Chapter 5 What we choose to see

CHAPTER FIVE – WHAT WE CHOOSE TO SEE

Marcos hated coffee shops.

They were too open. Too loud. Too public. But Vanessa insisted on meeting at Hollow & Grind, a small café near the courthouse with mismatched furniture and faded walls covered in poetry nobody read.

He chose a table near the back-facing the door, of course.

Always.

Vanessa arrived five minutes late, hoodie pulled low over her forehead, no makeup, and tension in every step.

She carried the USB drive like it might explode.

"You trust public places now?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I trust witnesses," she replied flatly. "If you're planning to kill me, at least five baristas can describe your face."

"You think I'd be sloppy?"

She dropped into the chair across from him and unzipped her backpack without answering.

The tension was electric.

"I read what you gave me," she said. "Twice."

"And?"

"There are names I recognize. Mia's old coworker, a retired port inspector, a cop I once interviewed."

She slid a paper across the table-handwritten connections, arrows, dates, and question marks.

It wasn't just grief anymore.

It was strategy.

"You did all this in one night?" Marcos asked.

"Grief has a long memory."

He watched her closely. She hadn't touched her tea. Her hands trembled slightly, but her eyes were steel.

"There's a name on this," she said, tapping one of the corners. "K. Varga. I saw it on a shipping log Mia flagged in an email. Do you know him?"

Marcos' jaw tightened.

"Yeah," he said. "Kosta Varga. He's not De Luca blood, but he's been with the family for years. Ran cargo routes for us. Ruthless. Quiet."

"Think he's involved?"

"If Mia was meeting someone that night... it was probably him."

Vanessa exhaled like the air had been punched out of her lungs.

"Then I need to find him."

"You don't find Varga," Marcos said. "You run from him."

"I didn't come this far to run."

A pause.

Then:

"I'll find him," he said. "But if I do-you don't go near him."

"You don't get to decide-"

"I do if you want to stay alive."

His voice was quiet. Final. It didn't come from a place of control. It came from someone who'd seen what Varga did to people who asked the wrong questions.

Vanessa said nothing for a while.

Then:

"You said Mia wasn't on assignment. But what if she was?"

"What do you mean?"

"She'd stopped writing. But she never stopped recording. I found a notebook in her things. Pages missing. Torn out."

"You think she was building a story?"

"I think she was going to expose something."

Marcos leaned back.

The idea chilled him.

Because if Mia had been planning to out the De Luca family... and someone inside knew...

"She didn't die because she was caught in something," Vanessa said. "She died because she was close."

Marcos didn't respond.

Because he knew she was right.

That evening, Marcos met Elias again-this time behind a shuttered car repair shop the family once used as a drop site.

"You said you wanted Varga," Elias muttered. "You sure about that?"

"She thinks he met with Mia the night she died."

"Then she's suicidal."

"That's why I'm going, not her."

Elias pulled out a file folder. Surveillance photos. License plate logs. A warehouse address in the city's southern district.

"He's still running cargo. But now he's moving independently. No longer answers to the family."

"Which makes him dangerous."

"Always was."

Elias hesitated.

"You sure she's worth all this?"

Marcos didn't answer.

Not with words.

Meanwhile, back in her apartment, Vanessa opened her sister's old camera and pulled out the SD card she hadn't touched in over a year.

Most of it was blurry images. Clubs. Graffiti. Random laughter.

But halfway through, she found a video.

Shaky. Recorded at night.

Mia's voice, whispering:

"I'm about to meet him. If this goes bad... tell Vanessa to run. Tell her not to follow me."

The screen cut out.

Vanessa stared at the dark screen, tears hot in her eyes.

"Too late," she whispered.

That night, Marcos stood in the shadows of a shipping yard near the South Pier.

Waiting.

Watching.

Varga's men patrolled with quiet efficiency.

No uniforms. No marked crates. Just the stench of something criminal and methodical.

He didn't move. Not yet.

But the moment Varga stepped out of the warehouse, something in Marcos snapped.

This man had answers.

And one way or another...

He was going to talk.