Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN I HAD CALLED A TRAITOR
“Put Sofia to bed.”
Maria stared at me.
“We're leaving.”
“No.”
Her fear hardened into anger.
“You do not decide where my daughter sleeps.”
Fair.
I forced myself to lower my voice.
“Then take her home.”
Maria shifted Sofia higher.
“And tomorrow?”
“We talk.”
“About Mateo?”
“Yes.”
Her face became pale.
Then she left.
I did not sleep.
At 4:10 a.m., I opened the archived file from the Russo betrayal.
Vincent's communications.
Warehouse schedules.
Security leaks.
Three dead men.
Anthony Caruso.
Eli Grant.
Mateo Torres.
Mateo had worked logistics for me for almost six years.
Quiet.
Good with numbers.
Never flashy.
He used to bring homemade sandwiches because he refused to pay Manhattan prices for lunch.
I remembered teasing him.
He told me:
“Rich people stay rich by convincing poor people twelve dollars is normal for bread.”
I had liked him.
Then the betrayal happened.
After his death, investigators found encrypted messages from an account registered to Mateo.
Schedules had been leaked.
Vehicle routes.
Warehouse access.
I was grieving and furious.
Vincent was alive.
Mateo wasn't.
It became easy to believe there had been two traitors.
I never attended Mateo's funeral.
That realization landed differently now.
At nine the next morning, Maria arrived alone.
No uniform.
Jeans.
Black sweater.
She remained standing.
“I don't work for you anymore.”
“You're resigning?”
“Yes.”
“Because I know who Mateo was.”
“Because you think you know.”
That caught me.
“Sit.”
“No.”
I almost ordered her.
Stopped.
Progress, apparently.
“What do you believe happened?”
Maria reached into her bag.
A photograph.
Mateo holding newborn Sofia.
He looked exhausted.
Happy.
Alive.
“He knew somebody was using his credentials.”
I stared.
“When?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
“Why didn't he report it?”
“He did.”
“To whom?”
“Vincent.”
My stomach tightened.
Of course.
Maria continued.
“Mateo thought someone inside logistics was copying access keys.”
“Did he have proof?”
“He said he was building it.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
She swallowed.
“The night before he died, he came home scared.”
“Mateo was rarely scared.”
“I know.”
That answer reminded me she had known a version of him I never had.
“He gave me a key.”
Maria placed a small brass key on my desk.
No label.
Old.
“He said if anything happened, I should find the room Daniel never enters.”
I frowned.
“He used my name?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly?”
She nodded.
“Find the room Daniel never enters.”
I stared at the key.
“This estate?”
“I assumed.”
“Why apply here?”
“To find it.”
Truth.
Finally.
“So you lied on your application.”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“I am a housekeeper.”
“You came here searching for evidence.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Would you have hired the widow of the man your files call a traitor?”
No.
Probably not.
Maria continued.
“I didn't come to hurt you.”
“You came to search my house.”
“Yes.”
“What have you opened?”
“Nothing locked.”
I looked at the key.
“Yet.”
She said nothing.
I should have been furious.
Instead I thought of Sofia walking past the cash.
“Why didn't you steal the file?”
“I couldn't find it.”
“If you had?”
“I would've copied anything about Mateo.”
“And taken it?”
“Yes.”
Again.
No lie.
That was becoming inconveniently compelling.
“Why didn't you believe the messages attributed to him?”
Maria looked at me like I was stupid.
“Because I was married to him.”
“Marriage doesn't prevent betrayal.”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“But Mateo told me when he cheated on a diet.”
I almost smiled.
She didn't.
“He confessed when he scratched our neighbor's car.”
Her eyes filled.
“He once woke me at two in the morning because he realized he had accidentally kept twenty dollars a cashier gave him in change.”
Maria looked directly at me.
“You expect me to believe that man sold people to their deaths?”
I had no answer.
She continued.
“I don't know whether he made mistakes.”
“He probably did.”
“But I know he didn't come home scared because he was planning to betray you.”
Something cold moved through me.
“What exactly did he say that night?”
Maria closed her eyes.
Then quoted him.
“If Hale believes Vincent was the beginning, everyone dies for nothing.”
My body went still.
“What?”
She repeated it.
“If Hale believes Vincent was the beginning, everyone dies for nothing.”
Vincent wasn't the beginning.
I looked at the betrayal file.
The assumption we had built everything around.
“What was Vincent, then?”
May you like
Maria's voice dropped.
“The middle.”
