Chapter 4 - The Brother in the Grave
Salvatore did not believe her.
Not at first.
Some truths were too large to accept immediately.
They had to break themselves into smaller pieces before the mind allowed them in.
“My brother is dead.”
Bianca looked at him.
“I saw the coffin.”
“So did I.”
“I carried it.”
“I know.”
“I buried him.”
Bianca’s eyes filled.
“You buried a body.”
The difference between those two sentences cracked something open.
Salvatore stepped away from Matteo because he suddenly needed space.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“For seventeen years?”
“I suspected.”
“And said nothing?”
“I had two sons. One disappeared into a war with the Vescari family. One was still alive. I chose the son I could protect.”
Salvatore laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You protected me?”
“Yes.”
“By letting me believe Gabriel was murdered?”
“By stopping you from searching for him.”
“You think I wouldn’t have wanted to know?”
“I think you would have burned half this city finding out.”
Carmine remained near the door, saying nothing.
He had worked for the Morettis long enough to understand when loyalty required silence.
Matteo sat on the couch watching the argument.
Salvatore noticed.
He forced his voice lower.
“What happened?”
Bianca took a long breath.
“Your father and Gabriel were building something privately.”
“What?”
“I never knew exactly. Routes. Accounts. Men outside the traditional crews.”
“My father hated secrets he didn’t control.”
“He controlled this one.”
“Then why fake Gabriel’s death?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know more than you’re saying.”
Bianca looked away.
Salvatore’s voice turned dangerous.
“Seventeen years is enough.”
Matteo spoke softly.
“My mother said families lie longest about the things they think will destroy them.”
Everyone looked at him.
Bianca’s expression tightened.
“You should be sleeping.”
“I slept under a church stairwell yesterday.”
Matteo pulled the blanket Dominic had given him tighter around his shoulders.
“I’m fine.”
Salvatore almost admired him.
Almost.
Then he remembered someone had tried to shoot the child less than an hour earlier.
He turned to Carmine.
“Find everything on the Bellini warehouse.”
“That file was sealed.”
“Unseal it.”
“Your father’s order.”
“My father is dead.”
Bianca whispered, “Salvatore.”
“No more dead men making decisions in this house.”
Carmine nodded.
“And Gabriel?”
“Dig up the grave.”
Bianca’s eyes widened.
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“Your father—”
“Dead.”
“Salvatore!”
“My brother may not be.”
That ended the argument.
Carmine left.
Dr. Russo insisted Matteo needed rest.
Rosa took him upstairs to a guest room beside Salvatore’s study.
The boy resisted until Salvatore promised the door would stay unlocked.
At two in the morning, the Moretti mansion finally became quiet again.
Salvatore sat alone in his study with Elena’s photograph.
He remembered the day it had been taken.
Gabriel had been behind the camera.
Salvatore was twenty-six.
Elena twenty-three.
Gabriel thirty.
The three of them had been inseparable as children.
Before money became responsibility.
Before responsibility became violence.
Before Gabriel died.
Before Elena vanished.
Before Salvatore learned that surviving sometimes meant burying every softer part of yourself before someone else could use it.
He turned the photograph over.
Something was written faintly on the back.
Three fools. One summer. Don’t let them turn us into them.
Elena’s handwriting.
Salvatore closed his eyes.
A small sound came from the doorway.
Matteo.
Barefoot.
Blanket around his shoulders.
“You said the door would stay unlocked.”
“It is.”
“I checked.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
The boy shook his head.
Salvatore pointed toward a chair.
Matteo came in.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Matteo looked at the photograph.
“That was her?”
“Yes.”
“She looked happy.”
“She was.”
“She didn’t look like that near the end.”
Salvatore kept his eyes on the picture.
“What did she look like?”
“Tired.”
“How long was she sick?”
“A year.”
“With what?”
“They said her heart.”
“Did she believe them?”
“No.”
Salvatore looked up.
“Why?”
“Because she said sick people get worse slowly.”
Matteo’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“She said she got worse every time someone found us.”
Salvatore’s blood cooled.
“How many times were you found?”
“Three.”
“By the same person?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“The first time, Mom saw a car and made us leave that night. The second time, somebody broke into our apartment and moved things but didn’t steal anything.”
“And the third?”
“The men who broke her wrist.”
Salvatore leaned back.
“Did she recognize them?”
“She said no.”
“You don’t believe her.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she threw up after they left.”
A child noticing the things adults tried to hide.
That was Elena’s son.
Salvatore looked at him carefully.
“Matteo, why didn’t your mother come to me?”
The boy’s answer was immediate.
“She was scared you’d kill somebody.”
“Who?”
“She never said.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Matteo thought.
“She said, ‘If Salvatore learns before I have proof, people will die and he’ll never forgive himself.’”
Salvatore stared.
Proof of what?
A knock sounded.
Carmine entered without waiting.
He carried a black folder.
His face told Salvatore enough.
“You found it.”
“Part of it.”
Salvatore gestured toward Matteo.
Carmine hesitated.
Salvatore understood.
“Say it.”
“The Bellini warehouse attack killed eleven of our men. Gabriel’s disappearance happened five years earlier, but the same name appears in both records.”
“What name?”
“Victor Hale.”
Bianca’s private security chief.
A man who had served the Moretti family for twenty-eight years.
Salvatore frowned.
“Victor was at Bellini?”
“He wrote the security report.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“No.”
Carmine placed a photocopied page on the desk.
“But this is.”
The original report showed the east warehouse gate had been opened from inside at 1:13 a.m.
The only person logged near it was Elena.
That was why the family had believed she betrayed them.
But Carmine had found an older maintenance record.
The electronic lock on the east gate had failed three days before the attack.
It could not have been opened by Elena’s access card.
It had to be opened manually with a physical override key.
“Who had keys?” Salvatore asked.
“Your father. You. Gabriel before his death.”
“Gabriel was dead.”
“Supposedly.”
Salvatore’s pulse slowed.
“Who else?”
Carmine looked at him.
“Victor Hale.”
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
All three men turned.
Someone moved outside.
Salvatore was on his feet instantly.
Carmine drew his gun.
The hallway was empty.
But the window at the end stood open.
Rain blew onto the carpet.
Carmine ran to it.
“Someone was listening.”
Salvatore reached for the phone.
Then stopped.
Matteo was staring at the desk.
“What?”
The boy pointed.
“The picture.”
Salvatore looked down.
Elena’s photograph had been lying beside the Bellini report.
Now it was upside down.
Salvatore had not touched it.
Matteo picked it up carefully.
“There’s something under the corner.”
A sliver of paper had been taped inside the cardboard backing.
Carmine peeled it free.
A number.
Eight digits.
And two words.
BANK 117.
Salvatore recognized the bank immediately.
Private.
Old.
Almost impossible to access without the account holder present.
Matteo looked at him.
“What does it mean?”
Salvatore folded the slip into his palm.
“It means your mother left something behind.”
At that moment, a scream came from downstairs.
Rosa.
Carmine ran first.
Salvatore followed.
They reached the kitchen and found Rosa standing beside the open service door.
A guard lay unconscious on the stone steps.
Pinned to his coat with a silver knife was a card.
On it was the symbol of the folded-wing bird.
And beneath it, four words.
GIVE US THE BOY.
Salvatore stared at the message.
Then slowly turned toward the stairs.
Matteo was standing at the top landing.
For the first time since arriving, the child looked afraid.
Salvatore walked to the bottom step.
“No one is giving you to anybody.”
Matteo swallowed.
“You don’t know who they are.”
“No.”
May you like
Salvatore’s eyes darkened.
“But they’re going to learn who I am.”
