Chapter 3 - The Man Sitting at Lorenzo's Right Hand
Lorenzo read the security image three times as though repetition might change the face.
It did not.
Sylvio Barone had been part of the Moretti family longer than Mateo had been alive.
He had attended Lorenzo's confirmation.
He had been at Carlo's funeral.
When Lorenzo inherited control of the organization at twenty-nine, Sylvio had been the man who taught him which alliances mattered, which enemies never forgot, and which captains should never be trusted alone with money.
Lorenzo had once said publicly that if Sylvio ever betrayed him, he would stop believing loyalty existed.
Now Sophie was pointing at his photograph and saying the man had been present when Antonio Vitale died.
"No," Lorenzo said.
Sophie looked at him.
"No?"
"Think carefully."
"I have thought about that face for ten years."
"Memory changes."
"Not that memory."
"You were fourteen."
"I watched him murder my father."
The room went silent.
Lorenzo's voice lowered.
"You said one man walked over after the first shots."
Sophie nodded.
"That was him?"
"Yes."
"You're certain?"
"I remember the ring."
Lorenzo frowned.
Sophie pointed toward the photograph.
"Zoom his right hand."
Mateo enlarged the image on his phone.
Sylvio wore a heavy gold ring bearing a black onyx stone.
Sophie felt sick.
"He had that ring."
Lorenzo knew the ring too.
Carlo Moretti had given it to Sylvio thirty years earlier after Sylvio saved his life during a dockside ambush.
Loyalty.
That was what the ring supposedly represented.
Lorenzo walked away from the table.
Mateo spoke carefully.
"Boss."
"Don't."
"We need to move."
"I said don't."
Mateo fell silent.
Sophie watched Lorenzo struggle against the instinct to reject everything.
She understood.
For ten years, she had survived by believing all Morettis were responsible for her father's death.
Tonight she had learned the truth might be more complicated.
Now Lorenzo was discovering the man beside him had possibly built decades of loyalty on blood.
Teresa Moretti broke the silence.
"There was always something Carlo could not explain."
Lorenzo turned.
"What?"
"The night Antonio died, Sylvio reached Carlo before midnight."
"Where?"
"Our house in Sicily."
"What did he say?"
Teresa looked toward Sophie.
"That Antonio had betrayed us."
Sophie closed her eyes.
Of course.
"Evidence?"
"Documents."
"Real?"
"Carlo believed they were."
"Where are they?"
"Destroyed."
Lorenzo laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"Convenient."
Teresa's eyes lowered.
"Your father burned them after ordering Antonio's name erased from the family books."
Sophie flinched.
Even in death, her father had been punished.
Teresa looked ashamed.
"Years later, Carlo discovered the same documents contained dates that did not match customs records."
Lorenzo stared.
"And he said nothing to me?"
"He wanted proof first."
"Why?"
"Because accusing Sylvio without proof would have torn the family apart."
Lorenzo's jaw tightened.
"It may still."
Mateo's phone vibrated.
He checked the message.
"We found Father Gabriel."
Sophie stepped forward.
"Where?"
"St. Michael's. Queens."
"Is he safe?"
Mateo's expression answered before his words.
"We don't know."
Lorenzo grabbed his coat.
"I'm going."
"So am I," Sophie said.
"No."
She laughed.
"You've known this story for three hours. I've lived it for ten years."
"Exactly why you're staying."
"You don't own me."
"No. But someone tried to kill you tonight, and Sylvio knows where Gabriel is."
"Which is why I'm coming."
Lorenzo studied her.
He had learned enough to know commanding Sophie only made her more determined.
"Stay behind Mateo."
"No."
"Then behind me."
"I can protect myself."
"I noticed."
His gaze moved briefly toward the wrist she had twisted earlier.
Sophie almost smiled.
Almost.
They reached Queens just before dawn.
St. Michael's sat between two brick apartment buildings, its stone steps wet from rain.
The side door hung open.
Lorenzo drew a pistol.
Sophie stopped.
"I thought you said behind you."
"This is behind me."
"You're standing beside me."
"Then keep up."
Inside, the church smelled of candles and old wood.
A light burned near the altar.
Mateo moved toward the rectory.
They found Father Gabriel in the basement.
Alive.
Barely.
He was tied to a chair with blood running from a cut above his eye.
Sophie rushed toward him.
"Father."
His eyes opened.
For a second, confusion.
Then recognition.
"Sofia."
She knelt.
"You know my name?"
A weak smile.
"I gave you the other one."
Lorenzo cut the rope from Gabriel's wrists.
"Who did this?"
Gabriel looked at him.
