Chapter 2 - The Suit With a Bulletproof Secret
I opened the door before my father could stop me.
Noah entered carrying rain on his shoulders and anger in his eyes. He locked the door behind him, checked the street through the curtain, and looked at the handgun in my father’s hand.
“If you plan to use that,” he said, “take your finger off the trigger until you’re ready.”
My father lowered the weapon.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Victor left a meeting fifteen minutes ago after receiving a call from someone watching this shop.”
“You’re watching him?”
“I watch everyone who wants my position.”
“Were you watching me too?”
Noah’s expression remained steady.
“I had someone outside while I was here.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Yes.”
My grip tightened around the ledger hidden beneath my apron.
“You had no right.”
“You’re connected to my sister’s murder investigation.”
“I never met your sister.”
“My father’s murder,” he corrected quietly. “And now Victor believes you know something.”
My father moved between us.
“She knows nothing.”
Noah’s eyes dropped briefly to my apron, where the shape of the book pressed against the fabric.
He knew I was holding something.
Yet he did not reach for it.
“Victor came through the alley,” I said.
“When?”
“Minutes ago.”
“What did he want?”
My father answered first.
“Money.”
Noah looked at me.
“The truth, Isabel.”
I thought about Victor’s warning.
Then I thought about the way Noah had stood in the fitting room while my father lied to his face. He was dangerous, but danger had already entered our shop.
Keeping silent would not send it away.
“He wanted a ledger.”
My father swore.
Noah became completely still.
“You have it?”
I removed the black book.
For the first time since entering, his control cracked.
He stared at the worn leather as though it were a piece of his father’s body returned from the grave.
“Where did you get that?”
My father stepped forward.
“Giovanni gave it to me the night he died.”
Noah’s eyes lifted.
“You were with him?”
“He came through the rear entrance around midnight. He had been shot. I tried to call a doctor, but he refused.”
“What did he say?”
“That Victor had sold the family routes to foreign traffickers. Giovanni planned to remove him. Victor learned about it first.”
Noah took one step toward the ledger.
“Give it to me.”
I held it tighter.
“No.”
My father whispered my name in warning.
Noah’s gaze sharpened.
“It belongs to my family.”
“It contains evidence of crimes committed against other families. That makes ownership more complicated.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think you understand what you’re holding?”
“No. That is why I won’t hand it to the strongest man who asks.”
He stared at me long enough for my heartbeat to become uncomfortable.
Then he nodded once.
“Good.”
I had expected anger.
The approval unsettled me more.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We get you both somewhere safe.”
“I am not leaving the shop.”
“Victor threatened you.”
“He also controls the mortgage company that bought our bank debt.”
My father looked at me.
I had not told him I discovered the transfer the previous week.
Noah’s expression darkened.
“Victor owns your debt?”
“Through a holding company.”
“He planned this before today.”
“Yes.”
Noah looked around the shop—the old wood cabinets, hand-cut patterns, my mother’s sewing machine, and the stove that required three matches to light.
“He wanted the building.”
“Why?”
My father answered.
“There is a passage beneath the basement.”
Noah closed his eyes briefly.
“What passage?”
“Your grandfather used it during Prohibition. It connects Fourth Street to the old freight tunnels near the river.”
“Those tunnels were sealed.”
“Most were.”
The ledger was only part of Victor’s plan.
He wanted the route beneath our shop.
Noah took out his phone and ordered Paulie to bring security. Then he looked toward the half-finished suit hanging near the fitting platform.
“What fabric did you use for the lining?”
I stared at him.
“Why does that matter?”
“It may be the reason I survive Wednesday.”
He explained that Victor had invited him to a family council dinner on Wednesday night. Every senior captain would attend. Noah believed his uncle planned to kill him there and blame a rival organization.
The new suit was expected to conceal lightweight protective panels.
“You came to a tailor shop for body armor?” I asked.
“I came because your father once made my father a suit that stopped a knife.”
My father looked down.
“That was a long time ago.”
“You hid chain fabric between the lining and canvas.”
“It limited his movement.”
“It kept him alive.”
I looked at the suit.
“You planned to wear it to the council dinner.”
“Yes.”
“And asking whether I had a boyfriend was part of your security plan?”
Paulie entered at that moment with four men.
Noah ignored my question.
That was an answer by itself.
The bodyguards secured the building while my father led us into the basement. Behind shelves of fabric rolls stood a heavy steel cabinet. When moved aside, it revealed a narrow brick archway.
The tunnel beyond smelled of wet stone and rust.
Noah aimed a flashlight into the darkness.
“Victor has been moving shipments through here.”
“What kind?” I asked.
“Anything people pay to hide.”
My father’s shame became visible.
“I sealed it after Giovanni died.”
“Someone reopened it.”
Fresh marks scarred the old lock.
Paulie followed the passage and returned ten minutes later carrying a wooden crate. Inside were counterfeit prescription bottles bearing labels from children’s hospitals.
Noah’s face became colder.
“Victor has been diverting medical supplies.”
My father leaned against the wall.
“Giovanni discovered the same operation years ago. That was why he planned to remove him.”
Victor had continued the trade after killing his brother.
Worse, he had been using our basement without our knowledge.
The ledger contained names from the original network. If combined with evidence from the tunnel, it could dismantle Victor’s organization.
It could also implicate Noah.
He had inherited companies once used for the shipments, even if he had spent years making them legitimate.
“What happens if we go to the police?” I asked.
“Victor owns officers.”
“Federal authorities?”
“He has contacts there too.”
“That sounds convenient whenever powerful men want to keep evidence.”
Noah looked at me.
“You believe I’m protecting myself.”
“I believe you have reasons you haven’t explained.”
“You’re right.”
Again, no denial.
He told us about Assistant United States Attorney Maya Chen, a prosecutor who had quietly investigated Victor’s financial network. Noah had provided limited information through an intermediary but never revealed himself.
“Give her the ledger,” I said.
“If I do, every Moretti account will be frozen. Hundreds of legitimate employees may lose their jobs before investigators separate clean money from criminal money.”
“People are receiving counterfeit medicine.”
“I know.”
“Then what are those jobs protecting?”
His face hardened—not at me, but at himself.
“My father asked me the same question before he died.”
Silence filled the basement.
My father suddenly grabbed his chest.
At first, I thought the truth had overwhelmed him.
Then his knees buckled.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
“Papa!”
His skin had turned gray.
Noah knelt and checked his pulse.
“Call an ambulance.”
My father seized his wrist.
“No hospital.”
“You may be having a heart attack.”
“Victor controls St. Gabriel’s.”
Noah looked toward Paulie.
“Bring Dr. Shah here.”
My father shook his head violently.
“Too late.”
He pressed a small brass key into my palm.
“The suit.”
“What?”
“Your mother’s pattern book. Inside the blue cover.”
His breathing became shallow.
“Papa, stay with me.”
“The suit is not only protection,” he whispered. “Giovanni hid something in the original design.”
Noah leaned closer.
“What did he hide?”
My father looked at him.
“Your inheritance.”
Then his eyes closed.
For several terrifying seconds, I thought he was dead.
Noah found a pulse.
We carried him upstairs as a private medical team arrived.
Dr. Shah stabilized him and diagnosed a severe cardiac episode, possibly triggered by poison.
My father had consumed espresso during Noah’s fitting.
Only three people had touched the cup.
Me.
My father.
And Paulie.
Every man in the shop turned toward Noah’s bodyguard.
Paulie stopped chewing his gum.
“I did not poison him.”
Noah’s expression became unreadable.
“Empty your pockets.”
May you like
Paulie did.
A small glass vial fell onto the cutting-room floor.
