Chapter 4 - The Secret Lorenzo's Mother Took to Her Grave
By sunrise, the Moretti organization had changed without most of its members knowing why.
Lorenzo did not accuse Sylvio.
He did something more dangerous.
He behaved normally.
At seven thirty, he called Sylvio and asked why he had left Leveta so quickly.
Sylvio lied smoothly.
He claimed his wife had experienced chest pain.
He claimed they had gone to Mount Sinai.
He even sounded exhausted.
Lorenzo listened without interruption.
"Is she all right?"
"Yes. False alarm."
"Good."
A pause.
"You sound strange," Sylvio said.
"Long night."
"The waitress?"
Lorenzo looked at Sophie across the study.
"Still investigating."
"You find her?"
"No."
Sylvio exhaled.
"Probably better that way."
"Why?"
"Women like that bring trouble."
Sophie watched Lorenzo's expression become utterly blank.
"I'll remember that."
He disconnected.
Mateo muttered, "I would have shot him halfway through 'false alarm.'"
"Which is why you're not in charge of strategy."
Mateo shrugged.
"Fair."
Sophie sat at Lorenzo's desk with her grandmother's brass key.
She had been turning it over between her fingers for an hour.
"If the bank is really in Switzerland, we need the institution."
Lorenzo nodded.
"And your mother's copy?"
He looked toward the family photographs.
"That may be closer."
Isabella Moretti had spent her final year mostly confined to the Brooklyn house.
After her death, Lorenzo had ordered her bedroom preserved.
He had not entered it in years.
Now he unlocked the door.
The room smelled faintly of cedar.
Sophie remained in the hallway.
"You can stay outside."
She looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because this isn't your memory."
"Neither is my father's death."
He accepted the rebuke.
They searched for two hours.
Drawers.
Books.
Jewelry boxes.
The underside of furniture.
Nothing.
Sophie eventually sat beside Isabella's old writing desk.
"Your mother sew?"
Lorenzo looked over.
"Constantly."
Sophie pointed toward a wooden embroidery frame mounted on the wall.
A field of small silver stars surrounded a central olive tree.
At the bottom, stitched in Italian, were four words.
La verità dorme dentro.
The truth sleeps within.
Lorenzo removed the frame.
Behind the cloth was a thin envelope.
His hands stopped.
Sophie felt the air leave the room.
Lorenzo opened it.
Inside was a letter addressed to him.
My Lorenzo.
If you are reading this, then either I finally found courage or courage came too late.
He sat down.
Sophie did not read over his shoulder.
She waited.
Minutes passed.
Lorenzo's face tightened.
Then he handed her the letter.
Isabella wrote that Antonio Vitale had come to her three days before his murder.
He was frightened.
He believed someone within Carlo's circle was manipulating shipping records and selling access to Moretti routes.
Antonio suspected Sylvio.
But not only Sylvio.
There was another name.
Vittorio Russo.
Head of the Russo family.
Sylvio and Vittorio had allegedly built a secret partnership years earlier.
Their purpose was simple.
Create enough internal conflict to destroy both the Morettis and Vitales, then divide their routes.
Antonio possessed ledgers proving payments.
He gave Isabella one copy and kept another.
Isabella wanted to warn Carlo.
But Sylvio discovered she had met Antonio.
He threatened Lorenzo.
At the time, Lorenzo was nineteen.
Young.
Reckless.
Frequently traveling alone.
Sylvio told Isabella that if she spoke, Lorenzo would disappear.
She remained silent.
Sophie lowered the paper.
"You were the threat."
Lorenzo looked sick.
"My mother died believing she protected me by letting your father be called a traitor."
Sophie was angry.
She wanted to blame Isabella.
But she remembered being fourteen.
She remembered what fear could make people do.
"Where's the evidence?"
Lorenzo pointed toward the final paragraph.
Isabella had hidden the copy somewhere connected to Lorenzo's childhood.
Where the wolf learned patience.
Lorenzo frowned.
"She loved riddles too."
Sophie smiled faintly.
"Apparently everyone over fifty in your family did."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he remembered.
"The greenhouse."
"What?"
"When I was a kid, I used to destroy my grandmother's roses because I had no patience. My mother made me replant them until I learned."
They went downstairs.
The greenhouse sat behind the house, neglected during winter.
Lorenzo moved toward an old stone planter.
He lifted it.
Nothing.
Sophie studied the structure.
"Learned patience."
Lorenzo looked at the roses.
Then the watering system.
A rusted brass timer sat against the wall.
He opened the back panel.
Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was a small cassette tape.
Mateo stared.
"Does anyone own a cassette player?"
Teresa did.
They listened in the kitchen.
Static.
