Chapter 5: The Name He Didn't Say
The next morning, Dante made two phone calls and took none.
The first call was to a lawyer named Holt — not the firm's primary counsel, but a man Dante had used once, seven years ago, for a matter that never reached any record.
Holt answered on the second ring, listened without interrupting, and said he could be at the house by noon.
The second call was to an associate named Vega, who ran logistics on the eastern side of the operation and who Dante had always kept deliberately separate from Javier's side of the business.
Vega answered, heard Dante's voice, and said, "I was wondering when you'd call."
That was not a reassuring thing to say.
Dante set the phone down and looked at the documents spread across his desk.
Leo sat across from him.
Mia stood near the door with a coffee she hadn't drunk.
"Vega knew," Leo said.
It wasn't a question.
"He knew something." Dante picked up the transfer document with his forged signature.
"Whether he knew all of it — that's what I need to find out."
---
Holt arrived at eleven forty.
He was a small man with careful eyes who sat down, put nothing on the table, and looked at the documents for a long time before he spoke.
"These are well made," he said.
"I know."
"The signature is close enough that a first review wouldn't catch it.
You'd need a forensic document examiner." He looked up.
"Do you have the originals of anything signed around this date?
Something that shows the genuine signature from the same period?"
"I can get them."
"Get them today." Holt set the transfer document down.
"The photograph is a different problem.
There's nothing illegal about a photograph.
The damage is in the interpretation.
Who took it and who they planned to show it to matters more than the image itself."
"Javier mentioned the port authority."
Holt was quiet for a moment.
"The port authority has been running a quiet review of several operations in this district for the past eight months.
It hasn't been made public." He looked at Dante steadily.
"If someone has been feeding them a constructed narrative about you during that review period, the timing is not accidental."
Mia set her coffee down on the windowsill.
"He's been planning this for eight months?"
"At least," Holt said.
---
Leo leaned forward.
"Then why start a fight at the barbecue?
Why draw attention to himself now?
If he was this close to finishing it — "
"Because something changed," Dante said.
Everyone looked at him.
"He moved three of the crates before we got there last night.
He's accelerating." Dante stood and walked to the window.
"Something spooked him.
Or someone told him his window was closing." He turned back.
"Leo.
When you saw him at the warehouse last Thursday — are you certain he didn't see you?"
Leo hesitated.
One second too long.
"Leo."
"I don't think he saw me," Leo said.
"But when I was leaving — there was a man near the side entrance.
Outside.
He was on a phone.
He might have seen me come out."
The room was very still.
"You didn't tell me that last night," Dante said.
"I know.
I didn't think it mattered."
"It matters." Dante looked at Holt.
"If Javier knew Leo had been in that building, he would know Leo told me.
And if he knew I knew — "
"He'd want to move first," Holt said.
"The barbecue wasn't impulsive.
It was a message.
He wanted you off balance before you had time to organize."
Mia picked her coffee back up.
Her hand was steady.
"So what do we do?"
Dante looked at the documents on the desk.
At the photograph.
At his own name written in someone else's hand.
"We give him what he wants," he said.
Leo frowned.
"Which is?"
"He wants me distracted.
Reactive.
Focused on defending myself." Dante sat back down.
"So I'll look exactly like that.
And while I do — " He looked at Leo.
"You're going to find the man who was outside that building.
The one on the phone."
"And when I find him?"
May you like
Dante picked up the photograph and turned it face-down on the desk.
"Then we find out who he was calling."
