Chapter 5 - The Man Beside Matteo Since Childhood
“Don't.”
Matteo said it quietly.
Grant froze with his hand inches from his holster.
I backed away.
Grant looked between us.
“That's not what this looks like.”
“Wonderful phrase,” I said.
“Erin.”
“Don't Erin me.”
Matteo kept the gun aimed.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Grant lifted both hands.
“I wasn't drawing.”
“What were you doing?”
“Checking my weapon.”
“During a recording accusing someone close to me?”
“Yes.”
“Terrible timing.”
“I noticed.”
My mother's tape continued.
She never named the person.
Instead, she described him.
Someone raised around the Rinaldi organization.
Someone given access because nobody questioned his presence.
Someone who understood both the old criminal structure and modern security.
Grant fit.
So did Vincent.
So did at least four others.
Grant sat voluntarily while Matteo searched him.
Nothing.
His phone revealed encrypted messages, but as security chief that meant little.
Then I noticed something.
“Your watch.”
Grant frowned.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
He did.
Luxury watch.
Metal band.
I examined the clasp.
A tiny blue reflection.
Microcamera.
Grant went pale.
“That isn't mine.”
“You're wearing it.”
“It was a gift.”
“From?”
He looked at Matteo.
“Vincent.”
Of course.
Somebody had planted surveillance on the head of security himself.
Which suggested Grant was not the architect.
Or whoever built the system was extremely committed to misdirection.
Matteo lowered his weapon.
Grant looked insulted.
“You believed it?”
“I believe evidence.”
“Your electrician has infected you.”
“Good.”
I pretended not to hear that.
The rest of my mother's recording revealed a partial story.
She discovered surveillance spanning properties owned by several criminal and political networks.
Not merely Rinaldi buildings.
Someone was building a private intelligence market.
Secrets sold to whoever paid.
My mother had tried to expose it.
Then vanished.
She faked her death because she believed I would be safer thinking she was gone.
I hated her for that.
Then hated myself for hating her.
Then hated the people who made such a choice seem rational.
The final minutes were damaged.
But one phrase survived:
Project Lantern.
Grant searched the name.
Nothing official.
Matteo knew it.
“My father used that phrase.”
“When?”
“When I was a teenager.”
“What did it mean?”
“He said information was better than violence.”
I stared.
“Your father built it.”
“Maybe.”
“Then Vincent maintained it.”
“Maybe.”
“And my mother discovered it.”
“Yes.”
The structure became clearer.
Salvatore Rinaldi created an intelligence network.
Anna Blake found it.
Perhaps instead of killing her, he recruited or hid her.
Years later, Matteo inherited the visible empire but apparently not Lantern.
Someone kept it alive.
Then expanded it.
The question was why expose it now.
Grant found the answer in the recovered storage documents.
A file labeled:
SUCCESSION.
Inside were profiles.
Matteo.
Vincent.
Three captains in the organization.
Several businessmen.
And me.
My profile was recent.
Photographs of my apartment.
My jobs.
My van.
Even a picture of me drinking coffee outside a hardware supplier two weeks earlier.
“They were watching me before the gala.”
“Yes,” Matteo said.
“So the blackout wasn't random.”
“No.”
“Someone wanted me there.”
Grant looked at the documents.
“Your firm got the gala contract through a last-minute vendor change.”
I remembered.
My usual client had recommended me after the original electrician canceled.
“Who canceled?”
We checked.
Daniel Price Electrical.
Owner: Daniel Price.
He had supposedly developed appendicitis.
He was found that afternoon.
Dead.
Police called it suicide.
I did not believe in coincidences anymore.
The gala blackout had been engineered.
The hidden circuits had been designed for me to notice.
Someone wanted me to expose Lantern in front of Matteo.
Why?
Because my mother had done the same thing.
Maybe they wanted us connected.
Or wanted Matteo to think I was part of it.
Then my phone received another message.
No text.
Just a live video.
A woman sat in a dim room.
Gray streaks in dark hair.
Older face.
Same eyes as mine.
My mother.
Alive.
I dropped the phone.
Matteo caught it.
On-screen, Anna Blake looked directly into the camera.
A man outside frame said:
“Tell her.”
My mother swallowed.
“Erin.”
My knees nearly gave way.
“I'm sorry.”
I moved closer.
“Mom?”
Of course she couldn't hear me.
The voice ordered:
“Tell her what happens if she keeps helping Rinaldi.”
My mother closed her eyes.
Then opened them.
And said something completely different.
“Erin, remember what I taught you about overloaded circuits.”
The feed cut.
Grant frowned.
“What does that mean?”
I stared at the black screen.
My mother used to teach me basic electrical work as a child.
One rule more than any other:
When a circuit is overloaded, don't chase the sparks.
Find where the load really begins.
“She was telling me we're looking at the wrong problem.”
Matteo understood.
“Lantern isn't the threat.”
“No.”
“Then what is?”
I looked at the succession files.
Someone had intentionally exposed the surveillance system.
Killed the replacement electrician.
Lured me into Matteo's orbit.
Resurrected secrets from both our families.
This wasn't about hiding Lantern.
It was about making everyone fight over it.
“The real attack hasn't happened yet.”
At that exact moment, every phone in the room buzzed.
News alerts.
A massive data leak had hit the internet.
Videos.
Audio.
Private conversations from Reichi—no, Rinaldi—properties across Boston.
Headlines already named Matteo as the suspected architect.
Politicians demanded arrest.
Business partners denied knowing him.
The FBI announced an investigation.
Matteo watched his empire begin collapsing on-screen.
Then one final message arrived on his private number.
YOUR FATHER BUILT LANTERN.
YOU WILL TAKE THE FALL FOR IT.
UNLESS YOU GIVE US ERIN BLAKE.
Matteo read it twice.
Then looked at me.
For one horrible second, neither of us spoke.
I knew exactly what powerful men did when given choices between an empire and one inconvenient woman.
Matteo handed the phone to Grant.
Then said:
“Burn every business they can use against me.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He looked directly at me.
May you like
“They don't get you.”
And for the first time since this began, I was more frightened by the man protecting me than by the people hunting us.
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