Chapter 5 - THE ADDRESS ON THE ENVELOPE
The address led to a rehabilitation center on the far side of Bellmont, close to the old industrial canal. The building had changed names three times in six years. Officially it offered long-term care for adults who needed help after traumatic injuries. Unofficially, according to the permit records Iris Chen uncovered, several beds had been financed by a trust controlled through Bianca Santori's law office.
Paola hated the way her hope rose when she heard that. Tomas had once made paper cranes for her birthday and fixed her bicycle chain without asking. She could almost see him stepping out of a doorway, older and thinner but recognizable, carrying the same crooked smile.
Iris refused to mistake hope for proof. She arranged for a welfare check through appropriate authorities and obtained permission to accompany a social worker. Paola stayed at her shop, watching the hands of the wall clock move across the afternoon.
When Iris finally called, her voice was gentle. “There's a resident registered as Thomas Moreno. His age matches Tomas. He has an old scar along his collarbone, and he recognized the name Luis Merino.”
Paola sat down. “Is he all right?”
“He has lasting neurological injuries. The staff say he can speak, but sometimes needs extra time. He asked whether Luis was still alive.”
Paola looked at her father's photograph and began to cry.
Tomas agreed to a visit in the presence of the social worker. Paola took a bag of photographs and the small wooden puzzle he had made for her when she was eight. She did not bring Nico. He offered transportation and then accepted her refusal without protest.
Tomas looked older than his age, his hair flecked with gray, his left hand trembling slightly as he turned the puzzle in his fingers. For a long time he studied Paola without speaking.
“You look like your mother,” he said at last.
“Everyone says I have Dad's eyebrows.”
“Those too.”
She sat beside him. “We thought you'd gone away.”
“I did.” He stared at his shaking hand. “They put me away.”
He described being taken from Glassworks after the explosion. He had been injured when he tried to reach the locked west door and inhaled smoke. Men told him he was under arrest for theft, then moved him between private clinics using false papers. When his memory began to return, he was warned that contact with his family would endanger them. His identity was changed, his phone calls restricted, and his wages from small maintenance tasks withheld.
“Why didn't you tell anyone?” Paola asked, then immediately wished she could take back the question.
Tomas did not look offended. “I tried. They told me your father had died in the fire. Later they told me he was in prison. Every answer was different.”
“Did you know who kept you here?”
He nodded slowly. “Bianca visited. Victor came when I refused to sign a statement. There was another man. Mr. Falcone's father.”
“Antonio?”
“Yes. He said I should be grateful I was alive.”
Paola closed her eyes. Antonio Falcone had died three years ago, mourned by half the powerful families in the city. Luis had attended no memorial, though the local papers had praised Antonio's philanthropy. Her father had known too much to mistake a funeral for a verdict.
Tomas held out a folded drawing from beneath his pillow. It depicted the Glassworks Annex with three doors, one marked in blue, another in red. Along the west wall he'd drawn a narrow passage leading to a freight elevator.
“The official plans don't show that passage,” he said. “That's why I remembered it. They were moving containers through there after hours.”
Iris photographed the drawing with his permission. The social worker arranged an independent advocate and made clear that Tomas could refuse further interviews. The room contained no bodyguards, no threatening demands, and no dramatic speech about vengeance. It contained a man who had been kept from his family and a woman trying not to overwhelm him with seven years of questions.
Paola stayed until he grew tired. Before leaving she touched the puzzle on his bedside table.
“Dad kept making these even after you disappeared,” she said. “He'd sand the edges and set them in the shop window. He always said you were better at the difficult ones.”
Tomas smiled faintly. “He was being kind.”
“He wasn't kind about bad craftsmanship.”
The smile grew wider. For the first time, Paola felt a piece of her childhood return intact.
At Nico's estate, the final preparations for the five-family summit were underway. Bianca had requested that the major leaders attend a private briefing before Friday's public dinner. Nico understood that the meeting was probably designed to isolate him. He also knew that five powerful families controlled contracts that touched thousands of workers. An impulsive war could devastate more than the people who carried guns.
He called a meeting of his own legal and financial advisers. For the first time, he required them to include an outside compliance specialist and a representative from a labor association affected by the Glassworks shipments. Some objected. One man called the changes naive.
“Transparency is expensive,” the man warned.
