Chapter 6: # CHAPTER 6: Brothers
Vincent Moreau walked into the study looking like a man who had rehearsed the conversation three times on the drive over.
He was fifty-one.
Silver at the temples.
The kind of face that had always made people trust him in a room before he opened his mouth.
He had used that face for twenty-two years inside Lorenzo's world, and Lorenzo had never once questioned it.
He set his coat over the back of a chair — the chair across from the desk, not the one beside it.
Distance, not intimacy.
That was new.
"I heard Rachel Ortiz pulled a warrant on the freight district."
"Where did you hear that?"
"I still have contacts in the department." He sat down.
"Lorenzo.
Talk to me.
What's happening?"
Lorenzo looked at him across the desk.
This was the man who had stood at the graveside.
Who had held his shoulder when the casket went down.
Who had said *you have to keep living* and meant it — or performed meaning it so well the difference had never mattered.
"What information do you have about Isabella?"
Vincent leaned forward.
"I think someone staged the accident."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because three weeks before she d\*\*d, she came to me." He paused.
"She said she'd found irregularities in the North Pier vendor accounts.
She asked me to look at them quietly before bringing them to you."
Lorenzo said nothing.
"I told her I'd handle it." Vincent's hands were flat on his knees.
"I didn't.
I thought she was misreading the invoices.
I thought—" He stopped.
"If someone found out she was asking questions and I had dismissed it—"
"Vincent."
"—then I need you to know I didn't think it would—"
"Vincent."
He stopped.
Lorenzo looked at him steadily.
"She came to you."
"Yes."
"And you told her you'd handle it."
"Yes."
"And then she d\*\*d."
The word landed in the room and didn't move.
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"That's why I'm here.
If someone in the vendor network found out she was looking—"
"Who else knew she came to you?"
"No one."
"You're certain."
"Yes."
"You didn't discuss it with anyone.
Not your brother-in-law.
Not anyone connected to Castellan Advisory Group."
The name hit him.
Lorenzo watched it land.
A small thing — the slight stillness that moved through Vincent's shoulders, the way his hands didn't quite stay flat.
"How do you know about Castellan?"
"Answer the question."
"I don't know what you think Castellan—"
"Nine point four million dollars, Vincent." Lorenzo's voice didn't rise.
It never needed to.
"Eighteen months.
Shell vendors.
Inflated invoices.
Routed through your brother-in-law's consulting firm." He paused.
"Isabella found it.
That's what was in the PORT FILES.
That's why she came to you.
And that's why you told her you'd handle it — because you needed to know exactly how much she knew before she told me."
Vincent stood up.
"That is not what happened."
"Sit down."
"Lorenzo, I have been with you for twenty-two years—"
"Sit.
Down."
Vincent sat.
The fire crackled.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then Vincent said, quietly: "I didn't touch Isabella."
"I didn't say you did."
"You're implying—"
"I'm not implying anything.
I'm telling you what the financial records show." Lorenzo leaned forward slightly.
"What happened to Isabella is a separate investigation.
One I am cooperating with fully.
If your name appears in that investigation, it will be because evidence put it there.
Not because I put it there."
Vincent looked at him.
Something moved behind his eyes — calculation, or fear, or both layered so tightly they'd become indistinguishable.
"I want to help find her."
"No."
"Lorenzo—"
"You are not part of this search.
You are not informed of developments.
You do not contact Sophia Walker or her daughter.
You do not contact anyone connected to North Pier Logistics until the financial audit is complete." Lorenzo stood.
"And you do not come to this house again without my lawyer present."
Vincent's face changed.
The rehearsed version of himself — the trusted friend, the loyal second — slipped, just for a moment.
What was underneath it was harder to read.
He picked up his coat.
At the door he turned.
"Twenty-two years, Lorenzo."
"I know."
"Everything I built with you—"
"I know what you built." Lorenzo looked at him.
"I also know what you took."
Vincent left.
Lorenzo stood at the window and watched the headlights of Vincent's car sweep across the gate and disappear.
His phone was already in his hand.
"Rachel.
Vincent Moreau just came to the estate.
He knows about the warrant.
He knows about the freight district.
And he knows Isabella was looking at the PORT FILES — because she told him herself, three weeks before the crash." A pause.
"He has a contact inside your department."
Silence on the line.
Then Rachel said: "Don't touch anything.
May you like
I'll be there in twenty minutes."
* * *
