Chapter 2 - The Name Leo Recognized
Mina stared at the photograph for almost a full minute.
Leo watched her face change in small increments.
Confusion first.
Then recognition.
Then something harder.
Fear.
He had seen Mina irritated, exhausted, sarcastic and unimpressed.
Fear looked wrong on her.
“Who is she?” Leo asked.
Mina did not answer.
He already knew.
“Your mother.”
Her fingers tightened around the picture.
“Elaine Hayes.”
Thomas stood beside the security desk with two guards.
Mina turned the photograph over.
Blank.
“My mother died fourteen months ago.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
Leo glanced at Thomas.
Thomas’s expression did not move.
“What kind?”
“Pancreatic.”
“Where did she work?”
Mina looked at him sharply.
“Why?”
“Because somebody came onto my property during an armed intrusion and left a threat using your dead mother.”
“She was a nurse.”
“Where?”
“St. Agnes Community Health.”
Leo stopped.
Mina noticed.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
St. Agnes was one of the clinics funded through the Moretti Family Health Foundation.
His late father had opened it twenty-two years earlier.
“What?” Mina demanded.
Leo looked at Thomas.
Thomas avoided his eyes.
That was answer enough.
“Thomas.”
“Boss.”
“What are you not telling me?”
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
“Not here.”
Mina laughed once.
“Of course.”
Leo looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve worked in this house long enough to know that whenever someone says ‘not here,’ the next conversation usually involves a locked room and men who don’t smile.”
Thomas almost smiled.
Leo did not.
“Library. Now.”
Mina followed them.
Leo stopped.
“You don't need to come.”
“The threat has my name on it.”
He considered arguing.
Then remembered the front door.
“Fine.”
Ten minutes later, Thomas stood near the fireplace with his hands behind his back.
“Elaine Hayes worked at St. Agnes for eleven years.”
Mina nodded.
“I know.”
“She wasn't only a nurse.”
Mina frowned.
“She became clinical operations supervisor.”
“I knew that too.”
Thomas looked at Leo.
“Sixteen months ago, she contacted someone in our organization.”
Mina’s face changed.
“Who?”
“Me.”
The room went silent.
Mina took one slow step toward him.
“You knew my mother?”
“I met her twice.”
“And you interviewed me for this job without mentioning it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Thomas looked at Leo again.
Leo’s voice became dangerous.
“Stop looking at me like I approved this.”
Thomas exhaled.
“Elaine suspected St. Agnes was being used to hide fraudulent patient-debt transfers.”
Mina stared.
“What does that mean?”
Leo answered.
“Someone creates debt that doesn’t exist, sells the account through a collection company, then moves money through the purchases.”
“Money laundering.”
“Yes.”
Mina looked sick.
“My mother spent the last year of her life terrified that we owed almost two hundred thousand dollars.”
Thomas nodded grimly.
“She discovered some of those balances were fabricated.”
Mina sat down.
The debt had shaped everything after Elaine died.
Mina had sold her mother's car.
Closed her apartment.
Worked two jobs.
Dropped the last semester of the accounting degree she had been finishing at night.
Twenty-four dollars.
That was what had remained in her account before Moretti Estate hired her.
“You're telling me some of that debt was fake?”
“Possibly all of it.”
Mina laughed.
It sounded broken.
Leo felt anger rising.
“Who controlled the collection company?”
Thomas hesitated.
Leo noticed.
“Thomas.”
“Marrow Financial.”
Leo knew the name.
Moretti holdings had used Marrow for property recovery years earlier.
“Who owns it?”
“Officially? Three shell corporations.”
“And unofficially?”
Thomas looked directly at him.
“Your uncle.”
Leo stopped breathing for half a second.
Vittorio Moretti.
His father’s younger brother.
The man who had taught Leo to shoot.
The man who had stood beside him at his father's funeral.
The man who now managed more than a third of Moretti’s legitimate businesses.
“Prove it.”
“I can't yet.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because Elaine believed it.”
Mina stood.
“My mother told you?”
“Yes.”
“And you did what?”
Thomas remained still.
That made it worse.
“What did you do?”
“I told her I would investigate.”
“And then she died.”
“Mina—”
“She died.”
Her voice broke for the first time.
“You knew somebody might have been threatening her and you let me spend a year believing she died with debts she was ashamed of.”
Thomas looked older suddenly.
“I failed her.”
Mina slapped him.
The sound filled the library.
Two guards outside the door shifted.
Leo raised one hand.
Nobody entered.
Thomas accepted it without moving.
Mina stared at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” Thomas said quietly. “You aren't.”
She wiped her eyes angrily.
“No. I'm not.”
Leo walked toward the desk.
“Why hire her?”
Thomas answered.
“Because when her application appeared through the agency, I recognized the surname.”
“You brought her into my home without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“You used her.”
“I thought being here was safer than wherever Vittorio might find her.”
Mina laughed bitterly.
“That's comforting.”
Leo turned on Thomas.
“You should have told me.”
“Your uncle sits at your table every Sunday.”
“And?”
Thomas’s eyes were hard.
“And I didn't know which Moretti I could trust.”
Leo absorbed the insult because, unfortunately, he understood it.
His father had built an organization around family loyalty.
Family loyalty had always sounded noble.
Until loyalty became a place for corruption to hide.
Mina picked up the photograph.
“I want access to my mother's files.”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don't have them.”
“Then where are they?”
“She told me she made copies.”
“Where?”
“She never said.”
Leo thought of the attack.
The envelope.
Someone believed Mina knew.
That made her a target.
He turned toward her.
“You're not leaving the estate.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“That sounded less like a request.”
“It wasn't.”
“You don’t own me.”
“No.”
Leo stepped closer.
“But someone came here last night looking for you.”
“Or you.”
“They left your mother’s photograph.”
“That doesn't mean I become a prisoner.”
Leo lowered his voice.
“Then call it protective custody.”
“I’ll call it unemployment.”
She reached for the door.
“Mina.”
She stopped.
“The men last night knew the service road.”
She turned.
“That road isn't on public maps.”
“So?”
“So someone inside my organization gave it to them.”
Her anger faded.
“This is internal.”
“Yes.”
“And you think your uncle is involved.”
“I think nothing without proof.”
“But you suspect him.”
Leo said nothing.
Mina looked at the rain beginning against the library windows.
Finally she sighed.
“One week.”
“What?”
“I stay one week while we figure out what this is.”
Leo nodded.
“Fine.”
“And I still get paid.”
He almost looked offended.
“Obviously.”
“Hazard bonus.”
Thomas coughed into his fist.
Leo stared at Mina.
“How much?”
“Double.”
“Done.”
She blinked.
“You agreed too fast.”
“I can reduce it.”
“Absolutely not.”
For the first time that morning, Leo almost smiled.
Mina walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
“One more condition.”
Leo sighed.
“Of course.”
“No more secrets about my mother.”
Leo looked at Thomas.
Then back at her.
“Agreed.”
Mina left.
Thomas waited until her footsteps disappeared.
Then he opened his jacket.
From an inside pocket, he removed an old brass key.
Leo frowned.
“What is that?”
“Elaine gave it to me the last night I saw her.”
“And you just said you didn't have her files.”
“I don't.”
Thomas placed the key on the desk.
“She told me that if anything happened to her, this opened the place where the truth began.”
Leo picked it up.
A tiny number was engraved along the edge.
“Where?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I've spent sixteen months trying to find out.”
From the doorway came Mina’s voice.
“Then you've been looking in the wrong place.”
Both men turned.
She had returned silently.
Her face had gone pale.
May you like
“That key,” she said.
“I know what it opens.”
