Chapter 5 - THREE ADDRESSES
Victor’s mistake was suspicious, but suspicion would not authorize a search warrant or survive a defense attorney. The anti-factor Xa result proved Paolo had received heparin. It did not identify the person who injected him. The ledger proved money had vanished after Victor countersigned the disbursement. It did not prove he took it.
Camila refused to let Dante substitute violence for the missing links.
She and Detective Lim designed a controlled leak with the organized-crime task force. Three confidential medical-transfer notices would claim that Paolo had been located and moved to secure treatment. Each notice contained a different address and arrival time.
Leo received a West Loop address.
Gabriel Moretti received one in Bridgeport.
Victor received an unused outpatient building beside the South Canal.
Only Lim, Camila, and the federal agents supervising the operation knew all three versions.
Dante objected to Leo’s inclusion. “He took a bullet for me seven years ago.”
“Then his address will remain quiet,” Camila said. “You asked for evidence.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then you learn the truth before trusting him with your life again.”
Elena prepared the notices using the clinic’s ordinary transfer template, but each contained a microscopic variation in the footer so investigators could identify a photograph or copy. Dante delivered the information in three separate meetings while agents monitored the locations from unmarked vehicles.
At 2:14 the following morning, two armed men entered the South Canal building through a rear loading door. They carried zip ties, a suppressed handgun, and an empty medical transport bag large enough to conceal evidence or medication.
Agents followed them after they withdrew.
The men drove directly to a Lakeshore Medical Logistics warehouse registered through three shell companies. A records check connected one company to Matteo Sarto.
The judge approved a limited search warrant before dawn.
Camila waited at the clinic with Dante while Lim’s team entered the warehouse. Waiting proved more difficult for him than action. He crossed reception repeatedly, opened his phone, closed it, and stared through the plywood covering the shattered window.
“You could sit down,” Camila suggested.
“I don’t sit while other people control an outcome.”
“That may be the most honest thing you’ve said.”
Dante stopped beside her desk. “Why did you leave the hospital?”
She had not told him that part.
Three years earlier, Camila had been an attending trauma surgeon at St. Catherine Medical Center. She discovered administrators were redirecting uninsured emergency patients away from surgical care while billing charitable funds for treatment those patients never received.
She documented it, reported it, and became professionally radioactive. The hospital settled without admitting fault. Camila kept her license but lost referrals, operating privileges, and most of the colleagues who had privately agreed with her.
She used the settlement to open the clinic. Legal fees, equipment loans, and free care consumed the rest.
“You destroyed your career for strangers,” Dante said.
“No. The administrators damaged my career. Language matters.”
“Why stay in medicine?”
“Because they wanted me to regret telling the truth.”
Something in his face softened.
Lim called at 5:36.
The warehouse contained counterfeit medication labels, restricted ammunition from Costa security shipments, and payment records for a private convalescent facility called St. Agnes. Agents also found Paolo’s bloodstained shirt and the broken clasp from a watch he always wore.
There was no body.
One invoice showed that a male patient had been transported from the warehouse to St. Agnes under the name Paul Gray. The listed diagnosis was advanced dementia. The patient’s age was seventy-six.
Paolo was forty-one.
Lim was already seeking a second warrant.
Dante reached for his coat. “We go now.”
“You aren’t part of the entry team,” Camila said.
“He’s my man.”
“And if Victor placed armed guards there, your presence gives them another target. Let the police clear it. I’ll go in when they need a physician.”
“You expect me to wait here?”
“I expect you to decide whether saving Paolo matters more than satisfying your anger.”
Dante stared at her, breathing carefully through the answer he wanted to give. Then he removed his coat.
“Fine.”
Thirty minutes later, an officer brought in one of the Lakeshore cartons recovered from the warehouse. Inside were empty heparin packages carrying the same batch number identified by Paolo’s laboratory analysis.
Beneath them lay a photograph of Dante entering his mother’s mausoleum.
A date had been written across the back.
MARCH 19 — ST. JOSEPH’S DAY.
Three days away.
May you like
Victor had not merely planned to eliminate Paolo.
He was preparing to kill Dante during a family memorial where the Costa leadership would already be gathered to choose a successor.
