Chapter 4 - MALIK BLAKE
Naomi did not let Lorenzo explain immediately.
Good.
She called her solicitor.
Then Sophia.
Then her mother.
Lorenzo stayed in the kitchen.
He could hear nothing through closed door.
For the first time since he found her, he understood she needed a place safe from him too.
That realization hurt.
It should.
When Naomi returned, she wore his jacket still.
She took it off.
Folded it.
Set it on chair.
A small thing.
A boundary.
“What did you do to my father?”
Lorenzo answered carefully.
“Malik worked at Eastgate Dock.”
“I know.”
“He led a group challenging our labor practices.”
“What labor practices?”
“Off-book overtime. intimidation. people being fired for refusing certain loads.”
Naomi stared.
“You did that.”
“Yes.”
“You were what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Old enough.”
“Yes.”
No youth excuse.
Then:
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you order someone to hurt him?”
“No.”
“Did you threaten him?”
Lorenzo thought.
Once, outside a pub.
Malik had called him a thief.
Lorenzo said:
“If you cost me another shipment, you’ll never work this river again.”
Threat to livelihood.
Not physical.
“I threatened his job.”
Naomi’s eyes filled.
“Did you blacklist him?”
“Yes.”
“Did that ruin him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
He accepted.
Then:
“What happened after?”
Malik lost work at three connected docks.
He began drinking more according to old records? Need careful, no victim blaming. Maybe police report had alcohol at death. His wife said he became depressed.
Lorenzo had not followed.
Three months later:
Malik drowned after leaving a pub.
Police found no evidence assault.
Could Mateo have caused? Maybe later reveal Mateo paid someone to intimidate and accidentally caused death? That would tie betrayal deeper. But need not make every death murder. Could keep accident or unresolved. Mateo using it now because he knows Lorenzo’s role in blacklisting.
Naomi asked:
“Did Mateo know him?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mateo want him gone?”
“Both of us did from the docks.”
Then:
“Did Mateo ever send men?”
“I don’t know.”
Wrong phrase.
Naomi laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Then Lorenzo opened old company records.
He had backups.
Payroll.
security logs.
emails.
Malik file.
One note from Mateo:
Blake problem handled. He won’t be back.
Date:
two weeks before death.
Lorenzo stared.
Naomi saw.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He looked at her.
“It means I don’t know.”
She stood.
“Then find out without hiding it.”
Good.
He sent record to Detective Price and Naomi’s solicitor.
Not private investigator first.
Then Malik’s old case reopened? Could be reviewed, depending evidence.
Price said:
one note not enough.
They requested archival police file.
Then Mateo’s broader plan.
Police traced video upload through layers? We don't need technical.
No location yet.
But financial accounts froze.
North Atlantic Futures board suspended.
Mia safe.
Carlo woke.
He asked for police.
Not Lorenzo.
Good.
Carlo gave statement.
He discovered trust fraud four months earlier.
He confronted Mateo privately.
Mateo said:
“Lorenzo knows.”
Carlo believed.
Why?
Because Lorenzo signed documents.
Forged, but convincing.
So Carlo helped move files for Mateo, thinking both partners approved.
Then he noticed beneficiary signatures looked wrong.
Asked Lorenzo indirectly.
Lorenzo dismissed?
Carlo had once asked:
“You still care about the old dependents trust?”
Lorenzo replied:
“Mateo handles it.”
There.
He had been warned.
Not enough to know.
Enough to reveal neglect.
Then Carlo began collecting evidence.
Mateo discovered.
Threatened his brother’s restaurant.
Carlo pretended loyalty.
Then Naomi abduction.
Carlo learned Mateo planned to leave Naomi in warehouse for Lorenzo.
Why?
Mateo wanted Lorenzo to take her privately.
Then he planned to use Dryland to follow.
Find Lorenzo’s secret safe house.
Mateo did not know location.
If Lorenzo brought Naomi to dock, Mateo could control.
If Lorenzo hid her, she became tracker without knowing? Did they implant tracker? That would be plausible but risky. Maybe Mateo hid a small tracker in jacket? Naomi wore Lorenzo's jacket after warehouse, not Mateo's. Her clothes maybe. They could have put tracker in her shoe. Could be operational surveillance detail but not too harmful. Better not.
Maybe they expected Lorenzo to use his usual safe locations and monitored routes. But Lorenzo used unknown safe house, so plan failed.
Then Mateo sent photo to force distrust and make Naomi panic.
Carlo tried warn.
Dryland shot Carlo.
Then Mateo planned to frame Lorenzo with Naomi’s old recordings and Carlo motive.