Then Isabella's voice.
Another voice answered.
Antonio.
Sophie stopped breathing.
Ten years disappeared.
Her father's voice filled the room.
He sounded younger than she remembered.
Alive.
Antonio described payments to Sylvio.
Shipments diverted.
Informants killed.
He said Vittorio Russo wanted a war between families.
Isabella asked why he had not gone directly to Carlo.
Antonio responded that he could no longer be certain messages were reaching Carlo unchanged.
Then he said something that changed everything.
"If anything happens to me, protect Sofia. She saw something she doesn't understand."
Sophie covered her mouth.
Isabella asked what.
Antonio lowered his voice.
"The ledger has six names. Sylvio is only five."
Everyone in the kitchen went still.
Isabella asked about the sixth.
Antonio answered.
The cassette clicked.
Stopped.
Mateo cursed.
"That's it?"
Lorenzo rewound.
The tape had been physically cut.
Someone had removed the final section.
Teresa stared at the player.
"I never knew."
Lorenzo looked at his grandmother.
"Who had access to my mother's room after she died?"
"Family."
"Names."
"Lorenzo—"
"Names."
Teresa swallowed.
"Me. Your father. Sylvio. Matteo DeLuca. Your uncle Dominic."
Dominic Moretti.
Carlo's younger brother.
Lorenzo's uncle.
A man who had supposedly left organized crime fifteen years earlier and now lived quietly in Connecticut.
Sophie watched Lorenzo.
"You think Dominic is number six?"
"I think there are too many ghosts in my family."
Mateo's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
"Boss."
"What?"
"One of our warehouses in Red Hook is burning."
Lorenzo stood.
"Which one?"
"Pier seventeen."
Sophie looked at the brass key.
Seventeen.
Her grandmother's lullaby.
The olive waits beside number seventeen.
"Wait."
Everyone looked at her.
"What if seventeen isn't the Swiss box?"
Lorenzo understood immediately.
"Pier seventeen."
They drove to Red Hook.
Smoke towered over the waterfront.
Fire engines blocked the street.
One Moretti warehouse was already collapsing.
Lorenzo stared through the windshield.
"My father owned that building before I was born."
Sophie gripped the brass key.
"Was there a safe?"
"Several."
"Old ones?"
"Basement."
They entered after the flames were controlled enough for firefighters to permit inspection.
In the basement, black water covered the floor.
Along the far wall stood a row of old storage compartments.
Numbers were barely visible.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Sophie inserted the key.
It fit.
Inside was a metal case.
Lorenzo carried it outside.
They opened it in the SUV.
Documents.
Photographs.
A ledger.
And a second cassette.
Sophie touched the ledger.
Her father's handwriting covered the pages.
Payment dates.
Initials.
Shipping companies.
Police contacts.
Six coded names.
Lorenzo turned the pages.
"Sylvio."
"Russo."
"Three customs officers."
Mateo pointed toward the sixth code.
M.D.
Lorenzo stared.
"Matteo DeLuca."
Mateo went rigid.
Matteo DeLuca had been Lorenzo's godfather.
And Mateo Rizzo's biological father.
Mateo looked as though someone had struck him.
"My father?"
Lorenzo said nothing.
Mateo grabbed the ledger.
"He died when I was ten."
Sophie studied the entry.
M.D. received payments for information about Antonio Vitale's movements.
Including the date he died.
Mateo stepped away.
"No."
Lorenzo knew that word.
He had spoken it himself hours earlier.
Sophie approached carefully.
"Mateo."
"Don't."
His voice broke.
She stopped.
Lorenzo placed one hand on Mateo's shoulder.
Mateo jerked away.
"You knew?"
"No."
"My father gave them Antonio?"
"It looks that way."
Mateo turned toward Sophie.
For the first time, the intimidating enforcer looked ashamed.
"My father helped kill yours."
Sophie looked at him.
"You didn't."
"My blood did."
"So did Lorenzo's."
Lorenzo met her eyes.
Sophie continued.
"If we start punishing children for their fathers, none of us gets out of this alive."
Mateo stared at her.
The words settled slowly.
Before anyone could speak, Lorenzo's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Sylvio's voice.
"You found the box."
Lorenzo became still.
"Where are you?"
Sylvio laughed softly.
"You were always smart, Lorenzo. Unfortunately, never as smart as your mother."
Lorenzo's eyes sharpened.
"What do you want?"
"The ledger."
"And if I refuse?"
"You'll lose something you haven't realized you care about yet."
Lorenzo looked at Sophie.
A gunshot sounded through the phone.
Then screaming.
Lorenzo's face changed.
"Who was that?"
Sylvio answered.
May you like
"Your grandmother."
The line went dead.
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