Chapter 10 - The Ledger of Dead Men
Damon dragged Maeve backward and slammed the door.
The gas thickened around me.
I had seconds to choose between pursuing them and warning the others.
I climbed into the coal chute.
By the time we reached open air, my vision had blurred. Enzo pulled me from the exit while Luca carried Gabriel toward Anna.
“Maeve was there,” I gasped.
Enzo’s expression sharpened.
“Where?”
“With Damon.”
“She said not to trust you.”
Every man nearby went still.
Enzo looked as though I had struck him.
“You believe her?”
“I believe fear makes people say important things.”
“I have been beside you since we were boys.”
“So was Vittorio.”
The comparison hurt him.
Good.
Pain made honest men angry and guilty men careless.
Enzo removed both pistols and placed them on the ground.
“If I wanted you dead, the gas would have finished the job.”
“Who controls the traffic-camera network you used to trace the van?”
His silence answered.
“Your cousin in city surveillance,” I said. “His name is in Sofia’s ledger.”
Enzo stared at me.
“What?”
I opened the book to the page I had noticed at the bank.
MATEO RUSSO—CITY GRID ACCESS—PAYMENTS APPROVED BY E.M.
Enzo Matteo Russo.
His initials.
“That is not my name,” he said.
“It was before my father took you in.”
He looked toward Luca.
My brother appeared equally surprised.
Enzo had arrived in our household at thirteen after his parents were killed in an apartment fire. My father had given him a new surname and raised him alongside us.
Another rescued child from another convenient fire.
“What do you remember about your parents?” I asked.
“Nothing useful.”
“Do you remember Nora O’Shea?”
The color drained from his face.
A memory surfaced.
“Red hair,” he whispered. “She sang when she cooked.”
Maeve’s mother had red hair.
I understood before he did.
“Nora was your mother too.”
“No.”
“You and Maeve are siblings.”
Enzo stepped backward.
“No.”
“Sofia’s ledger identifies E.M. as a child relocated after the O’Shea fire.”
Luca looked between us.
“Father took both boys.”
“One to raise as an heir,” I said. “One to raise as his protector.”
Enzo’s knees nearly failed.
For decades, we had believed loyalty bound us.
Blood had been standing beneath it.
“That still doesn’t make me a traitor,” he said.
“No. But it explains why Damon wants me to suspect you.”
Anna approached with Gabriel in her arms.
“We need to leave. Police scanners are reporting a chemical spill.”
They were already erasing the scene.
We returned to Café Nate.
Elena ran toward us the moment she saw Gabriel.
“Is that the boy?”
Luca introduced them.
Within minutes, the two children sat beneath the table with Bruno between them, speaking with the strange, immediate trust children sometimes form during disasters.
I watched Enzo approach Maeve’s empty chair.
His sister.
He had learned she existed minutes after losing her again.
“I will find her,” I said.
He did not look at me.
“You knew your mother’s name.”
“I knew nothing else.”
“Now we do.”
We spread the ledger across the table.
Anna used her federal knowledge to decode several abbreviations. The Nine included a state senator, a police commissioner, a federal judge, two shipping executives, Damon Crowe, Carlo Bellini, and two unidentified members.
One was marked L.M.
The other was marked THE KEEPER.
“Luca Moretti,” Enzo said.
My brother shook his head.
“I was sixteen when the first payments were recorded.”
“Your initials still fit.”
Anna pointed toward another page.
“Look at the handwriting. L.M. made payments to protect Marco after the fire.”
A number sequence appeared beside the entries.
Maeve’s rhyme mentioned seven stars and a turning stone.
Elena heard us and crawled from beneath the table.
“Mommy taught me numbers too.”
She examined the page.
“These aren’t money numbers.”
“What are they?”
“Music.”
She hummed seven notes.
Enzo recognized the melody.
“Nora used to sing that.”
Elena pointed at the sequence.
“Each number is a letter in the song.”
We followed her system.
The coded name emerged slowly.
LORENZO MORETTI.
My grandfather.
He had supposedly died before I was born.
According to the ledger, he had continued receiving payments for twenty-one years after his funeral.
“The Keeper,” Anna said. “He may have controlled the records.”
A telephone rang.
The café’s private line.
I answered.
Maeve’s voice whispered through static.
“They are taking me to Saint Matthew’s.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Listen to me. The original ledger is not beneath the lion.”
A man shouted in the background.
Maeve spoke faster.
“Sofia changed the hiding place. Elena is the only one who can open it.”
“How?”
“The bracelet.”
The line disconnected.
I removed Sofia’s silver bracelet from my pocket.
No more secrets.
Inside the clasp was a tiny engraved map.
Saint Matthew’s Children’s Home.
Before we could study it, Bruno began barking at the rear door.
He scratched the wood, whining desperately.
I opened it.
A package sat outside.
Inside was a child’s shoe.
Elena recognized it.
It belonged to her mother.
Beneath it lay a card marked with a time.
May you like
MIDNIGHT.
COME ALONE, OR SHE JOINS SOFIA.