Why steal trust?
Money and exit.
He had lost heavily in speculative investments? Could be motive cliché. Maybe he resented Lorenzo's dominance and wanted independent capital to take Canadian operations. Trust assets were his seed money.
Documents showed Mateo negotiating sale of portions of Canada route to a rival consortium.
He needed clean-ish funds and beneficiary trust offered pool.
Then Lorenzo’s share?
He planned to leave Lorenzo owning liabilities from missing controlled shipments, illegal routes, and fraud.
A partner divorce through criminal ruin.
Then Naomi asked:
“Why me?”
Because Mateo saw Lorenzo cared.
Not love yet.
He saw Lorenzo notice Naomi.
He recruited her because:
access.
financial vulnerability.
low visibility.
Then when she refused tracker, he converted her into bait.
Naomi swallowed.
“So I was never important.”
Lorenzo said:
“You were important enough to use.”
She looked.
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Then:
“And you’re important now?”
He took too long.
Naomi’s eyes narrowed.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make this romantic because you cut ropes.”
Good.
Lorenzo nodded.
“I wasn’t.”
He had been close.
Then:
“I care whether you live. I care whether your sister gets treatment. I care what happened to your father. None of that gives me a claim.”
Naomi studied.
“Better.”
Then Malik case.
Old witness:
a bartender remembered Malik leaving alone.
CCTV long gone.
Autopsy found alcohol and drowning, no significant assault trauma.
One statement from friend:
Malik said “Russo boys” had threatened him that week.
Could mean Lorenzo and Mateo.
No proof murder.
Naomi wanted certainty.
Could not get.
Then she said:
“If you blacklisted him, you helped break his life.”
“Yes.”
“Even if you didn’t kill him.”
“Yes.”
No defense.
Then:
“Would you do it now?”
“No.”
“Because of me?”
“No.”
Important.
“Because it was wrong and because fear-based control created half the mess I’m standing in.”
That was closer.
Then Detective Price called.
Dryland arrested near Dover trying to leave UK.
He requested solicitor.
No confession.
Weapon tied to Carlo found earlier in his vehicle.
Strong.
Then Mateo?
Still missing.
But Price had another development.
A woman named Giulia Russo had come forward.
Mateo’s younger sister.
She said Mateo contacted her.
And he was not running from police.
He was running from someone else.
“Who?” Lorenzo asked.
Price paused.
“A Canadian businessman named Adrian Cole.”
Lorenzo knew the name.
Everyone in the London-Canada corridor did.
Cole had financed legitimate ports, trucking, and—quietly—parts of the criminal trade Mateo wanted to sell.
Mateo may have betrayed Lorenzo.
But he might also have sold himself to a man who now wanted every witness gone.
Naomi’s mother, Denise, agreed to speak to police about Malik.
She also agreed to speak to Lorenzo once.
By phone.
Solicitors present.
Her first sentence was:
“Do not call me Mrs. Blake like you respect me now.”
Lorenzo stayed quiet.
Then Denise said:
“My husband came home the week before he died and told me men had made it clear he would never work another dock if he kept talking.”
“Did he name them?”
“Russo.”
Lorenzo’s chest tightened.
“Mateo?”
“He said ‘the Russo boy.’ Back then I didn’t know which man around you was which.”
Lorenzo was Moretti.
Mateo Russo.
Likely Mateo.
Still not proof.
Then Denise continued:
“Malik drank that night. I know that. We fought. He left angry. I spent years wondering if the men killed him or if fear helped push him toward that river or if he just slipped.”
No clean answer.
Then:
“You know what your people did regardless?”
“Yes.”
“They taught him his work could disappear because one rich criminal disliked him.”
“Yes.”
That was documented.
Denise did not need murder to justify anger.
Then she said:
“Naomi thinks knowing exactly how he died will fix something.”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t get to tell her that.”
Right.
He corrected.
“I don’t think knowing would fix what I did.”
Better.
Denise went quiet.
Then:
“She cared about you before she knew who her father was to you.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
“Don’t turn that into another debt she has to pay.”
“I won’t.”
“Men like you always say that.”
Call ended.
Lorenzo sat with the insult.
It was not entirely an insult.
It was experience.
Naomi kept one copy of Malik’s employment records.
Not to reread every week.
To have them.
For years, the Moretti-Russo organization had controlled the official version of why her father disappeared from dock work. Now she had the records herself.
Ownership of evidence did not answer how he died.
May you like
It did stop other people from owning the story.
Nothing about that required forgiveness, only accuracy and enough courage to stop inventing certainty where none existed.
