Chapter 4 - THE HUNT BEGINS
In the penthouse at Viscari Tower, the air was thick with tension.
Matteo sat behind his massive mahogany desk, his collar unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms. On the wall behind him, a massive map of the Eastern Seaboard was stuck with red magnetic pins.
Paul Torrino stood across from him, looking pale. "We tracked the Volvo, boss. She bought it eight months ago under a dead woman's Social Security number in Jersey. The plate hit an automated traffic camera just outside Albany at 4:15 AM."
Matteo leaned forward, his knuckles white against the desk. "And after Albany?"
"She disappeared. She didn't use an E-ZPass. She paid cash at the toll booths. She’s off the grid, Matteo."
"She’s heading north," Matteo said, his voice deadly low. "Her father had a cabin near Montreal thirty years ago. She thinks in patterns. She thinks I don't remember the stories she told me when we first met." He closed his eyes, a sudden, agonizing wave of memory hitting him like a physical blow.
He remembered her sitting on the porch of his summer estate in the Hamptons, four years ago, laughing softly as she recounted her childhood winters in Quebec. He had been checking his phone the entire time, barely listening, nodding absentmindedly while approving a shipment of contraband.
He had ignored her. For seven years, he had treated her presence like oxygen—essential, but invisible.
"Send three teams north," Matteo commanded, opening his eyes, his gaze sharp and terrifying. "Take the back roads. Check every motel, every diner, every rental cabin within fifty miles of the border."
"And if we find her?" Paul asked quietly. "Don Camillo’s men are asking questions, boss. They saw the commotion at the tower this morning. Rumors are spreading that something big was taken from you. If Camillo gets to her first—"
"Camillo won't reach her," Matteo snarled, slamming his fist onto the desk with enough force to send a crystal glass flying onto the carpet, shattering it into a hundred pieces. "If Camillo’s men cross into upstate territory, put them in the ground. Nobody touches her! She is my wife!"
"Matteo..." Paul hesitated, taking a brave step closer. "You need to face facts. She took the ledger. She took the Moretti file. She didn't leave because she was mad about Lena Marik. She left because she’s spent seven years building a trap to destroy you."
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Matteo stood up slowly. His tall, broad frame towered over Paul. For the first time in his life, there was something broken in his posture—a ragged, desperate edge that terrified even his oldest enforcer.
"You don't know her," Matteo whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and overwhelming grief. "She didn't take that ledger to destroy me. She took it because it was the only thing I cared about more than her. She took it to make me look at her. And God help me, Paul... I’m going to spend every dollar and every drop of blood I have to bring her home."
