Chapter 4 - THE SHADOW IN THE WALLS
Julian’s posture shifted instantly. The arrogant mobster vanished, replaced by a desperate, trapped animal. His bodyguards reached toward their jackets, but before their hands could hit leather, four red laser dots appeared on their chests from the shadows of the balcony above.
“Don't,” Marco warned, stepping out from the shadows behind the bar with a silenced weapon raised.
Julian swallowed hard. “Adriano... you don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't I?” Adriano stood up, his tall frame towering over Julian. “You set up the ambush on Route 9 three years ago. You wanted me dead so the Moretti family could take over the entire Rhode Island territory. But Thomas Hail ruined your plan by pulling me out of the burning wreck.”
Adriano took a step closer to Julian. “Your men shot Thomas, thinking he was one of my bodyguards. But before he died, he crawled back to his truck and hid the ledger. You spent three years hunting for it, and when you realized his widow was living in West Virginia, you had Genevieve bring her here so you could search her personal belongings without drawing police attention!”
Rebecca gasped. The small apartment she had been assigned at the back of the estate—the pantry room—had been searched dozens of times while she was at work. She had always assumed she was being paranoid when she found her meager clothes rearranged or her old family photo albums displaced.
“My stuff...” Rebecca whispered, terror creeping into her voice. “You were looking for something in my room?”
Genevieve burst into frantic tears. “Julian told me to do it! He said if we didn't find the ledger, Adriano would eventually discover that our family ordered the hit! I didn't want to hurt her! I just wanted to find the drive so we could destroy it!”
“You pushed her into a pool tonight because you were furious!” Adriano snapped, turning his deadly gaze back to his wife. “You realized Rebecca didn't have the ledger, which meant Thomas had hidden it somewhere else before he died!”
Julian sneered, dropping all pretense of innocence. “So what, Adriano? You think you can execute us here? The Moretti family controls half the police force in Providence. If Genevieve and I don't walk out of this house in ten minutes, this entire estate will be surrounded by federal agents.”
Adriano chuckled—a dark, chilling sound that sent shivers down everyone’s spine.
“You think I care about federal agents, Julian?” Adriano asked softly. “You tried to murder me. You murdered an innocent man who had a daughter. And you treated his widow like dirt under your feet.”
Adriano turned to Rebecca. His eyes softened dramatically.
May you like
“Rebecca,” he said gentler than before. “Did Thomas leave you anything before he went to work that night? Anything unusual?”
Rebecca froze. Her mind raced back three years, through the fog of grief, to the last morning she had seen her husband alive.
