Leo’s face changed.
The corporate calm disappeared.
For the first time, Sophie saw the brutality that had made people call him the Brick.
He seized the back of her chair and dragged it sideways.
The uneven leg scraped across the concrete.
Coffee toppled from the table.
“You smug little—”
Two guns rose.
Not at Sophie.
At Leo.
Matteo did not raise his voice.
“Step away from her.”
Leo’s hands remained on the chair.
“She’s turning you against your own people.”
“My own people do not interrupt me three times while I am asking questions.”
“You’ve known me twelve years.”
“And I have known her twelve minutes.” Matteo glanced at the phone.
“Yet only one of you has given me information I can verify.”
Leo let go.
Matteo ordered one man to retrieve the locker key from Sophie’s building and another to watch Leo.
Sophie remained in the warehouse with Matteo, the youngest kidnapper, and two silent guards.
No one retied her hands.
The wait lasted forty-one minutes.
Sophie knew because the clock on her phone changed from 12:26 to 1:07.
Matteo did not pace.
He sat across from Leo with the Zippo closed in his palm.
Leo stood beneath the halogen lamp, growing less still with every passing minute.
Sophie drank what remained of the coffee.
At 1:07, Matteo’s phone rang.
He answered without taking his eyes from Leo.
“Yes.”
A voice spoke through the receiver.
Matteo’s expression did not change, but his thumb stopped moving over the lighter.
“What else?”
Another pause.
“Photograph everything.
Touch nothing more.”
He ended the call.
Leo spread his hands.
“Well?”
Matteo placed the phone on the table.
“The locker contained redemption receipts, account ledgers, three passports, and eight hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
Leo laughed too loudly.
“Chloe’s emergency fund.”
“The passports have your photographs.”
The laugh died.
Matteo continued.
“The receipts show the bonds were redeemed through two holding companies eleven months ago.
Both companies were authorized by your signature.”
Leo looked around the warehouse.
The men who had once straightened when Matteo entered were now watching Leo with the blank focus of witnesses memorizing a crime scene.
“They’re forged,” Leo said.
Matteo opened the black folder again.
“Then you have nothing to fear from an investigation.”
Leo’s head snapped toward him.
“Investigation?”
