Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN SICILY WHO WASN’T IN SICILY
Isabella Moretti was moved within eleven minutes.
Salvatore did not send her home.
Home was predictable.
Predictable was dangerous.
He sent her to a safe apartment above a bakery owned by a seventy-two-year-old widow named Mrs. Bellucci who had once changed Vincent’s diapers and feared absolutely nobody.
Isabella’s mother went with her.
Two trusted men guarded the street.
Salvatore called personally.
“Nonno?”
Isabella sounded frightened.
His chest tightened.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone follow you from school?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think.”
She went quiet.
“There was a gray car.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who was inside?”
“I couldn’t see.”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
“Bella.”
“Yes?”
“Six weeks ago, downstairs at Bellini’s…”
Silence.
Then her breathing changed.
Salvatore hated himself for asking over the phone.
“Did Uncle Paul lock you in?”
Nothing.
“Isabella.”
She whispered:
“Dad said I couldn’t tell.”
Salvatore looked at Vincent.
His son stood across the room.
Ashamed.
“Your father was wrong.”
Vincent flinched.
Isabella began crying.
“I heard Uncle Paul talking.”
“About what?”
“Money.”
“What else?”
“A man named Dom.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
“Did you see Uncle Domenico?”
“No.”
“Did Paul hurt you?”
“He grabbed my arm.”
Salvatore’s hand closed around the phone.
“Anything else?”
“He locked the door.”
Her voice broke.
“It was dark.”
Salvatore looked away.
That explained the nightmares.
The refusal to sleep alone.
The panic when doors locked.
“Nonno?”
“Yes?”
“Am I in trouble?”
The question nearly destroyed him.
“No.”
“I wasn’t supposed to go downstairs.”
“No.”
“I followed Dad.”
“I know.”
“Did I make something bad happen?”
Salvatore’s voice hardened against his own emotion.
“No child in this family is responsible for what adults chose to do.”
Vincent lowered his head.
Salvatore continued:
“You hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He ended the call.
Then looked at his son.
“You told her to lie.”
Vincent said:
“I thought I was keeping her alive.”
“You taught her fear was something she had to carry alone.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“Then act like it.”
Vincent’s face changed.
Salvatore regretted the cruelty immediately.
But not the point.
Emily stood near Anthony.
She was listening to every word.
Salvatore reminded himself again.
Children always listened when adults believed they weren’t.
He turned.
“Emily.”
She looked up.
“You are not going to Pier 14.”
Her chin lifted.
“My mom is there.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever has your mother knows your face.”
“They already know it.”
Salvatore had no answer.
Emily continued:
“You said no child is responsible.”
“Yes.”
“So I’m not responsible. But she’s my mom.”
Salvatore looked at her.
The logic was inconvenient.
He almost respected it.
Almost.
“You stay with Mrs. Jenkins until I bring Rachel back.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“What if you don’t?”
Salvatore went still.
“What?”
“What if you don’t bring her back?”
The room quieted.
Emily’s voice got smaller.
“Do I just wait?”
Salvatore remembered the bloodstained apron.
The broken phone.
A nine-year-old walking into a room full of men because no adult had given her a better option.
He crouched.
“I’m going to tell you something I need you to believe.”
Emily stared.
“I will not stop looking for your mother.”
“Even if Paul says you have to?”
“Yes.”
“Even if your brother says?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it costs money?”
Salvatore almost smiled.
“Especially then.”
She studied his face.
Then nodded.
Anthony escorted her upstairs.
Salvatore turned to Vincent.
“Start talking.”
Vincent sat.
For two years, he had been quietly trying to pull the Moretti family away from old revenue streams Salvatore had already reduced.
Domenico hated it.
Salvatore knew that.
His younger brother had called him soft.
Sentimental.
Old.
Salvatore believed Domenico was complaining from Sicily.
Apparently Domenico had been doing much more.
“He came back six months ago,” Vincent said.
Salvatore stared.
“To New York?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody told me?”
“He used other names. Stayed in Jersey. Long Island.”
“Who helped?”
“Paul.”
“Who else?”
Vincent hesitated.
“I don’t know all of them.”
Salvatore laughed without humor.
“My son. My brother. My oldest lieutenant.”
He looked around the hidden basement.
“And apparently I’m the last man in Brooklyn to know what happens under my own restaurant.”
Vincent said quietly:
“That’s why Rachel mattered.”
Salvatore’s eyes sharpened.
“Explain.”
“Rachel noticed vendor invoices.”
“How?”
“She helps Elena with English paperwork sometimes. One of the delivery invoices didn’t make sense.”
“What didn’t make sense?”
“Seafood deliveries billed on days the restaurant was closed.”
