Marco looked toward the stranger.
“I thought I did after we found him alone beside a dead car.”
The word him carried weight.
Amelia glanced at the man whose Bentley she had repaired in the rain.
He stood motionless beside the lift, soaked suit drying into hard lines across his shoulders.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Every man in the garage looked at her.
Victor appeared almost offended by the question.
The stranger answered without ceremony.
“Luca Moretti.”
The name landed with a force Amelia did not immediately understand.
Then memory supplied the pieces.
Moretti Holdings owned shipping terminals, restaurants, construction companies, and half the private security contracts in the county.
Newspapers photographed Luca Moretti at charity dinners and courthouse entrances.
Prosecutors described him more cautiously, usually with phrases such as suspected criminal enterprise and alleged organized network.
People outside courtrooms used a simpler description.
Mafia boss.
Amelia looked at the black SUVs beyond the garage windows, at the men stationed beside every entrance, and at Victor’s expensive coat.
Her father’s rule had led her to stop for one of the most feared men in the city.
Luca watched recognition move across her face.
“Does the name change your diagnosis?”
“No.”
A faint expression touched his mouth.
Not quite a smile.
“Good.”
Victor stepped toward him.
“Luca, we should leave.
We can examine the system at a controlled facility.”
Luca did not look away from Amelia.
“Is this facility uncontrolled?”
“It is unsecured.”
“It was secure enough to expose what my own people missed.”
Victor’s face tightened.
Amelia turned back to the computer.
She did not want to become part of whatever happened next, but she was already standing inside it.
The safest path was through the evidence.
“There may be another record,” she said.
Victor moved again.
Marco stepped into his path.
No weapon appeared.
No threat was spoken.
Marco simply stood there, and Victor understood that the hierarchy had changed.
Amelia opened the module’s secondary memory.
Most mechanics ignored it because it stored only temporary diagnostic handshakes.
Her father had taught her that machines remembered more than people expected.
A sequence of numbers appeared.
She compared it with the credential record.
“The module was connected to an external service tool,” she said.
“Not the dealership system.
A portable unit.”
Luca looked at Marco.
“How many exist?”
“Three authorized units,” Marco replied.
“One at the fleet garage.
One with the mobile team.
One held by security command.”
