Chapter 4: The Wrong Kind of Interest
The Moretti family had been asking questions for exactly four hours before Vincent found out which questions they had been asking.
It took another two hours to understand why.
Dante Moretti — the youngest of the three men who had sat across from Vincent the previous evening — had not gone back to his hotel after the meeting.
He had gone to a bar three streets from the docks and spent the night talking to people who talked to other people for money.
By morning, he knew the names of six of Vincent's household staff.
He knew Carmen's name.
He knew her address.
"How?" Vincent asked.
Marco stood near the window of Vincent's office.
The city was fully awake below them, indifferent and bright.
"Payroll records," Marco said.
"Someone sold a copy."
"Who?"
"We're working on it."
"Work faster." Vincent turned from the window.
"What exactly did Dante ask about Carmen?"
Marco's jaw tightened slightly.
"He asked if she was close to you.
If you trusted her.
If she had family."
The word family landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"He knows about Isabella," Vincent said.
It wasn't a question.
"We don't know that for certain."
"He knows about Isabella." Vincent moved to his desk.
"The Morettis don't ask about family unless they're planning to use it.
That's their method.
Always has been."
"What do you want to do?"
"I want Carmen and her daughter moved.
Today.
Before the pharmacy, before school, before anything else." He picked up his phone.
"Get Elena.
Tell her I need the apartment on Via Serena prepared by noon."
"That's your personal property, boss."
"I know what it is."
Marco didn't argue.
He made the call from the doorway, his voice dropping low.
Vincent sat down and thought about a green plastic container and a child who had eaten cold pasta in the dark rather than ask for help.
He thought about what the Moretti family would do with that image if they ever got close enough to use it.
His phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number — but the format was one he recognized.
A Moretti calling card.
They had been sending them for fifteen years whenever they wanted to signal that a conversation was no longer optional.
The message read: *We should talk again.
Bring your answer about the docks.
Or we'll find our own reasons to stay interested in your city.*
Vincent set the phone face-down on the desk.
"Marco."
"Still here."
"After you move Carmen — quietly, no explanation to the other staff — I want you to find out who sold that payroll record."
"And when I find them?"
"Bring them to me." He paused.
"Don't handle it yourself."
Marco understood the distinction.
There were problems Vincent delegated and problems Vincent needed to see through himself.
This was the second kind.
"One more thing," Vincent said.
"Boss."
"The pharmacy on Calle Menor.
The prescription under Carmen's name.
I want it filled and delivered to Via Serena before she arrives."
Marco looked at him for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
"Understood," he said, and left.
Vincent stayed at his desk.
He pulled the phone back over, turned it face-up, and read the Moretti message again.
*Find our own reasons to stay interested.*
They already had one.
And she was eight years old, and her shoes had holes in them, and she had looked a man with a g*n straight in the face and asked him not to punish her mother.
Vincent picked up a different phone — the one with no registered number — and made a call he had not made in three years.
It rang four times.
"Luca," he said when it connected.
"I need a favor.
The old kind."
A long pause on the other end.
"How old?" Luca asked.
"Old enough that nobody asks questions afterward."
Another pause.
"I'll need a name."
"Dante Moretti," Vincent said.
"Find out everything he's touched in the last seventy-two hours.
Every person he spoke to.
Every place he went."
"And if I find something useful?"
"Then we'll talk about what comes next."
He ended the call.
Downstairs, he could hear the kitchen beginning to stir.
The sound of the other staff arriving, water running, the low clatter of the morning routine starting without Carmen, who was not yet back from wherever Marco had taken her.
The house sounded exactly the same as it always did.
But something in it had shifted overnight, the way a room shifts when furniture is moved in the dark — everything still present, nothing quite where it was.
Vincent did not go back to sleep.
He was still at his desk when his phone rang again, and this time the number was one he recognized immediately.
It was Carmen's number.
He answered.
"Mr.
Torino." Her voice was careful.
May you like
Controlled.
"There are men outside my apartment building."
