Chapter 2 - The Funeral With No Body
I did not sleep.
Not that night.
Not even for a minute.
Nora slept in a portable crib beside me while two armed guards stood outside the guest room door. Every time the old house settled or a pipe clicked, I sat up expecting someone to come through the wall.
But the sound that haunted me most was Gabriel's voice.
If Nora is alive, do not trust anyone named Moretti.
By six in the morning, Dante was already in the downstairs study with Rafael and three laptops open in front of him.
I walked in wearing borrowed sweatpants and one of the plain white shirts someone had left outside my room.
"You traced the call?"
Dante looked exhausted.
"It bounced through twelve servers in three countries."
"So no."
"No."
"Was it live?"
"We think so."
"You think?"
Rafael turned one laptop toward me.
"There were natural response pauses after Dante answered. The signal also carried background noise that changed during the call. It wasn't just a recording."
I gripped the back of a chair.
"Then Gabriel is alive."
Dante did not answer.
"Say it."
His eyes lifted to mine.
"Gabriel may be alive."
"May be? I know his voice."
"And people who planned a false funeral can also manipulate audio."
"Why are you trying to convince me he's dead?"
His chair scraped back.
"I'm trying to keep you alive long enough to find out the truth."
"He warned me not to trust you."
"I heard him."
"Does that bother you?"
A muscle moved in Dante's jaw.
"More than you understand."
He walked to a locked cabinet and removed a thin black folder.
He placed it in front of me.
Inside was a death certificate.
Gabriel Matteo Bellini.
Age thirty-one.
Cause of death: severe thermal injury and smoke inhalation following an industrial warehouse fire.
I stared at the date.
Three years earlier.
"Where did this happen?"
"A warehouse outside Kenosha. Gabriel had gone there to review a shipping contract. There was an explosion after midnight."
Dante slid another paper toward me.
"The remains were badly burned. Identification came from dental records."
I looked at the signature.
DR. ELIAS VALE.
"Who is he?"
"Family physician. Retired now."
"Family physician?"
"For thirty years."
"So the man who confirmed your brother's burned body worked for your family."
"Yes."
"And you never thought that was suspicious?"
Dante's eyes turned hard.
"I thought many things were suspicious."
"Then why did you bury him?"
His voice dropped.
"Because I was given a body in a sealed coffin, a medical identification, a police report, and a mother who collapsed when she was told her son was dead. I did not have the luxury of assuming every death in my life was a conspiracy."
There was pain underneath the anger.
Real pain.
It stopped me for a second.
"I'm sorry," I said, quieter.
He looked away.
"The coffin was never opened. Gabriel's mother refused."
"Where is she?"
"Dead. Eighteen months ago. Stroke."
"Convenient."
Dante looked back at me.
"That's exactly what Rafael said last night."
Rafael did not deny it.
I turned another page.
There were photos of the warehouse after the explosion. Steel beams twisted inward. Walls blackened. A sedan burned near the loading dock.
I stared at the photographs longer than I wanted to. The pictures showed a version of Gabriel I had never known: a man with an official history, business records, family connections, and a death date that predated the first cup of coffee we ever shared. I remembered asking him once why he never posted photographs online. He had smiled and said he hated social media. I remembered asking why he had no family pictures in his apartment. He said there was nobody left worth remembering. At the time, those answers sounded sad, not suspicious.
Now I wondered how many nights he had lain beside me carrying the knowledge that the world officially considered him dead. I wondered whether every siren made him tense. Whether every unfamiliar car outside our building made him look twice. Whether the tenderness I had loved in him had partly come from a man who believed every ordinary day might be his last.
Then I found something that made my skin prickle.
A property record.
The warehouse belonged to Moretti Freight Holdings.
I looked up.
"Your company owned the building."
"A subsidiary did."
"Who ran it?"
Dante was silent.
"Who ran it?"
"My uncle. Salvatore Moretti."
There it was.
A new name.
And the way Dante said it made me understand that the name mattered.
"Your father's brother?"
"Yes."
"Where is he now?"
"Palm Beach, supposedly retired."
"Supposedly?"
"Salvatore never retired from anything in his life. He simply stopped putting his name on documents."
I sat down slowly.
"Did Gabriel know him?"
"Very well. Salvatore managed parts of the shipping division. Gabriel occasionally consulted on contracts."
"Did they fight?"
Dante's gaze shifted.
"Two weeks before the fire, Gabriel accused Salvatore of moving money through fake vendors."
My hands went cold.
"You left that part out."
"Because three years ago, I investigated it and found nothing."
"Maybe because someone wanted you to find nothing."
Dante looked at Rafael.
Rafael leaned back in his chair.
"We're reopening everything."
My stomach twisted.
Everything.
A funeral.
A warehouse explosion.
A hidden camera.
A dead man's phone call.
And my daughter in the middle of it.
I picked up the photograph again.
"Your mother wrote this?"
"Her handwriting."
"When did she die?"
"Six months after Gabriel's funeral. Car accident."
I looked at him.
"Another convenient death."
This time, Dante did not defend the past.
He opened a desk drawer and pulled out an old envelope.
"My mother left me several boxes of personal papers. I never had a reason to connect them to Gabriel until now. Rafael went through the archive overnight."
