Chapter 7 - WHAT SALVATORE NEVER TOLD HIS CHILDREN
Frankie stared at Marco.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
Marco’s expression changed.
“I know.”
“Gabriel’s father died twenty-two years ago.”
“Yes.”
“My mother was alive.”
“Yes.”
Frankie stepped closer.
“So choose your next sentence carefully.”
Gabriel remained silent.
Marco did.
“Vittorio came here to speak with Anna Moretti.”
Frankie felt as if somebody had shifted the garage beneath her feet.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It is also true.”
Leo stood beside her now.
For once, he looked completely sober.
Completely present.
“Our mother knew Vittorio Costa?”
Marco nodded.
“She knew Teresa too.”
Frankie looked toward the rosary.
The photograph.
The bracelet.
Not Salvatore and Teresa alone.
Their families had been connected.
“Why didn’t our parents tell us?”
Marco’s answer was quiet.
“Because after Vittorio died, everybody believed silence was safer.”
Gabriel gave a humorless laugh.
“And look how well that worked.”
He walked toward the garage door.
For one terrible second Frankie thought he was leaving.
Instead, he stopped near the old wall of customer photographs.
“Anna Moretti,” he said.
“What?”
“Find photographs of your mother.”
Frankie frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I remember a woman at my father’s funeral.”
Marco looked sharply at him.
Gabriel continued.
“She stood across the street.”
Frankie’s chest tightened.
“You remember that from seventeen?”
“I remember almost everything from that week.”
She pulled down an old album.
Family barbecues.
Christmas.
Customers holding oversized checks.
Her mother appeared smiling beside Salvatore.
Dark hair.
Warm eyes.
Gabriel pointed.
“That’s her.”
Leo looked at him.
“You saw Mom at the funeral?”
“Yes.”
“She never told us.”
Marco sat heavily on a stool.
“That explains the bracelet.”
Frankie turned.
“What?”
“Teresa gave it to Anna.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You said my mother gave it to Salvatore.”
“I assumed she did.”
Frankie held up the cigar box.
“But Dad had it.”
“After Anna died.”
A piece settled.
Not enough.
But something.
Frankie remembered clearing her mother’s belongings.
Salvatore had done most of it alone.
He had kept one box locked in his office.
The same box.
“She knew,” Frankie whispered.
Gabriel looked at her.
“About what?”
“My mother knew why your father came here.”
“Can you prove it?”
Frankie stared toward an old yellow metal locker.
Her mother had used it when she handled bookkeeping for the shop.
It hadn’t been opened in years.
She crossed the room.
The lock was stiff.
Leo found a wrench.
Frankie gave him a look.
“It’s a lock.”
“It’s our lock.”
“Move.”
She worked it open properly.
Inside hung an old blue wool coat.
Anna Moretti’s.
Frankie touched the sleeve.
The faintest trace of her mother’s perfume seemed impossible after all these years.
Yet memory supplied it anyway.
She checked the pockets.
A movie ticket.
A peppermint wrapper.
A child’s drawing.
Frankie unfolded it.
She had drawn it.
She recognized her own blocky handwriting.
MOM + DAD + FRANKIE + BABY LEO.
Four stick figures stood beside the garage.
Her throat tightened.
Leo looked over her shoulder.
“You drew Dad huge.”
“He was huge.”
“He was five-eight.”
“He felt huge.”
Something fell from the fold.
A small black-and-white photograph.
Gabriel picked it up.
Anna Moretti stood outside a church beside Teresa Costa.
Between them was Vittorio.
And Marco.
All four looked much younger.
On the back was a date.
One year before Gabriel was born.
Frankie looked at Marco.
“You didn’t just know my parents.”
“No.”
“You were friends.”
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“Life.”
“That answer is garbage.”
Marco nodded.
“Yes.”
He looked at Gabriel.
“Your father and Salvatore grew up three blocks apart.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“Vittorio asked us not to.”
“Why?”
“Because after he became head of the family, he wanted Salvatore outside it.”
Frankie looked at her father’s tools.
Outside it.
That sounded like him.
Marco continued.
“Salvatore had worked for Vittorio when they were young.”
Doing what did not need to be explained.
Not mechanics.
Not only mechanics.
“He left,” Marco said. “Opened this place. Married Anna. Built something clean.”
Frankie swallowed.
Her father had never been the simple mechanic she believed.
Not entirely.
But the garage had been his escape.
His second chance.
That somehow made her love it more.
Gabriel asked, “My father respected that?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did he come here the night he died?”
Marco looked at Anna’s coat.
“I told you. To speak to her.”
“About what?”
A voice came from behind them.
“About me.”
Everyone turned.
Leo looked frightened.
Frankie froze.
Rocco Bellandi stood just inside the open garage door.
No weapon.
No guards.
Just a heavy man in his mid-forties wearing an expensive jacket that couldn’t hide the mechanic he used to be.
Gabriel’s security men moved.
Gabriel lifted his hand.
“Stay.”
Rocco looked at Frankie.
“I figured Leo would eventually tell somebody.”
Leo’s fists tightened.
“You hit me.”
Rocco looked at him.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
“That was wrong.”
Leo blinked.
Frankie stared.
Rocco continued.
“I was angry and scared, and I did exactly what I swore I stopped doing twenty years ago.”
Gabriel’s voice was ice.
“You extended unauthorized credit in my club.”
“Yes.”
“On whose instruction?”
Rocco looked at Marco.
Marco stood.
“Don’t.”
Rocco shook his head.
“You protected me once. I’m done letting other people pay for it.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“What did Marco protect you from?”
Rocco looked at the old brake hose.
“Prison.”
Frankie felt her heart pound.
“You cut it.”
“The first one.”
Silence.
Rocco’s eyes lowered.
“I was twenty-three. Broke. My mother needed surgery.”
“Who paid you?” Gabriel asked.
Rocco looked toward the photograph of Anna Moretti.
“No one.”
Frankie frowned.
“You just sabotaged Vittorio Costa’s car for fun?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Rocco swallowed.
“Somebody told me Vittorio was going to kill Salvatore.”
Frankie went still.
“Who?”
Rocco looked at her.
“Your mother.”
The garage fell silent.
Frankie shook her head.
“No.”
“She was terrified.”
“You’re lying.”
“She gave me six hundred dollars. Told me to damage the car enough that Vittorio couldn’t leave the house.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“You nearly killed us.”
“I know.”
“You told my father Salvatore paid you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Rocco’s face twisted.
“Because Anna begged me not to use her name.”
Frankie looked at her mother’s coat.
Everything hurt.
Gabriel asked, “Then why did the brakes fail three days later?”
Rocco looked at Marco.
“Because somebody saw what I did and decided to finish it properly.”
Marco’s face changed.
Gabriel saw it.
“You know who.”
Marco whispered, “I suspected.”
“Who?”
Before Marco answered, Frankie saw something inside her mother’s coat pocket.
A small brass key.
She pulled it free.
Attached to it was a faded paper tag.
Storage Locker 18.
South Station.
Rocco stared at it.
“So she kept it.”
Frankie looked at him.
“What is this?”
Rocco’s face had gone white.
“The thing Vittorio came here to get.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“What was in Locker 18?”
Rocco looked at him.
May you like
“Proof that your father had been blackmailing the wrong man.”
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