"Carlo's son."
"Lorenzo."
"I know."
Gabriel's eyes moved between Sophie and Lorenzo.
"So it finally happened."
Sophie frowned.
"What?"
"You found each other."
Neither responded.
Gabriel leaned back painfully.
"Elena always said it would."
"My grandmother?"
"She knew you could not hide forever."
"Where is she?"
Sophie had not seen Elena in six years.
Every meeting had become dangerous.
Eventually the old woman disappeared entirely.
Gabriel's face changed.
"Sofia."
Her heart sank.
"No."
"I'm sorry."
"When?"
"Three years ago."
Sophie turned away.
The room blurred.
She had suspected.
But suspicion and certainty were different griefs.
Lorenzo watched her shoulders tremble.
He did not touch her.
Not yet.
Gabriel continued.
"She left something."
Sophie turned back.
"What?"
"For you."
"And you never contacted me?"
"She told me not until the broken branch returned to the wolf."
Lorenzo stared.
"What does that mean?"
Gabriel smiled faintly.
"You two, apparently."
Mateo found a medical kit upstairs.
While cleaning Gabriel's injury, the priest explained.
Elena Vitale had carried one object out of Sicily besides Sophie.
A brass key.
Antonio had given it to her days before his murder.
The key belonged to a safe-deposit box.
"Where?"
Gabriel shook his head.
"I don't know."
Sophie stared.
"Then what's the point?"
"Elena hid the location in something she knew only you would understand."
"What?"
"The lullaby."
Sophie froze.
Her grandmother's lullaby.
The one in the old dialect.
Gabriel recited the first line.
Sophie knew the rest.
At first, the words sounded like childhood nonsense.
Moon over the black tower.
Three bells beneath the sea.
The wolf sleeps where saints keep silver.
The olive waits beside number seventeen.
Lorenzo listened.
"Saints keep silver."
Gabriel nodded.
"A church bank?"
Sophie shook her head.
"No."
She remembered something.
"When I was little, Nonna called Swiss banks 'the churches of money.'"
Mateo whistled softly.
Lorenzo continued.
"Black tower."
"Zurich?" Sophie asked.
"Could be."
"Number seventeen."
"Box number."
Gabriel reached inside his shirt and removed a chain.
The brass key hung beneath a wooden cross.
Sophie stared.
He placed it in her hand.
"Elena told me something else."
"What?"
"Antonio trusted the wrong Moretti."
Lorenzo's expression darkened.
"Sylvio?"
"No."
Gabriel shook his head.
"He trusted the wrong Moretti to protect the evidence."
Everyone went quiet.
Sophie frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Gabriel looked at Teresa's grandson.
"Antonio did reach a Moretti before he died."
Lorenzo's pulse changed.
"Who?"
Gabriel hesitated.
"Your mother."
Lorenzo stepped backward.
His mother, Isabella, had died when he was twenty-one.
Officially, complications from cancer.
Quietly, Lorenzo had always believed something about her final months did not make sense.
Gabriel continued.
"Antonio gave Isabella a copy of everything."
"Where is it?"
"She hid it."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Lorenzo's frustration exploded.
"You people spent decades hiding pieces of this story inside songs, churches, and dead relatives. Did nobody consider writing anything down?"
Gabriel actually laughed.
"In our world? Writing things down gets families buried."
A sound came from upstairs.
Mateo immediately reached for his weapon.
Lorenzo turned.
Another sound.
The front door.
Footsteps.
Several.
Gabriel's face drained.
"They came back."
Lorenzo motioned toward a rear staircase.
"Move."
Sophie helped Gabriel stand.
A gunshot shattered the basement window.
Mateo returned fire.
They escaped through an alley behind the church just as two black vehicles blocked the front street.
Lorenzo shoved Sophie into the SUV.
This time she did not argue.
As they accelerated away, her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
She opened it.
A photograph appeared.
Sophie as a child.
Standing beside Antonio.
Behind them, olive trees.
Beneath the image was a sentence in the old dialect.
Your father screamed your name before he died.
Then another message arrived.
Tell Lorenzo the next bullet won't miss.
Sophie looked across the vehicle.
Lorenzo read her face.
"What?"
She handed him the phone.
He read the message once.
Then again.
Something terrifyingly calm settled over him.
For years, New York had feared Lorenzo Moretti angry.
Very few people had ever seen him decide to go to war.
Sophie was watching it happen.
"Whoever Sylvio is working with," Lorenzo said quietly, "just made a mistake."
"What mistake?"
May you like
He looked at the childhood photograph.
"They reminded me this is personal."
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