Chapter 6 - The Man at Nico's Right Hand

Thomas Vale had stood beside Nico Ferrante for twenty-two years.

He had been best man at Nico's second wedding, godfather to Sienna, and the man who carried Nico's wife out of the church after she fainted at Mila's baptism.

He also controlled executive administration.

Nico did not want to believe it.

"We have a server failure," Nico said. "Bring your hardware token to St. Vincent's. Daniel needs it to verify access."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Detective Park studied him. "You think he'll come?"

"If he's innocent, yes. If he's guilty, he'll come because refusing looks worse."

"And if the token is missing?"

"Then we stop pretending."

Sienna sat with Mila asleep beside her.

"Thomas loves me."

"Maybe. People can love you and still choose themselves."

Twenty-six minutes later, Thomas entered the conference room wearing a navy overcoat and carrying his laptop bag.

"I heard there was trouble. Are you okay?"

"I'm trying to be."

"What happened to her hair?"

"The token."

"Here?"

"Now."

Thomas slowly opened his laptop bag.

"That's strange."

"What's strange?"

"It's not here."

"When did you last see it?"

"Friday. I used it in the executive suite."

"Who was there?"

"Nico, come on. You know how many people come through that floor."

"Who was there?"

"Daniel. Two assistants. Gavin stopped by."

"Why was Gavin in executive administration?"

"He said Nico asked him to deliver revised project forecasts."

"I did not."

Park asked, "Did Mr. Cole have access to your office?"

"For maybe five minutes. I took a call in the hall."

"Was your token secured?"

"It was plugged into the docking station."

"We recovered part of the deleted garage video."

"Show me."

The image was grainy, with blocks of corrupted pixels.

The timestamp showed twenty minutes before Nico arrived.

Gavin stood beside the SUV speaking to Sienna.

A new figure appeared at the garage entrance.

He handed Gavin something small and rectangular.

Sienna leaned closer to the screen.

"Dad..."

Nico stared at the man's face.

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Thomas Vale whispered, "That's impossible."

Because the man on the video was Thomas Vale himself.