Salvatore frowned.
Rachel had worked six years around criminals without asking questions.
But fake restaurant math had caught her attention.
“Then?”
“She saw Paul taking envelopes from the basement.”
“And you?”
“She came to me.”
Salvatore stopped.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“You knew for three weeks?”
“I was checking it quietly.”
“You should have come to me.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“Should I?”
Salvatore stared.
Vincent’s voice changed.
“Dad, every time anybody tells you something about the family, you decide whether it’s loyalty or betrayal before you decide whether it’s true.”
That landed.
Anthony looked away.
Vincent continued:
“I wanted proof.”
“So instead you let Rachel collect it?”
“No. She kept collecting it after I told her to stop.”
That sounded like Rachel.
“What did she find?”
“A second ledger.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who knows?”
“Rachel.”
Salvatore looked at her purse.
Domenico did not only want Vincent.
He wanted whatever Rachel had found.
The hostage exchange was camouflage.
Salvatore checked the time.
10:02.
Two hours.
Anthony returned.
“Emily’s with Mrs. Jenkins.”
“Good.”
“Paul wants to talk.”
Salvatore looked toward the stairs.
“No.”
“He says Domenico will kill Rachel if we go to the pier.”
That changed the room.
“Bring him.”
Paul was escorted downstairs.
His confidence was gone.
He looked at Vincent.
Then Salvatore.
“You’re walking into a trap.”
Salvatore leaned against the table.
“You put my granddaughter in this room.”
Paul’s face tightened.
“I didn’t touch her.”
“You locked a ten-year-old in the dark.”
“I was trying to keep Dom from knowing she heard us.”
“You expect gratitude?”
“No.”
Paul rubbed his face.
“I made mistakes.”
Salvatore’s eyes turned cold.
“Mistakes are forgetting anniversaries.”
Paul said nothing.
Salvatore stepped closer.
“Where is Rachel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
“Dom.”
“Where is he?”
“Moving.”
“Who took Rachel from the alley?”
Paul hesitated.
Then named two men Salvatore had known for fifteen years.
Both belonged to Domenico now.
Betrayal widened again.
“What does Domenico want?”
“Control.”
“Of what?”
“Everything you’ve been dismantling.”
Salvatore understood.
His brother did not want money only.
He wanted the old Moretti family back.
Fear.
Territory.
Tribute.
Men at tables deciding other people’s futures.
“He thinks Vincent is the problem,” Paul said.
“No.”
Salvatore’s voice was quiet.
“He thinks I am.”
Paul met his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why Rachel?”
“She has something.”
“The ledger?”
Paul’s face changed.
Salvatore noticed.
“You’ve seen it.”
“No.”
“You know what’s in it.”
Paul looked away.
Vincent stood.
“What’s in it?”
Paul’s silence answered.
Salvatore stepped closer.
“Talk.”
Paul whispered:
“It isn’t just money.”
“What is it?”
“Names.”
“What names?”
“People Domenico paid.”
Salvatore waited.
“Judges?”
“No.”
“Police?”
“Some.”
“Politicians?”
Paul shook his head.
Then looked at Vincent.
“Family.”
The room went cold.
“How much family?” Salvatore asked.
Paul swallowed.
“Enough that if Rachel gives you that ledger, you won’t know who to trust.”
Salvatore almost laughed.
He was already there.
Then Paul said:
“And there’s one name at the top you’re not going to believe.”
“Try me.”
Paul opened his mouth.
A shot shattered the basement window near the ceiling.
Everyone dropped.
Anthony pulled Salvatore behind the concrete wall.
A second shot hit the metal cabinet.
No one downstairs was struck.
Outside, tires screamed.
Salvatore looked toward Paul.
Paul had gone white.
“That wasn’t meant to kill you.”
Salvatore stared.
“How do you know?”
Paul pointed at the wall.
A small envelope had been pushed through the broken window.
Anthony retrieved it carefully.
Inside was a Polaroid.
Rachel.
Still alive.
A digital clock behind her showed 10:14.
On the back:
PIER 14 IS CANCELED.
WE KNOW PAUL TALKED.
11:00 P.M.
COME TO THE PLACE WHERE YOUR WIFE DIED.
Salvatore stopped breathing.
Vincent looked at him.
“Dad?”
Seven years earlier, Lucia Moretti had died in a car crash on the Belt Parkway.
At least that was what Salvatore had believed.
But there was only one other place connected to her death.
The old Moretti waterfront warehouse where she had met Salvatore the evening before the crash.
The place she had begged him to sell.
The place Domenico had always wanted back.
Salvatore looked at Paul.
“What does my wife have to do with this?”
May you like
Paul’s face told him before he spoke.
Too much.
