Chapter 3 - THE MAN MY FATHER NEVER MENTIONED
Roman did not call Anthony.
That surprised me.
I had expected orders.
Cars.
Men in dark coats suddenly appearing from nowhere.
Instead, Roman stood in my kitchen with his sister’s recipe card in one hand and my father’s watch in the other.
Then he said to one of his guards, “Get Enzo.”
Nothing else.
The guard nodded and left.
I folded my arms.
“Who is Enzo?”
“My consigliere.”
“Of course you have a consigliere.”
Sophia almost smiled.
I pointed at Roman.
“And nobody is leaving here until somebody tells me why my father’s name is apparently part of a Mafia family argument.”
Roman’s gaze settled on me.
“You may not like the answer.”
“I didn’t like finding out my father lied to me about his watch either. Keep going.”
He looked toward Lily.
“Not in front of her.”
Lily’s face hardened immediately.
“I’m not five.”
“No.”
“You keep treating me like I am.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Roman didn’t answer.
Lily laughed once without humor.
“That’s what Mom used to say too.”
She walked into the front of the bakery.
Roman started after her.
I caught his sleeve.
He looked down at my hand.
I released it.
“She needs five minutes without you controlling the oxygen around her.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You have known her fifteen minutes.”
“I’ve known sixteen-year-old girls longer than you apparently have.”
Sophia actually laughed.
Roman looked betrayed.
Then a gray-haired man entered through the back door.
He wore a dark overcoat, carried no visible weapon, and had the calm expression of someone who had spent forty years cleaning up other people’s mistakes.
“Roman.”
His gaze moved to Sophia.
Then me.
Then the photograph.
Everything about him changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Clare’s bakery,” Roman said.
The man looked at me.
“Thomas Bennett’s daughter?”
It was not a question.
My anger sharpened.
“You knew my father.”
Enzo Marchetti removed his coat.
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looked at Roman.
Roman gave one small nod.
Enzo exhaled.
“Your father drove for Duca Freight before you were born.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“He started at nineteen. Trucks first. Then dispatch.”
“My father was a baker.”
“He became one.”
The room tilted slightly.
My father had told me about factory jobs.
Delivery routes.
Two years working nights.
He had never once said Duca.
“Why did he leave?”
Enzo hesitated.
Roman answered.
“Because my family believed he sold information about our dock schedules.”
My throat tightened.
“You believed my father was a traitor?”
Roman said nothing.
That was answer enough.
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“And you knew him?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
Roman looked at the photograph again.
“Well enough that he taught me how to drive a delivery truck when I was seventeen.”
That hurt more than I expected.
My father had known him.
Roman had known my father.
And both men had somehow stood across from me in the same bakery without that truth existing between us.
“You came in here three mornings in a row and never recognized the name?”
“I recognized it the first day.”
My anger went cold.
“You knew exactly who I was?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I didn’t know if you knew.”
“So you decided for me.”
His jaw shifted.
“That seems to be a family habit.”
Sophia murmured, “Clare.”
“No.”
I pointed toward the front.
“There is a girl out there carrying around a note from her dead mother because none of you told her enough truth to know who she can trust.”
Roman’s expression changed.
I knew I had landed exactly where I intended.
Enzo stepped closer to the photograph.
“Anthony shouldn’t be in this picture.”
Roman looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because he always said he wasn’t at Pier 16 that afternoon.”
Sophia’s face drained.
Roman turned.
“You knew that?”
“I knew Carlo asked.”
Carlo.
Roman’s father.
The former head of the Duca family.
Sophia sat down.
“There was a problem at the docks,” she said slowly. “A shipment had been redirected. Your father believed someone gave the Belluccis our schedule.”
“And Thomas was blamed,” I said.
She nodded.
“What does Elena have to do with it?”
Sophia’s fingers trembled.
“Elena was there.”
Roman stared at her.
“You told me she was at home.”
“I told you what Carlo told me to say.”
The air changed.
Even Enzo looked shocked.
Roman’s voice became very quiet.
“You lied to me.”
“I obeyed your father.”
“For seventeen years?”
Sophia looked older suddenly.
“I was trying to keep what remained of this family together.”
Roman turned away.
The restraint in him was more frightening than shouting would have been.
I looked at the photo again.
“Why was Elena there?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
Then Lily spoke from the doorway.
“Because she was leaving.”
All four of us turned.
She held the half-eaten honey knot in one hand.
Roman’s face softened instantly.
“What do you mean?”
“Mom told me once.”
“When?”
“Last year she was alive.”
Lily stared at the floor.
“She said she tried to leave Chicago before I was born.”
Roman took a step toward her.
“With who?”
Lily shook her head.
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Sophia’s eyes filled.
I noticed.
Roman did too.
“Aunt Sophia.”
She looked at her nephew.
“What do you know?”
Sophia pressed both palms to the table.
“Elena was twenty-two.”
“And?”
“She loved someone your father would never have accepted.”
Roman’s voice tightened.
“Who?”
Before Sophia could answer, the back door opened.
A man in his mid-forties walked in without knocking.
He had Roman’s dark hair, though grayer at the temples, and none of Roman’s stillness.
His confidence was louder.
“Interesting place for a family meeting.”
Every person in the kitchen changed.
Enzo straightened.
Sophia looked frightened.
Roman became unreadable.
Anthony Duca smiled at me.
“You must be Clare Bennett.”
I hated how easily he said my name.
Roman moved between us.
“I didn’t send for you.”
“No. But when Enzo gets pulled out of a union meeting and two cars disappear from the garage, people notice.”
His eyes found the blue tin.
Then the photograph.
For half a second, Anthony stopped breathing.
I saw it.
So did Roman.
Anthony recovered quickly.
“That belongs to the past.”
I picked up my father’s watch.
“My father belongs to me.”
Anthony’s expression cooled.
“Your father made choices.”
“So did you.”
Roman held up the photograph.
“You said you weren’t at Pier 16.”
Anthony looked at Sophia.
Then Enzo.
Finally Roman.
“You really want to do this here?”
“Yes.”
Anthony’s jaw flexed.
“Fine. Thomas was helping Elena run.”
The words hit the room hard.
Roman stepped toward him.
“Run from what?”
Anthony looked at Lily.
That was when fear crossed his face.
Not fear of Roman.
Fear for her.
He lowered his voice.
“From your father.”
Roman stared at him.
Anthony continued.
“Carlo found out Elena was pregnant.”
Lily stopped moving.
Roman looked at his niece.
Then back at Anthony.
“Pregnant with whose child?”
Anthony said nothing.
Lily reached slowly into her sweatshirt.
She pulled out a small silver bracelet I hadn’t noticed before.
A tiny honeybee charm hung from it.
Sophia covered her mouth.
Anthony whispered, “Elena kept that?”
Roman grabbed his cousin’s arm.
“Whose child?”
Anthony looked directly at him.
And answered.
“Luca Bellucci’s.”
Across Chicago, everyone knew the Bellucci name.
Even me.
Roman’s oldest rival family.
Lily stared at Anthony.
“My father was a Bellucci?”
Anthony’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
May you like
Roman released him.
And Lily’s small silver bee bracelet slipped from her fingers and struck the bakery floor.
