Chapter 3 - The Godfather’s Confession
Carlo Bellini had been shot once beneath the ribs and beaten badly enough that his left eye was swollen shut.
Lorenzo stood at the foot of the hospital bed and felt nothing that resembled pity.
He had known Carlo for thirty-one years.
That was the problem.
Memory made betrayal untidy.
Carlo had taught him how to hold a fishing rod. Carlo had taken him to his first football match. Carlo had walked beside him at nineteen when Lorenzo buried his mother and again at twenty-four when he buried his brother.
And Carlo had stood on the upper balcony of Villa Cato with a phone in his hand while a three-year-old girl crossed a ballroom to meet her father.
Fausto closed the hospital-room door behind them.
Sophia remained near the wall.
Carlo opened his good eye.
When he saw her, shame crossed his face.
Not fear.
Lorenzo noticed that too.
“You sold my daughter,” Lorenzo said.
Carlo swallowed.
“I sold pictures.”
“Do not insult me with grammar.”
“I never gave them her name.”
“Matteo already had it.”
Carlo looked at Sophia.
“I did not know that.”
“You knew enough,” Sophia said.
He looked away.
Lorenzo moved to the side of the bed.
“Two months. What did you sell?”
Carlo’s mouth tightened.
“Nothing at first.”
Lorenzo leaned down.
“Wrong answer.”
Carlo’s good eye met his.
“Questions. Schedules. Old stories about Ferraro. Things Matteo already half knew.”
“Why?”
Carlo said nothing.
Fausto stepped forward.
Lorenzo raised one hand.
“No. He gets one chance to tell me himself.”
Carlo stared at the blanket.
“My son owes Vieri money.”
Lorenzo went still.
Carlo laughed once, painfully.
“Yes. That simple. That stupid.”
“You told me Stefano was in Argentina.”
“He was. Then he came back. Gambling. Cocaine. He borrowed from people who borrow from Matteo. By the time I learned, the debt was one point eight million.”
Fausto cursed.
Carlo continued.
“Matteo offered to erase it if I answered questions.”
“And you believed him.”
“No.”
Carlo looked at Lorenzo.
“I believed he would kill my son if I refused.”
“You could have come to me.”
“I was ashamed.”
The word was so ordinary that Lorenzo almost hated it more than the betrayal.
“Ashamed,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“So you traded my house for your pride.”
Carlo’s eye filled.
“I traded pieces because I thought I could choose which pieces.”
“That is what every traitor tells himself.”
Carlo flinched.
Sophia’s voice cut through the room.
“Who told Matteo about Switzerland?”
Carlo looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Fausto says you told him someone in the house did.”
“I said someone must have.”
“Why?”
“Because I never knew.”
Sophia’s expression sharpened.
Carlo shifted and winced.
“Matteo called me after I sent the photographs. He said I was finished. Then he asked whether you still had your father’s Christmas box.”
Sophia’s face changed.
Lorenzo saw it.
“You never mentioned the box to anyone?”
“No.”
“Not Don Aldo?”
Sophia hesitated.
“I told him I had one box from my father. Not what it looked like. Not what was inside.”
Carlo looked toward Lorenzo.
“Matteo said the box led to Zurich.”
“Zurich,” Lorenzo said.
Sophia gripped the back of the chair.
The address on the Christmas card was in Zurich.
Carlo’s breathing became uneven.
“Then Matteo told me to drive south. I knew he was going to clean up the trail. I left the villa and called a number he gave me. He said there would be a car waiting near San Luca.”
“That is where they shot you?” Fausto asked.
Carlo nodded.
“I saw the man before he fired. I knew him.”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
“Who?”
Carlo looked at him for a long moment.
“Raffaele.”
No one spoke.
Raffaele Cato was Lorenzo’s cousin.
He was also head of the family’s legal businesses.
And he had been seated six tables from the orchestra when Mia crossed the ballroom.
Fausto shook his head immediately.
“No. I saw Raffaele leave at eleven thirty.”
“So did I,” Carlo said.
“You are saying he drove forty kilometers, shot you, and came back?”
“No.”
Carlo swallowed.
“I am saying I saw him before I was shot.”
“Where?”
“In the car that met me. Passenger seat.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
Lorenzo’s face did not move.
Raffaele had grown up in Villa Cato. He had shared tutors with Lorenzo until they were twelve. He had been the one family member who argued, repeatedly, that the Cato organization should move completely into legitimate finance and shipping.
He was cautious.
Polished.
Patient.
And he had no children.
Succession.
Lorenzo turned to Fausto.
“Where is he now?”
“His apartment in Milan, according to his security detail.”
“According to them.”
Fausto understood.
