Chapter 7 - THE LEDGER
“What do you want, Vanessa?” Emma cried, her fingers digging into Luca’s arm as she strained toward the speakerphone.
“Your father wasn’t just a boss, Emma,” Vanessa’s voice echoed through the quiet study. “He was the bookkeeper for the entire East Coast commission. When the Falcones burned your house down, they were looking for his master ledger. The one that outlines every offshore account, every corrupt judge, every dirty politician on the Romano payroll.”
Vincent Moretti closed his eyes, rubbing a trembling hand over his face.
“They never found it,” Vanessa continued. “Because your mother took it with her when she ran.”
Emma froze. “I don’t have any ledger. My mother never gave me anything but a letter.”
“Don’t lie to me, little maid,” Vanessa snapped, her polished mask cracking into something vicious. “I tore your room apart. I know you have it.”
“I don’t!” Emma screamed, tears streaming down her face. “I swear to you, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“If you don’t have it,” Vanessa said coldly, “then I have no use for this child.”
“Wait!” Luca’s voice boomed over the speaker, authoritative and absolute. “I know where the ledger is.”
Silence on the line.
Emma looked at him in shock.
“Are you trying to play a hero, Luca?” Vanessa mocked.
“I’m trying to make a deal,” Luca countered smoothly, his mind calculating every angle. “Vincent didn’t just bring Emma into this house to protect her. He brought her here to monitor her. Because he knew the ledger was in her possession. But he didn’t leave it with her. He put it in my safe.”
Vincent’s head snapped up. He opened his mouth, but Luca shot him a lethal, silencing glare.
“My safe, Vanessa,” Luca repeated. “The one you made my father open tonight. You were so busy planting the bloody knife, you didn’t bother to check the false bottom of the lockbox.”
A heavy pause hung over the line.
“Bring it to me,” Vanessa finally said. “Pier 44. Just you and the girl. No guards. No Marco. If I see one of your men, I drop the kid in the water.”
The line went dead.
Emma collapsed against the desk, her legs giving out. “Luca, what did you just do? There is no ledger in your safe!”
“I know,” Luca said, pulling her up by her shoulders. He looked her dead in the eyes. “Emma, think. Your mother gave you the letter. Did she give you anything else? A book? A hard drive? A safety deposit key?”
“No!” Emma sobbed in frustration. “Nothing! We were poor, Luca. We moved every year. The only things she kept were my clothes and…”
Emma stopped. Her breath hitched.
“And what?” Luca pressed.
“My drawings,” Emma whispered.
Luca’s brow furrowed. “Your drawings?”
“I loved to draw when I was little,” Emma said, her eyes widening as the memory flooded back. “My mother kept every single one. She put them in a thick, leather-bound scrapbook. I still have it. It’s in the bottom of my duffel bag.”
Luca turned to his father. “Did the Romanos use cipher books?”
Vincent nodded slowly, the realization dawning on his weathered face. “Yes. The old bosses used to hide accounts in plain sight. They would use books, bibles… or scrapbooks. They mapped the account numbers into the dimensions of the pages or the dates on the margins.”
“Emma,” Luca said, his voice urgent. “The scrapbook.”
Emma ran out of the study and down the hall to where she had dropped her duffel bag. She unzipped it with her left hand, frantically digging past the sweaters until her fingers brushed against heavy, worn leather.
She pulled it out.
It was a thick, heavy album. The leather was scuffed and faded.
She carried it back into the study and dropped it onto Vincent’s desk.
Luca opened it.
Page after page of faded crayon drawings. Stick figures, houses, dogs, poorly drawn flowers.
But as Luca flipped through, he stopped at a drawing of a house.
He ran his finger along the edge of the paper. There was a faint, nearly invisible string of numbers pressed into the paper, written in invisible ink that had faintly yellowed over twenty years.
“This is it,” Luca said softly. “This is the Romano ledger.”
Emma stared at the book that had sat under her bed for two decades. The book that held billions of dollars of underworld secrets, disguised as a child’s memories.
“We have to give it to her,” Emma said desperately. “We have to give it to her to get Lily back.”
“We’re not giving her the real one,” Luca said.
He looked at his father. “Do you have the dummy ledger? The one we use to bait the feds?”
Vincent nodded, standing up. “In the basement archives. It looks identical to an old family book, but the accounts lead directly to an FBI honeypot. If the Falcones try to access those accounts, the feds will raid their entire network by morning.”
“Get it,” Luca ordered.
Ten minutes later, Luca and Emma were back in the armored SUV. This time, Marco was not driving. Luca was behind the wheel.
The dummy ledger was sitting in a black briefcase on the backseat.
“Are you sure about this?” Emma asked, her voice trembling as she clutched the seatbelt.
“Vanessa is arrogant,” Luca said, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead. “She thinks she outsmarted everyone. She won’t check the cipher on the pier. She just wants the book.”
They arrived at Pier 44 in absolute darkness. The freezing wind off Lake Michigan whipped across the concrete.
Luca parked the SUV a hundred yards away from the water’s edge.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out his firearm. He checked the chamber, then slid it into the waistband at the small of his back.
He grabbed the black briefcase.
“Stay behind me,” Luca told Emma. “No matter what happens, do not step in front of me.”
Emma nodded, terrified but resolute.
They walked into the biting wind, the sound of the crashing waves drowning out their footsteps.
At the end of the pier, a single black town car sat idling, its headlights cutting through the fog.
Standing in front of the headlights was Vanessa.
She was wearing Vincent’s dark wool coat, the wind whipping her perfectly styled hair around her face. In her right hand, she held a silver handgun.
And standing directly in front of her, shivering in a thin pink pajama set, was Lily.
“Mommy!” Lily cried out, trying to run forward, but Vanessa grabbed the collar of the child’s pajamas and yanked her backward.
“Ah-ah,” Vanessa chided smoothly, pressing the barrel of the gun against Lily’s shoulder. “Not until I see the book.”
Emma let out a guttural, agonizing sound at the sight of the gun on her child. She tried to surge forward, but Luca held his arm out, blocking her.
“The book, Luca,” Vanessa demanded, her smile venomous. “Toss it.”
Luca held up the briefcase.
“Let the girl walk first,” Luca yelled over the wind.
“I don’t think so,” Vanessa sneered. “Throw the case, or I shoot her in the knee. Your choice.”
Luca didn’t hesitate. He tossed the black briefcase onto the wet concrete. It slid to a stop a few feet away from Vanessa.
Vanessa smiled triumphantly. She kept the gun aimed at Lily as she crouched down and popped the latches on the case.
She saw the heavy leather book inside.
For a fraction of a second, her eyes dropped to the ledger.
May you like
That was all Luca needed.
In a blur of motion, Luca drew the gun from his waistband and fired.
