Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Archives
The temperature in the tailoring studio plummeted to absolute zero.
I stood completely still beside the cutting table, my yellow measuring tape still clutched in my right hand. The metal tip of the tape clicked softly against my fingernail—the only sound in a room that felt like it was about to explode.
Victor didn't react immediately. He didn't reach for a weapon. He didn't yell.
He simply looked down at the photograph of the red falcon painted on the brick wall, then slowly lifted his dark eyes to meet mine.
"Scranton," Victor murmured. "That's three hours north."
"It's where the state sends unidentified orphans when their parents vanish during mob sweeps," Rocco said, taking a step toward me. His hand rested openly on the butt of his pistol. "I called the orphanage director an hour ago. He said her records were sealed by a court order eighteen years ago. Signed by a judge who used to sit on Eduardo Moretti's payroll."
Every drop of blood drained from my face.
I had known my cover identity was fragile. I had known that a serious background check by an organized crime syndicate would eventually hit the wall of my sealed adoption files. But I had expected to have weeks—months—to establish myself, to hide, to find a way out of this city.
Instead, I had been in Victor Sabatini's house for less than twenty-four hours, and the foundation beneath my feet was already crumbling into dust.
"Tessa," Victor said, his voice deceptively soft. "Look at me."
I turned my head to face him. I forced my chin up. I forced my shoulders back. I had spent eighteen years surviving foster parents, abusive group homes, and cold city streets. I was not going to break down and beg for mercy in front of the man whose family took everything from me.
"Is Rocco telling the truth?" Victor asked.
"About my social security number?" I asked, my voice surprisingly steady. "Yes. I grew up in foster care. My records were sealed because I was a minor in protective custody. That's what happens to kids whose parents get murdered by people like you."
Rocco snorted. "People like us? Girl, you better watch your mouth—"
"Shut up, Rocco," Victor commanded sharply, without turning his head.
Rocco clamped his jaw shut, though his eyes burned with pure malice.
Victor stepped closer to me, coming so near I could see the tiny gold flecks in his dark irises. "Who were your parents, Tessa?"
The lie was right there on the tip of my tongue. I could say my father was a low-level junkie. I could say my mother was a prostitute who OD'd in a motel room. I could give him a hundred tragic, ordinary stories that would make him lose interest.
But as I looked at the photograph of the red falcon on the table, something cold and ancient stirred inside my chest.
"I don't know," I said, telling a half-truth that sounded raw and real. "I was six years old when I was dropped off at a fire station in Hazleton. I don't remember my father's face. I don't remember my mother's voice. All I know is that someone shot them in a kitchen, and a man named Lombardi gave me a job sewing hems when I turned eighteen so I wouldn't end up on the street."
Victor stared at me. He looked at the pulse point throbbing visibly in my neck, right at the collar of my denim blouse.
He reached out his hand.
My entire body went rigid. He's going to unbutton my shirt. He's going to find the pendant.
My hand twitched toward the heavy tailoring shears resting on the table beside me. If he reached for my neck, I would plunge the six-inch steel blade directly into his throat before Rocco could pull his trigger.
Victor's fingers hovered an inch from my collar.
Then, slowly, he bypassed my neck and reached behind me, picking up the yellow measuring tape that had fallen from my grip.
He placed the tape back into my hand.
"Rocco," Victor said, his voice flat. "Get out."
Rocco blinked in utter disbelief. "Boss? You're leaving her in here? She could be connected to whoever burned the warehouse!"
"The person who burned warehouse four used military thermite and left a five-foot sign on the wall," Victor said coldly. "Tessa has been locked in this house for twenty-four hours under your guard. Unless she has the ability to telepathically ignite chemical explosives from five miles away, she didn't set that fire."
"She could be an informant! She could be passing info to whoever did it!"
"Out," Victor repeated, his tone dropping into a dangerous register that made even Rocco back down.
Rocco glared at me, his face twisted in frustration, before turning on his heel and stomping out of the studio, slamming the heavy oak door behind him.
The heavy silence returned to the room.
Victor walked over to the maple table, picked up the photograph of the red falcon, and threw it into the small metal trash can beside his desk.
"My father was a cruel man, Tessa," Victor said quietly, turning to face me. "He believed that to destroy an enemy, you had to kill their legacy. Their wives, their children, their homes, their names. He wiped out the Morettis in a single night. I was sixteen years old, standing in the courtyard of their estate, watching the flames reach the sky."
He reached up, touching his left shoulder—the scar tissue beneath his gray cashmere shirt.
"That's where I got these," Victor said softly.
May you like
I froze. "What?"
"The burns," Victor said, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my heart stop. "They aren't from my father's enemies. They're from my father. When I tried to pull a six-year-old girl out of the burning library, my father threw me into the fire to teach me a lesson about mercy."
