Nora sat.
Pain still pulsed through her ribs, but work gave her somewhere to put the anger.
“This company is fake.”
“How can you tell?” Vincent asked.
“Look at the descriptions.”
She pointed.
“Port security consulting, customs optimization, shipping-risk modeling. All vague. No deliverables attached.”
Lorenzo leaned forward.
“Payments?”
“Regular enough to look contractual. Irregular enough to avoid automatic threshold reviews.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You do this professionally?”
“Yes.”
“You’re terrifying.”
“She’s concussed,” Lorenzo said. “Imagine her healthy.”
Nora ignored them.
“Greg tagged certain invoices.”
Elise opened them.
Nora saw a repeating code.
M-17.
M-17.
M-17.
“What’s M-17?” she asked.
Lorenzo and Vincent exchanged a glance.
Nora caught it.
“No secrets.”
Vincent spoke.
“Dock seventeen.”
“At Costa Atlantic?”
“Yes.”
“What happens there?”
Lorenzo answered.
“International containers waiting for secondary inspection.”
Nora’s stomach tightened.
“Which means if someone controls scheduling…”
“They can move something before inspection,” Vincent finished.
Elise opened a spreadsheet.
Container numbers.
Dates.
Weights.
Ports of origin.
Nora scanned it.
“Here.”
“What?” Lorenzo asked.
“The weight changes.”
She pointed.
“Container enters at forty-two thousand pounds. After M-17 review, it leaves at forty thousand eight hundred.”
Vincent frowned.
“Difference?”
“Twelve hundred pounds.”
“Could be paperwork correction.”
“Once, sure.”
She scrolled.
“Thirty-seven times?”
Silence.
Lorenzo stared at the screen.
“What was removed?”
“No way to know from this.”
Elise opened another file.
Photographs appeared.
Greg had photographed several containers at night.
Men stood near them.
One wore a Costa Atlantic vest.
Another face was partially visible.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Zoom.”
Elise enlarged the image.
Nora watched Vincent’s expression change.
“You know him.”
Vincent looked at Lorenzo.
“That’s Michael Costa.”
Nora turned.
“Another cousin?”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
“My uncle.”
Vincent corrected:
“His father’s younger brother.”
The image showed Michael supervising men opening a container.
The metadata placed it eight months earlier.
Lorenzo’s voice dropped.
“Michael hasn’t worked operational shipping in six years.”
Nora looked at the photo again.
“What does he do?”
“Board vice chairman.”
“Access?”
“Everything.”
That was bad.
Then Elise opened a video.
Greg’s voice whispered behind the camera.
“February fourth. Dock seventeen. Michael Costa present.”
The camera shook.
Men moved sealed crates from one container into a truck with Bertinelli Construction markings.
Then someone stepped into frame.
A man in a tailored coat.
Nora could not see his face.
But she saw his hand.
A heavy silver ring.
Vincent suddenly stopped breathing.
“What?”
Lorenzo stared.
The ring bore a black crest.
“What does that mean?”
Vincent looked at Lorenzo.
“That ring belonged to your father.”
Nora turned sharply.
“Your father is alive?”
“No.”
Lorenzo’s voice was flat.
“He died nine years ago.”
“Then who has the ring?”
Lorenzo did not answer.
Vincent did.
“Lorenzo.”
Nora stared at him.
“What?”
Vincent looked sick.
“After Carlo Costa died, his signet ring went to Lorenzo.”
Nora slowly looked at Lorenzo’s hands.
No ring.
“Where is it?”
Lorenzo’s expression became dangerous.
“In my safe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Could someone copy it?”
“Anything can be copied.”
Elise froze the frame.
“Wait.”
She enhanced the image.
The man turned slightly.
Not enough for a full face.
But enough to reveal a familiar profile.
Vincent whispered:
“Jesus.”
Lorenzo did not move.
Nora looked between them.
“Who is it?”
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
“Lorenzo’s brother.”
Nora stared at the screen.
“You have a brother?”
Lorenzo’s answer came like a blade.
“Had.”
Elise turned.
“Had?”
“Matteo Costa died six years ago.”
The room became completely silent.
Nora looked back at the frozen image.
Greg’s video was dated eight months ago.
The man looked unmistakably like Lorenzo.
Same nose.
Same jaw.
Same height.
Same Costa ring.
Lorenzo walked closer to the monitor.
His face drained of color.
For the first time since Nora met him, he looked genuinely shaken.
“That’s impossible.”
Vincent whispered:
“I buried Matteo.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“So did I.”
Elise checked metadata again.
“No manipulation that I can detect.”
Nora felt cold.
“Then either somebody wants you to believe your dead brother is alive…”
May you like
She looked at Lorenzo.
“…or somebody buried the wrong man.”
