Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Photograph
Dante's mansion had twenty-two bedrooms.
I chose the smallest one.
It still had a fireplace, a marble bathroom, and a view that probably added more money to the property value than I would earn in ten years.
Orion lay across the doorway like a furry barricade.
"He normally sleeps in my room," Dante said from the hall.
I looked down at the dog.
"Do you want me to tell him?"
Dante folded his arms.
"I have been trying for ten minutes."
"And?"
"He has chosen treason."
I smiled despite myself.
That was dangerous.
Not because Dante Moretti was a criminal. Not because men with guns guarded the hall. Not even because someone had shot at us twice in one day.
It was dangerous because for a few seconds, he looked like an ordinary man whose dog had abandoned him for a woman in borrowed sweatpants.
Ordinary men were easier to trust.
I could not afford to trust him easily.
My father's note had warned me about that too.
Make him earn the rest.
"Good night, Dante."
"Lock the door."
"Does that help in a house full of professional criminals?"
"It helps me sleep."
I locked it.
I did not sleep.
At three in the morning I gave up, stepped over Orion, and wandered downstairs.
The library lights were on.
Dante sat at the desk surrounded by copies of the red ledger. His jacket was gone. A fresh bandage covered the cut on his temple.
"Do Mafia bosses ever sleep?"
"Only during boring meetings."
I leaned against the doorframe.
"You make jokes?"
"Rarely. Don't tell anyone."
I walked closer.
The pages had been arranged by date.
"Find anything?"
"Victor moved money through seventeen shell companies. Some still exist. Some belong to judges, police officers, and union officials."
"Enough to arrest him?"
"Enough to start a war."
I stared at him.
"That is not the same thing."
"No."
He tapped one line in the ledger.
"This payment was made three days before my father's crash. Another was made to the detective who closed the investigation."
His voice remained steady, but I saw the tension in his hand.
"And your mother?"
"Same pattern. Money to a police captain. A pawnshop owner. A prosecutor who later became a judge."
I sat across from him.
"What happens if you confront Victor?"
"He denies everything. Then people disappear."
"So we do not confront him."
Dante looked up.
"We?"
"My apartment was shot. My father left the ledger. I think I qualified for we several bullets ago."
Something warm moved through his eyes.
"Fair."
I picked up the photograph of my mother standing beside Victor.
"You said he refused to enter one place. What if it was connected to my mother?"
"Maybe."
"She died three years ago. Cancer. She never talked about my father's work. But there was one place she hated discussing."
Dante waited.
"A church in Brooklyn. St. Agnes. She used to volunteer there when I was little. Dad did too. Then after he disappeared, she never went back."
"Why?"
"She said some places hurt too much."
Dante was already reaching for his phone.
"We go at first light."
"No security parade."
"Absolutely not."
"If Victor is watching the house, six SUVs leaving together will advertise where we are going."
He hated that I was right.
I could see it.
"One vehicle," I said. "Two guards. Orion."
"Four guards."
"Three."
"You negotiate everything."
"My mother sold used cars for six years. I learned from an expert."
The smile nearly returned.
At six thirty, we left through a service gate in an unmarked SUV.
St. Agnes stood between a laundromat and a row of brownstones. The church was old, narrow, and dark brick, with stone steps worn smooth by a century of feet.
The priest who opened the side door was eighty if he was a day.
He looked at me and dropped the ring of keys in his hand.
"Catherine?"
My chest tightened.
"I'm her daughter. Olivia."
The priest crossed himself.
"I knew you would come eventually."
Dante and I exchanged a look.
Father Michael led us into a small office behind the sacristy.
The room smelled like coffee and old wood. A photograph of the church softball team from 1998 hung crookedly beside the desk. I recognized my father in the back row before I recognized myself in the little girl sitting on his shoulders.
I walked toward it slowly.
"I remember that day."
My voice sounded far away.
Dad had bought me lemon ice afterward. Mom had complained that he let me eat too much sugar. I remembered Victor nowhere in that memory. No secret accounts. No aliases. No fear. Just sunlight, sticky fingers, and my father's hand around mine.
Father Michael watched me. "They tried very hard to give you ordinary days."
"They succeeded."
The anger inside me softened for one second. "That is what makes this worse. I had a normal father until suddenly I did not."
The priest nodded. "Children believe parents are either truthful or dishonest. Adults eventually learn that frightened people can love deeply and still make terrible choices."
Dante stood by the window, silent.
I looked at him. "That applies to Mafia bosses too?"
Father Michael did not hesitate. "Especially to them."
Dante gave the priest a dry look. "Good to see you too, Father."
For the first time since entering the church, I smiled.
