Chapter 26: The Ghost Brother

The shredder was already chewing the west-door log when I ran into the St. Aurelia loading dock. Rain blew through the service door. Ellis, the night concierge from my wedding, was trapped against the brick wall. One man had her wrist. Another fed the book into the blades. The log was not a guest list; it recorded every staff use of the private door after the ballroom cameras died. Rocco had pulled me from the charity hall with Elena's rules still sharp in my head: Ellis chose whether she spoke. Ms. Reyes received the witness and originals. Elena decided how the proof was used. I found Matteo alive. The guard at the shredder tore out an open page. The man holding Ellis shoved her into the metal cart. I caught both. My left hand closed on the page. My right caught Ellis before her skull met steel. The first guard ripped the sheet between us. His half vanished into the teeth. Mine sliced my palm open as I pulled her behind a luggage cage. The second guard came at us with a box cutter. I blocked the first strike, felt the blade score my shoulder, then drove him into the cart. Rocco hit him low and hard. The cutter clattered across the wet concrete. The shredder kept screaming while my blood ran down the thin strip I had saved. Ellis saw the line and went still. "I wrote that entry. I tore it out before they came because I knew they would burn the book." M. Moretti — west door — 11:42 p.m. "Matteo," I said. She looked at the wedding time stamped on the shredded cover. "The feed died at 11:39. Your brother came through that door three minutes later with a silver AV case. He asked where Gabriel Vale had gone. He was bleeding." Three minutes after the lie hit Elena's life, my brother had been standing behind the ballroom with the thing that made it possible. My family said Matteo had flown to Rome that afternoon. "That is not all I kept," Ellis whispered. She drew half a valet receipt from the lining of her coat. Her hand shook badly enough that I had to steady it. "He told me to call a car. Not the airport. I thought it was wrong." 5:17 a.m. — 14 East Forty-Seventh. I read it aloud. "The screen died at 11:39. This car left almost six hours later. Matteo stayed in Manhattan all night. He never flew to Rome." Ellis nodded. "He was a witness. That is why Mrs. Moretti sent them." From her other pocket, she gave Rocco a rain-warped Polaroid. Its St. Aurelia crest marked the edge. Matteo stood beneath a brass 14 at dawn, the silver AV case under his arm. The strip put him at the hotel when the feed died. The receipt kept him in the city. The photograph put him at the old Moretti holding building on East Forty-Seventh. The Rome story was not a mistake. It was a burial. Headlights washed across the dock. Vittoria's black SUV rammed through the open gate. The rear door flung wide before the tires stopped. A gunman stepped out, aimed at Ellis, then saw the valet receipt in my hand. I shoved Ellis behind the concrete pillar. The shot punched sparks from the cart. Pain tore across my cut shoulder as I dragged her lower. The gunman struck my wrist, wrenched away the receipt, and dove back into the SUV. Rocco fired into the roofline. The SUV reversed, fishtailed, and shot east through the rain. I had lost the paper that named Matteo's address. I had kept Ellis alive. Rocco had the strip and photograph. Before the taillights vanished, I caught the plate and Vittoria's silver face in one shaking phone picture. "Reyes gets the originals," I told Rocco. "Elena's terms. Get Ellis out." I climbed into the driver's seat. My shoulder burned against the wheel as I sent Elena the plate. Her call came before I could pull away. "An unknown number just messaged me," she said. "It says it's Matteo." Vittoria's SUV cut through the next intersection, heading toward the old holding building. "Read it," I said, already throwing the car into gear. Elena went silent for one beat. Then she said, "I saw who edited the tape." I drove after my mother's lights, toward the brother she had lied out of the country and the man who could name the wedding lie.