Chapter 6: Caruso Makes His Move
By morning, Lorenzo had Isabella in a safe house on the west side — a clean apartment above a dry-cleaning business, registered to a name that didn't exist.
He sat across from her at a small kitchen table with the documents spread between them and a pot of coffee going cold at his elbow.
She had slept for three hours.
The first real sleep, she said, in weeks.
He had not slept at all.
"Garrett's statement covers the road crew payment," he said.
"The wire transfers tie Dominic to Caruso.
That's conspiracy and attempted murd3r."
"It's enough for federal interest.
Maybe enough for an arrest." Isabella wrapped both hands around her mug.
"But Caruso will say Dominic acted alone.
He'll cut him loose before the ink dries."
"Let him.
Dominic knows where every body is buried.
The moment Caruso abandons him, Dominic will talk to save himself." Lorenzo looked at the transfer records.
"We don't need Caruso to go down first.
We need Dominic to flip."
"And if Dominic warns Caruso before we get to him?"
"Mason is already watching Dominic's building." Lorenzo's phone was face-down on the table.
"He won't make a call we don't know about."
Isabella was quiet for a moment.
"You trust Mason."
"After last night, less automatically than before." He looked at her.
"But yes."
"He kept your secret too," she said.
"When Caruso's man approached him six months ago."
Lorenzo went still.
"What?"
"Caruso tested him.
Sent someone with money and a simple ask — just confirm Mrs.
DeLuca's weekly schedule.
Mason refused.
He didn't tell you because he didn't want you to know how close Caruso had gotten." She paused.
"I found out from Garrett.
Garrett was the one who made the approach."
Lorenzo sat back.
Mason had been protecting him in the wrong direction for months.
Absorbing information, making judgment calls, keeping things back to avoid causing panic — and every one of those silences had cost them time.
He would deal with that later.
Right now it was information, not betrayal.
His phone lit up.
He turned it over.
A message from Mason.
Four words.
*Caruso is calling Dominic.*
Lorenzo stood.
"How long ago?"
He typed back.
Mason's reply came in seconds.
*Call started ninety seconds ago.
Still active.*
"He knows," Isabella said.
She was already on her feet.
"He knows we were at the warehouse." Lorenzo was moving toward the window, angling to see the street below without being visible.
"Someone saw us."
"The SUV."
"Yes." He scanned the block.
A delivery truck.
Two parked sedans.
A woman walking a dog.
Nothing wrong.
"He doesn't know where we are now."
"He'll go to the estate."
"Let him." Lorenzo turned from the window.
"I want him to."
Isabella looked at him.
"Caruso coming to me is better than me going to him.
On my ground, on my terms, with everything we have ready." He picked up his phone.
"But I need one more thing before that happens."
"What?"
"I need Dominic to hear your voice."
Isabella set her mug down slowly.
"You want to use me as the approach."
"Dominic thinks you're d*ad.
He thinks the case is closed and the money is settled and his arrangement with Caruso is secure." Lorenzo held her gaze.
"One phone call from a d*ad woman changes his calculation entirely."
"Or it sends him straight to Caruso."
"Mason will be watching.
The moment he moves, we have him." He paused.
"It's your call.
I won't ask you to do it if you don't want to."
Isabella looked at the documents on the table.
At the wire transfers with Dominic's name.
At the signed statement from a man who had been paid to help end her life.
"Give me the phone," she said.
Lorenzo dialed.
Put it on speaker.
Set it between them.
Three rings.
Dominic Reyes answered with the smooth, unhurried voice of a man who had nothing to hide.
"Lorenzo.
I was going to call you this morning, actually.
I've been thinking about the Hargrove filing and I think we need to—"
"Hello, Dominic," Isabella said.
The line went completely silent.
Six seconds passed.
"Isabella." His voice had changed entirely.
Flat.
Careful.
The voice of a man doing rapid arithmetic.
"That's…
I don't understand."
"I think you do."
Another silence.
Shorter.
"Where are you?"
"Close," she said.
"I have Garrett's statement, Dominic.
And the transfer records.
All of them."
The sound of a chair moving.
A door closing.
"Listen to me," Dominic said, his voice dropping.
"Whatever Garrett told you, he's not a reliable—"
"The account numbers match.
The dates match.
The payment cleared four days before the road crew started work." Isabella's voice was steady.
"I've had three weeks to verify every line."
Silence.
"What do you want?" he said.
"I want you to think very carefully about what happens next." She looked at Lorenzo.
"Because Vincent Caruso is on the phone with you right now, isn't he."
No answer.
"He called you this morning because someone saw us last night.
And now you're deciding whether to tell him I'm alive." Her voice stayed even.
"If you tell him, you become the man who let a d*ad woman build a case for two months while you sat on the information.
He won't forgive that."
"And if I don't tell him?"
"Then you call the number I'm about to give you.
You ask for a man named Hargrove." She glanced at Lorenzo.
He nodded once.
"And you tell him everything."
A long pause.
"Hargrove," Dominic repeated.
"Federal.
He's been interested in Caruso for four years.
You'll be the reason he finally gets him." She paused.
"Or you'll be the man Caruso decides to clean up.
Your choice.
You have one hour."
She ended the call.
The kitchen was very quiet.
Lorenzo looked at his wife across the small table.
"Hargrove is real?" she said.
"He's been trying to get to me for six years." Lorenzo almost smiled.
"Today I'm going to give him something better."
His phone buzzed.
Mason.
*Dominic just left his building on foot.
No car.
No call made.*
Lorenzo read it aloud.
Isabella exhaled.
"He's going to Hargrove," she said.
"He's going to Hargrove." Lorenzo picked up his phone.
"Now we wait for Caruso."
They didn't have to wait long.
May you like
At eleven forty-seven that morning, Vincent Caruso's car pulled through the front gate of the DeLuca estate.
He had not called ahead.
