Chapter 3: What Leo Saw
Dante didn't move toward Javier again.
He turned to Leo instead.
"Inside," he said.
One word.
Quiet enough that only Leo, Mia, and the two associates closest to them could hear it.
Leo nodded.
His jaw was tight.
There was a red mark on his cheek from the grass.
Mia looked between her father and her brother.
"What's happening?
Someone tell me what's happening."
"Inside, Mia," Dante said again.
Same tone.
No louder.
She went.
Dante looked back at Javier one final time.
He didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
Two of the associates peeled away from the barbecue tables and positioned themselves on either side of Javier without being asked.
Javier stood very still.
---
The back office of the house was small — a desk, four chairs, a window that looked out onto the side garden.
Dante closed the door behind him.
Leo sat down immediately, like his legs had decided for him.
Mia stood near the wall with her arms crossed.
"Talk," Dante said.
Leo exhaled.
"Last Thursday.
You sent me to check on the Garfield Street property.
The one you said was sitting empty."
"I remember."
"It wasn't empty." Leo looked at his hands.
"There were crates.
Eight, maybe ten of them.
Stacked against the far wall.
And Javier was there with two men I didn't recognize.
They didn't see me.
I came in through the side entrance and I heard them before I saw them."
Dante pulled a chair out and sat down slowly.
"What did you hear?"
"Javier said — " Leo stopped.
Started again.
"He said the handover was moving to Friday.
That the original contact had gotten nervous and they needed a new route.
And then one of the other men said your name, Dad.
He said, 'Does Moreno know?' And Javier said — " Leo's voice dropped — "'Moreno doesn't need to know anything anymore.'"
The room was very quiet.
Mia uncrossed her arms.
"What does that mean?"
Neither Dante nor Leo answered her.
"What does that mean?" she said again, louder.
Dante stood up.
He walked to the window and looked out at the side garden.
A sprinkler was running somewhere.
He could hear it.
"It means Javier isn't working for me," he said.
"He hasn't been for a while."
---
Mia pressed her back against the wall.
"He's been at every family dinner for two years.
He was at Mom's birthday.
He was at Leo's graduation."
"I know."
"And you didn't know?"
Dante turned from the window.
"No.
I didn't know."
That landed hard.
Mia had never heard her father say those three words in that order.
Not once in her life.
Leo looked up.
"There's more."
Dante waited.
"One of the crates was open.
I saw what was inside before I left." Leo met his father's eyes.
"It wasn't product, Dad.
It wasn't anything we move.
It was documents.
Files.
Photographs." He paused.
"Some of them had your name on them."
Dante's expression didn't change.
But his right hand, resting on the back of the chair, closed slowly into a fist.
"Did you take anything?"
"No.
I didn't want them to know I'd been there."
"Good." Dante straightened.
"That was the right call."
Mia pushed off the wall.
"So what do we do?"
Dante picked up his phone from the desk.
He looked at it for a moment without dialing.
"We find out who the new contact is," he said.
"And we find out what's in those files before Javier moves them."
He looked at Leo.
"Can you get back into that building without being seen?"
Leo's jaw tightened.
May you like
"Yes."
"Then we go tonight."
