CHAP 5 — THE NAME BENEATH HER NAME
The key opened a safe-deposit box at a bank on Madison Avenue.
Inside were no diamonds.
No cash.
No weapons.
Only papers.
A birth certificate.
Mave Bennett.
Then another.
Maeve Elena Vale.
Mave stared.
“My name is Maeve?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Your mother shortened it when she changed your identity.”
Mave touched the page.
Father: Marcus Adrian Vale.
Mother: Elena Rose Vale.
Her mother’s name had not been Marianne Bennett.
That identity had been created too.
Mave sat down.
Twenty-nine years of life.
Two pages erased it.
Vincent stayed across the room.
He did not touch her.
For once, he understood protection could mean giving someone space.
Gabriel opened another envelope.
A partnership agreement.
Marcus Vale’s thirty-one percent of Costa Maritime.
The agreement contained a survivorship provision.
If Marcus died, his interest passed to his spouse.
If she died—
to their child.
Mave looked at Vincent.
“I own thirty-one percent.”
“Potentially.”
“Potentially?”
“The company has been reorganized six times.”
Gabriel smiled.
“Alessandro tried to bury the ownership.”
Vincent turned sharply.
Gabriel corrected himself.
“Not steal it.”
He slid forward another document.
A trust.
Alessandro had preserved Marcus’s economic interest inside a dormant trust.
Beneficiary:
Maeve Elena Vale.
Vincent stared.
“My father restored it?”
“He tried.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because Carmine still had people around you.”
Vincent thought of Donovan.
His expression hardened.
Mave calculated quickly.
Costa Maritime’s legitimate holdings were worth billions.
Her share—
“Two-point-eight billion,” Vincent said.
She looked at him.
“Stop reading my face.”
“You were doing math.”
“I always do math.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
But the trust contained a condition.
Mave could not activate her ownership without Marcus Vale’s original ledger.
Proof that the shares had been concealed under coercion and fraud.
“Where’s the ledger?”
Gabriel removed a small black notebook.
Mave stared.
“You had it?”
“Half.”
He opened it.
Every page was filled with coded entries.
“What does it mean?”
“Marcus divided the evidence.”
“Who has the other half?”
Gabriel looked toward Vincent.
“Alessandro did.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“My father’s private vault.”
“Exactly.”
The Costa family vault sat beneath a townhouse in Little Italy that Vincent had not entered since his father died.
They went that night.
The vault contained cash reserves, old contracts, jewelry, and family documents.
No ledger.
Vincent searched twice.
Then Mave noticed a line of dust beneath the lowest shelf.
She knelt.
Pressed the wood.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a red notebook.
Gabriel exhaled.
“Marcus always said Alessandro was predictable.”
Vincent handed it to Mave.
She placed the two halves together.
They fit.
Numbers began matching.
Names.
Payments.
Dates.
Mave read one entry.
C. COSTA — BISHOP / PIER 17 / 900K.
Another.
D. ROSS — ACCESS / M.V. OFFICE.
Donovan Ross.
Vincent leaned closer.
“He was there seventeen years ago.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Donovan didn’t join you after your father died.”
“He was already working for Carmine.”
Vincent went still.
Donovan had taught him to drive.
Had stood beside him at Alessandro’s funeral.
Had carried Vincent home drunk at twenty-three.
Had protected him through two assassination attempts.
A traitor was painful.
A traitor who had loved parts of you was worse.
Mave turned another page.
Her finger stopped.
There was a name she recognized.
ELENA VALE.
Her mother.
Next to it:
ALIVE — LOCATION UNKNOWN.
Mave stared.
“No.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
“What?”
Mave pushed the ledger toward him.
“You told me my mother died six years ago.”
Gabriel looked at the notation.
His hands began shaking.
“That entry is dated two years after her supposed death.”
May you like
Mave’s voice became barely audible.
“My mother might be alive.”
