Page 30 of Traitor
And when I didn’t see anything, I started opening boxes.
“Now, what do we have in here?” I murmured to myself.
I didn’t have a phone to take pictures with, but damn it, I was pretty good at memorizing information. So, I tried to take mental snapshots of every piece of paper I pulled out of those boxes. Some of the papers were completely blank, like the entire box was a fresh stack of papers for a printer. But, some of the boxes had file folders in them.
Some were color-coated, some were arranged alphabetically, and some were simply scattered.
I couldn’t make sense of most of it. Mostly numbers and jumbled equations and chicken-scratch notes. But, then I came to a box that had impeccable manilla envelopes in them.
A stark contrast to the worn and jumbled papers I’d just born witness to.
“Huh,” I murmured.
I reached in for one of the envelopes and carefully opened it. The last thing I needed was for this room to give away the fact that I had been in it. However, when I slid the chunk of papers out that had been stashed away in the envelope, my eyes widened.
“He’s been researching me?”
I saw the letterhead used by my mother and myself at the firm and I quickly dropped the folder onto the musty, dusty desk the boxes sat on. I pulled out another envelope and looked at the papers and, sure enough, that damn letterhead was there. I pulled out six different envelopes before stopping my crusade and I got curious as to the information and the dirt Lorenzo Lucchese had on me.
But, when my eyes scanned the documents, I noticed my name didn’t appear on any of them.
Not a single one.
“What the fuck?” I hissed.
I did, however, see a lot of handwritten notes in my mother’s handwriting. I did, however, see a great deal of legal documents between Lorenzo and his half-brother, Ronnie, with my mother as the witness. I did, however, find my mother’s name and John Hancock strewn all over these documents.
And when I came to documents regarding a case my mother and I had been working together before I was kidnapped, I felt weak in my knees.
She’s been keeping guilty men out of prison for years.
The papers fell from my hands and they splattered on the floor at my feet. Tears rushed like rivers down my face and neck, dampening my dress and wetting the pearls against my skin. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight. And as I bent down, scrambling to pick up the papers so I could rearrange them, I felt like I was going to vomit.
How the hell could my mother work with these kinds of people? And in their favor!?
It brought everything into question now: was that why Mom wasn’t coming after me? Or paying the ransom? Did she arrange my kidnapping to get me away from this case? And why the hell did Lorenzo have these documents? I’d never once heard his name mentioned in the whole of the depositions we had done with our client!
I need to confront her.
After arranging the papers in their former order, I slid everything back into the envelopes. I placed them delicately, one on top of the other, making sure my tears didn’t destroy the impeccable documents. I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand and dried my tears on the hem of my dress. Then, after sliding all of the boxes back into place with their tops on, I slipped out of the room.
Before going on an actual search for my bedroom so I could lay my head down and forget what I had just seen.
14
Mateo
I slidmy diamond cufflinks into the cuffs of my shirt and looked at myself in the mirror. I wanted to dress my best for this meeting with Lorenzo because I wanted him to know exactly who was superior. I was superior in cash flow, style, control, and position in my family’s business. I wanted him to know that, at the end of the day, I could take him down with a pull of the trigger on my rifle.
But, I wasn’t nearly prepared for the surprise he bestowed upon me.
“Where to, Mr. Emiliano?” my driver asked.
I slipped into the backseat. “Lorenzo’s place. I have a meeting with him that will take a couple of hours, so feel free to drive around.”
He peeked at me in the rearview mirror. “Sure I shouldn’t stick around in case you need a getaway?”
I chuckled. “There will be no gunfire today, but I appreciate the concern. And you’ll be paid for your time, so no worries there.”