“So is ignorance,” Nico said. “I've been paying for it for seven years.”
He reviewed the invoices from Antonio's former office and discovered a pattern. Bianca's companies had billed the family for security, legal services, and insurance settlements tied to facilities that no longer existed. The payments were approved through an old authorization Nico had inherited without review. Several had been routed to Victor Salerno's businesses.
The discovery did not absolve Nico. He had signed broad delegations, approved suspicious budgets, and benefited from profits generated by a system he had never fully examined. Each document reminded him of the gulf between being deceived and choosing not to look.
Rafael watched him study the records after midnight. “You look like you want to burn the whole place down.”
“That's what my father would have done.”
“And you?”
“I think I should learn who gets hurt when something burns.”
He called Paola the following morning. She answered while adjusting glasses for an elderly customer and asked him to wait. For several minutes he listened to her speak gently about reading distances and how a new prescription might feel strange for the first few days.
“Thank you for waiting,” she said when she returned. “Most important men hang up when they don't get immediate attention.”
“I can wait.”
“What happened?”
“I've arranged an appointment with a specialist. And I found documents that make Bianca's account of the explosion impossible.”
“Good. Give them to Iris.”
“I intend to.”
Paola hesitated. “Tomas is alive.”
Nico was silent.
“He was kept in a rehabilitation center under a false name. Bianca visited him. Victor threatened him. Your father knew.”
Nico leaned against his desk. “I'm sorry.”
She heard the strain in his voice. “I know. But don't apologize in place of action.”
“No. I'll provide the records.”
“Then that's a beginning.”
That afternoon Paola received a surprise visitor: Bianca Santori herself. She entered the optical shop without looking at the frames, dressed in a cream suit and carrying a slim leather bag. Unlike Victor, she did not break anything. She seemed to believe that money could be more humiliating than violence.
“I've come to make an offer,” Bianca said.
“No.”
“You haven't heard it.”
“I heard you lied about Glassworks. That was enough.”
Bianca placed a cashier's check on the counter. Fifty thousand dollars, payable to Paola personally. In exchange she wanted the optical lens, any copies made from it, and a written assurance that Paola would not discuss the material at Friday's meeting.
Paola looked at the amount. It could replace the old machines, pay the shop's rent for years, and allow her to hire a qualified assistant. It could also purchase a small house with a room large enough for Marisol to visit, and remove the fear of waking to another broken window.
“Why would I agree?” she asked.
“Because the men you're helping will never let you stand beside them as an equal.” Bianca glanced at the faded cardigan Paola wore over her blouse. “Look at you. You think Falcone sees a partner? He sees a diversion. One day he'll tire of it.”
Paola folded her arms. “I don't know what he sees. I know what you want.”
“Safety.”
“Silence.”
Bianca's expression chilled. “You're very much your father's daughter. He mistook stubbornness for virtue too.”
“He saved Nico's life.”
“And in doing so interfered with a plan he didn't understand.”
The words hung between them. Bianca seemed to realize what she had said an instant too late.
Paola did not move. The security camera above the counter, installed after Victor's break-in, faced the exact spot where Bianca stood. Its small red indicator remained on.
“What plan?” Paola asked softly.
Bianca took back the check. “Enjoy your shop while you still have it.”
She left without another word.
Paola closed the front door and called Iris. Then she reviewed the camera recording from the beginning, preserving the original file before making copies. The admission was ambiguous, but it was more than she had possessed yesterday.
At dusk, Tomas called from the rehabilitation center. The social worker helped him hold the phone.
“Paola,” he said, “there's something else. The explosion wasn't about cargo. It was about making Nico inherit before he asked questions.”
“Who would inherit what?”
“The family contracts. His father wanted him obedient. Somebody else wanted him blind.”
Paola looked toward the darkening street. A familiar black sedan stood across from the bakery, but Rafael had assured her Nico had ordered no surveillance. She put the call on speaker for Iris, who had arrived moments earlier, and asked Tomas one last question.
“Who wanted him blind?”
Tomas's voice became very quiet. “The woman with the reflective pendant. She told Antonio an eye could be taken without a bullet.”
May you like
Bianca.
Paola lowered the phone. Friday was no longer just the day Victor expected payment. It was the day Bianca intended to decide what the five families believed about a seven-year-old explosion—and whether anyone would survive long enough to contradict her.
