Chapter 7 - The Secret In The Flour Sacks
That evening,
as the sun dipped below the mountains,
Rocco called Elara into the back room.
"We need to talk about your father and Ray,"
he said.
She sat on a flour sack,
her face pale in the dim light.
"What about them?"
"They weren't just friends,
Elara."
"They were partners in a heist thirty years ago."
"They stole something from my uncle,
Gino Castellano."
Elara gasped,
her hand going to her mouth.
"My father wasn't a thief,"
she whispered.
"He was a good man."
"He was both,"
Rocco said.
"They stole a ledger,
one that proved Gino was working with the feds to take out the other families."
"Ray took the ledger and hid it,
and your father provided him with the cover he needed to escape."
"Gino has been looking for that ledger for three decades."
"He thought Ray had it,
but Ray didn't."
"He left it here,
didn't he?"
Elara looked around the room,
her eyes wide.
"I don't know,"
she said.
"I've never seen anything like that."
Rocco stood up from the wheelchair,
causing Elara to jump back in shock.
"You can walk?"
she breathed.
"I can do a lot more than walk,"
he said,
his voice hard.
"Help me look."
"Think about the things your father told you,
the places he told you never to touch."
She thought for a long moment,
her brow furrowed.
"The old oven,"
she said.
"The one in the very back that hasn't worked since the fifties."
"He told me it was the heart of the building and should never be moved."
Rocco went to the back of the kitchen,
finding the massive,
cast-iron oven.
It was cold and covered in soot.
He felt around the edges,
his fingers searching for a seam or a hidden latch.
Finally,
behind a loose brick in the flue,
he felt a cold,
metal box.
He pulled it out,
covered in decades of dust.
Inside was a leather-bound book and a stack of old photographs.
He opened the book and saw the names,
the dates,
and the signatures.
It was the death warrant for the Castellano family.
"This is it,"
Rocco said.
"This is why they're here."
"This book is worth more than the entire town."
Just then,
the sound of tires crunching on gravel echoed from the front.
Silas Thorne hadn't come alone.
May you like
And he hadn't come with papers.
He had come with fire.