Inside were photocopies of guest lists, foundation receipts, and photographs from the scholarship gala.
Then I saw my name.
LENA CRUZ — TEMPORARY BANQUET STAFF.
Beneath it, handwritten in blue ink:
M. CRUZ'S DAUGHTER?
My breath disappeared.
"M. Cruz was my mother. Maria Cruz."
Dante's face changed.
"Your mother worked for the Moretti Foundation?"
"No. She cleaned offices. Hotels. Private homes. Whatever she could get."
Rafael started typing.
"Full name?"
"Maria Elena Cruz. Born in San Antonio. Moved to Chicago when she was nineteen."
He searched.
A minute later, his expression sharpened.
"I found a payroll record."
He turned the screen toward us.
MARIA CRUZ — CONTRACT BOOKKEEPING ASSISTANT, MORETTI FOUNDATION.
Employment dates: fourteen years earlier to nine years earlier.
I stared at the screen until the words blurred.
"My mother never told me."
Dante looked at me.
"How did she die?"
"Cancer. Five years ago."
"Did she leave papers?"
"Almost nothing. We were poor. She rented. She had one jewelry box, some family photos, old tax folders."
"Where are they?"
"Storage unit in Cicero. I couldn't afford a bigger apartment after she died, so I kept one small unit."
Rafael stood immediately.
"We go now."
Dante shook his head.
"Not her."
"It's my mother's stuff."
"Which may be exactly why someone has been watching you."
"I'm going."
"Lena—"
"You don't get to order me around because you own half the city."
"I do when someone tried to erase your baby before I could find her."
I stepped closer.
"Nora is my daughter. Gabriel is the man I loved. Maria was my mother. Every piece of this belongs to my life. You don't get to put me in a safe room and investigate my family without me."
Dante stared at me for several seconds.
Then he nodded once.
"Fine. But Nora stays here with a nurse and two guards."
I hated leaving her.
But I hated the idea of carrying her toward another trap even more.
Forty minutes later, three SUVs entered a run-down storage complex in Cicero.
The manager nearly fainted when he saw Dante Moretti step out.
Unit 214 was at the end of a concrete hallway.
I unlocked it with shaking hands.
Inside sat everything my mother had left behind.
Three plastic bins.
A broken lamp.
Two winter coats.
A small cedar chest.
Dante stayed near the door while Rafael searched for signs someone else had entered.
"Dust is undisturbed," he said. "No recent forced access."
I opened the first bin.
Photographs.
Receipts.
Old Christmas cards.
Nothing.
The second contained kitchen towels and books.
The third held paperwork.
I dug through tax returns, medical bills, and envelopes from utility companies.
Then I found a photograph of my mother standing beside a much younger Salvatore Moretti.
I knew his face from newspaper articles.
Silver hair now. Back then, black.
He was smiling.
My mother wasn't.
On the back she had written one sentence:
HE KNOWS I SAW THE LEDGER.
My hands began shaking.
"Dante."
He took the photograph.
His face hardened.
"What ledger?"
"I don't know."
Rafael crouched near the cedar chest.
"This has a false bottom."
He pressed one corner.
A thin panel lifted.
Underneath was a yellow envelope.
My name was written across the front.
LENA — ONLY IF THEY COME BACK.
I stopped breathing.
My mother's handwriting.
I tore it open.
Inside was a tiny brass key, a folded bank receipt, and a handwritten letter.
Lena,
If you are reading this, it means something I prayed would stay buried has returned.
Do not believe the story they tell you about the Moretti brothers.
The dangerous one is not the brother everyone fears.
The dangerous one is the man who taught them who to fear.
My eyes moved to Dante.
He looked as pale as I felt.
The letter continued.
If Gabriel Bellini ever finds you, do not run from him.
If Dante Moretti ever finds you, make him prove which side he chose.
And if Salvatore Moretti knows you have a child, leave Chicago immediately.
Because the ledger was never about money.
It was about heirs.
I read the final line twice.
Then a third time.
Rafael took the bank receipt from the envelope.
"Safety deposit box," he said. "First Lakeshore Bank. Box 417."
Dante looked at the key.
"Whatever Maria hid, Salvatore has been afraid of it for years."
My phone would have rung then if Rafael had not taken it.
Instead, his phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
His face changed.
"What?" Dante asked.
Rafael looked directly at me.
"The nurse at the safe house triggered the silent alarm."
My knees nearly gave out.
"Nora."
Dante was already moving.
"Move!"
We ran.
By the time we reached the vehicles, Rafael's phone rang again.
He answered.
Listened.
Then stopped.
"Say it," Dante snapped.
Rafael's eyes locked on mine.
"The safe house is secure. Nora is unharmed."
I almost collapsed from relief.
Then he added,
"But someone left a package outside the nursery door."
"What package?"
Rafael swallowed.
"A funeral program."
Dante went still.
"Whose funeral?"
Rafael held up the phone.
The screen showed a scanned cover.
GABRIEL MATTEO BELLINI
Beloved Son. Beloved Brother.
May you like
Beneath his photograph, someone had written in red ink:
YOU BURIED THE WRONG MAN.