Orion followed silently.
"Your parents came here before you were born," the priest said. "Not for worship at first. For safety. Your father believed the church was the only building Victor Salvi would not enter."
"Why?"
The old priest's expression hardened.
"Because Victor was afraid of your mother."
I stared at him.
"My mother?"
"Catherine Marshall was not her birth name."
There it was again.
Another piece of my life cracking open.
Father Michael opened a cabinet and removed a yellowed newspaper clipping.
The headline read:
CITY ACCOUNTANT VANISHES AFTER TESTIFYING IN CORRUPTION PROBE.
The photograph beneath it showed my mother at twenty-three.
Her real name was Catherine Vale.
She had worked in the city comptroller's office.
And twenty-seven years earlier, she had testified before a grand jury about contracts tied to Victor Salvi.
"She vanished before the case reached trial," Father Michael said. "Everyone assumed she had been killed. Gabriel helped her disappear. They fell in love while hiding."
I could barely process it.
"So my whole family was built on fake names."
"On survival," the priest corrected gently.
Dante leaned forward.
"Did Gabriel leave anything here?"
Father Michael looked at him for a long moment.
"Your father had his eyes."
Dante went still.
The priest sighed.
"Yes. There is something. But before I give it to you, you need to understand why Victor feared Catherine. She recorded him ordering the first murder."
My breath caught.
"Dante's father?"
"No. Earlier. A city inspector named Paul Rizzo. Victor had him killed after he refused a bribe. Catherine heard the conversation through an office line and copied it. From that day forward, Victor wanted the recording destroyed."
"Is that the original audio my father mentioned?" I asked.
"It became the beginning of something larger. Gabriel later recorded Victor admitting what happened to the Morettis."
Father Michael stood slowly.
"Come with me."
He led us beneath the church into a basement archive room.
At the far wall stood an old wooden confessional booth covered by a white sheet.
My heart began to pound.
One place Victor refused to enter.
A confessional.
Father Michael removed the cloth.
"He believed confession was for weak men. Gabriel found that amusing."
Dante ran his hand along the wood.
"Where?"
The priest pointed to the kneeler.
Beneath it was a hidden compartment.
Inside sat a small cassette tape sealed in plastic.
Written across it in my mother's handwriting were four words:
FOR DANTE. WHEN READY.
I looked at him.
His face had lost color.
Father Michael handed him the tape.
Then the church bell rang once.
It was not seven o'clock.
The priest's expression changed.
"That bell only rings from the side entrance."
Dante reached beneath his coat.
Orion began to growl.
Footsteps sounded overhead.
Several men.
Too many.
Dante grabbed my hand.
"Back exit?"
Father Michael pointed toward a narrow corridor.
The basement door exploded inward.
Gunfire ripped into the wall.
Dante pulled me down as Orion launched forward with a roar.
"Orion!"
The dog stopped only because Dante shouted his name with a force that shook the room.
We ran through the corridor.
One of Dante's guards fired behind us.
Father Michael moved faster than I thought possible.
We reached a steel service door opening into an alley.
A black sedan blocked the exit.
Victor Salvi stood beside it.
He was older than I expected.
Silver hair. Expensive coat. Gentle face.
He looked like someone's beloved grandfather.
That frightened me more than anything.
"Olivia," he said warmly. "You look exactly like your mother."
Dante stepped in front of me.
"Move."
Victor smiled.
"You always were impatient, godson."
"You murdered my parents."
The smile disappeared.
"Careful. Grief makes men foolish."
Dante's hand tightened around his gun.
I touched his arm.
Not because I was brave.
Because my father's letter flashed through my mind.
Do not avenge your parents by becoming Victor.
Dante looked at me.
I shook my head once.
Victor saw it.
And smiled again.
"Thomas trained you well, Olivia."
My anger burned through the fear.
"His name was Gabriel."
For the first time, Victor's expression slipped.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Dante noticed too.
Victor's men raised their weapons.
Then sirens wailed at the end of the block.
Father Michael smiled behind us.
"Churches have alarms too."
Victor stepped back toward the sedan.
"This is not over."
I looked directly at him.
"No. It isn't."
His eyes turned cold.
"Your father said the same thing before I buried him."
The sedan doors slammed.
The car disappeared just before police cruisers turned into the street.
I stood frozen in the alley.
Dante turned toward me.
"Olivia."
"He killed him."
"We don't know that."
"He said he buried him."
Dante's eyes were full of the same controlled rage I felt inside myself.
"Then we find out where."
May you like
He looked at the cassette in his hand.
"And this time, we make sure Victor cannot bury the truth with him."