“I’ll verify.”
He left.
Lorenzo looked back at Carlo.
“What did Raffaele say?”
“Nothing. He looked at me.”
“And then?”
“The driver told me to get out. I knew then.”
“How did you survive?”
Carlo’s mouth twisted.
“They shot once and left. The bullet went through. I fell into the ditch. Maybe they thought the blood was enough.”
“You walked eleven kilometers to a hospital.”
“I had motivation.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
Carlo’s voice broke.
“Stefano is missing.”
There it was.
Not redemption.
A father’s terror.
Sophia looked at Lorenzo.
He knew what she was asking without words.
Do not become the man she feared you were.
Lorenzo looked back at Carlo.
“You betrayed me.”
“Yes.”
“You endangered my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“You may have helped Vieri find something that could start a war.”
“Yes.”
Carlo shut his eye.
“I know what I deserve.”
Lorenzo’s voice was quiet.
“No, you know what you expect.”
Carlo opened his eye.
“There is a difference.”
Lorenzo straightened.
“You are going to live.”
Carlo stared.
“You are going to live long enough to help me find your son, identify every contact Vieri used, and testify to every transaction. After that, you will live with what you did.”
Carlo’s face crumpled in a way Lorenzo had never seen.
“Why?”
Lorenzo looked toward Sophia.
“Because my daughter asked me for no lies tonight.”
Then he left.
In the hospital corridor, Sophia caught up with him.
“You did that for Mia?”
He kept walking.
“I did it because killing him would be easy.”
“And?”
“And I am beginning to suspect easy has cost this family enough.”
She stopped.
He turned.
There was something in her expression he could not read.
Then she said, “Raffaele knows Zurich.”
“How?”
“Three months ago, he saw Mia drawing the Christmas card from memory.”
Lorenzo’s expression sharpened.
“What?”
“She likes drawing houses. I showed her the old card once because she asked how I drew when I was little. Raffaele came into the kitchen. He saw the address on the back when she turned it over.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He asked whether Switzerland was important to me.”
“And you said?”
“I said no.”
Lorenzo exhaled.
“So he knew there was an address.”
“Yes.”
“But not the bank or box number unless he saw more than you thought.”
Sophia nodded.
Fausto appeared at the end of the corridor, walking fast.
“Raffaele is not in Milan.”
Lorenzo already knew.
“His security team?”
“Paid to say he was.”
“Where was his last verified location?”
Fausto looked at Sophia.
“Malpensa airport. Private terminal. Forty minutes ago.”
Lorenzo felt the shape of the next move before Fausto said it.
“Destination?”
“Zurich.”
Sophia’s hand went to her mouth.
Lorenzo took out his phone.
“Ground every Cato aircraft.”
Fausto shook his head.
“He is already airborne.”
Lorenzo looked through the corridor window into the black Christmas morning.
Raffaele was going for the ledger.
Or for whatever Paolo Ferraro had hidden in that bank box.
Sophia stepped beside him.
“We have to go.”
“No.”
She turned sharply.
“You need the key.”
“I need you safe.”
“The box is in my name. If my father planned this, the bank may require me.”
“I will find another way.”
“There may not be another way.”
“I am not putting you on a plane while Vieri is hunting you.”
Sophia’s eyes flashed.
“And I am not spending the rest of my life in a locked room because men are dangerous.”
“This is not the time.”
“It is exactly the time.”
She stepped closer.
“For three years, I protected Mia by disappearing inside your house. I worked quietly. I used another name. I let people assume I was nobody because being nobody kept her alive.”
Her voice lowered.
“But that is finished. Matteo knows. Raffaele knows. You know.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Sophia’s eyes held his.
“If I hide now, Mia learns that fear is what women inherit in this family.”
The sentence stopped him.
Sophia continued.
“She already crossed your ballroom alone.”
A beat.
“I can cross Switzerland with security.”
For the first time since the photographs were sold, Lorenzo almost smiled.
Almost.
Fausto’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and looked at Lorenzo.
“Boss. We found Stefano Bellini.”
Carlo’s son.
“Alive?”
“Yes. Locked in a storage unit outside Como.”
“Get him out.”
“We are.”
Fausto hesitated.
“There is something else.”
Lorenzo waited.
“Stefano says Raffaele was the one who introduced him to Vieri’s bookmakers eighteen months ago.”
Sophia went still.
It was no longer one betrayal.
It was architecture.
Raffaele had created Carlo’s weakness, waited for the debt, then sold the solution.
He had not stumbled into the conspiracy.
He had built it.
Lorenzo looked at Sophia.
“When do you want to leave?”
May you like
Her answer came immediately.
“Now.”
