Chapter 4 - WHAT MY FATHER HID UNDER MY NAME
The Municipal Archives opened at eight.
At seven fifty-five, I was standing across the street with Dante, Marco, Giuseppe, and a husband I no longer recognized.
Marcus had not been allowed to leave.
Not because Dante chained him somewhere.
Because Marco gave him two options.
Remain where we could see him.
Or explain himself to federal investigators immediately.
Marcus chose us.
That said enough.
“You don’t have to do this,” Dante told me.
I looked at him.
“I know.”
He nodded.
Then stepped back.
Another small thing.
Another choice he did not take from me.
Inside, cage C-214 required identification, my father’s death certificate, and a signed archival release.
Dante’s people had somehow obtained everything overnight.
I decided not to ask how.
Yet.
The clerk returned carrying a gray evidence carton.
No guns.
No money.
Paper.
Dad would have appreciated that.
Inside were claim files from Archway Adjusters.
Photographs of damaged containers.
Handwritten notes.
Shipping manifests.
And a small cassette recorder.
Marco frowned.
“Old-school.”
“My father hated computers.”
I picked up a photograph.
A cargo container labeled medical equipment.
Inside were wooden crates.
One had split.
Guns.
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Victor.”
Marcus looked at the floor.
The paperwork showed something worse.
Castellano companies were listed as insurers and freight intermediaries.
To anyone reading quickly, Dante’s family looked responsible.
Then Dad’s notes separated signatures.
Anthony Castellano had signed several early shipments.
Victor Hale had countersigned later ones.
Then Luca Castellano’s name appeared.
Not as an organizer.
As an investigator.
“He was working with Dad,” I whispered.
Dante touched the page.
“My brother never told me.”
“Would you have listened?”
His face tightened.
At twenty-one, Dante had still been climbing inside his family.
Luca apparently had not trusted him yet.
Or wanted to protect him.
That word again.
I hated it more each time.
A red leather ledger sat beneath the files.
Not the one Marcus stole.
A copy.
Marcus stared.
“There were two.”
Dad had made a duplicate.
Of course he had.
I almost smiled.
My father wore two belts while traveling because he said redundancy was the closest ordinary people came to magic.
We opened the ledger.
Payments.
Names.
Dates.
Police officers.
Customs officials.
Businessmen.
Then a name that made Dante sit down.
Giuseppe Romano.
I stared at the restaurant owner.
He closed his eyes.
“You took money.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“For what?”
“To let Daniel and Anthony meet after hours.”
I frowned.
“That’s all?”
“No.”
He looked ashamed.
“I also allowed Castellano cash to pass through Romano’s wine invoices.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“You laundered for my uncle.”
“For your father.”
That landed harder.
Dante said nothing.
Giuseppe continued.
“I was twenty-eight. My restaurant was failing. Your father offered enough money to save it.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Then you kept doing it.”
“For six years.”
My respect for Giuseppe did not disappear.
It changed.
That was worse in some ways.
People I loved kept becoming complicated.
“When did you stop?”
“When Daniel found out.”
I looked up.
“Dad?”
“He audited one of the accounts.”
Giuseppe smiled sadly.
“He sat at table twelve and told me I had twenty-four hours to decide whether the restaurant owned me or I owned the restaurant.”
“That sounds like him.”
“I stopped.”
“What happened?”
“Your father helped me repay everything I could.”
Dante stared.
“My family let you walk?”
“Anthony did.”
Another piece.
Anthony had already been turning away from Victor’s operation.
I opened the next file.
A photograph fell out.
Luca Castellano stood beside my father.
Behind them was a girl around sixteen.
Brown hair.
Red school coat.
Me.
I stopped breathing.
The photo had been taken outside my high school.
“Why were they watching me?”
Dante took the picture.
His face changed.
“Luca took this.”
“How do you know?”
“The date.”
“What does the date mean?”
“The day before he died.”
Cold rushed through me.
Luca had been murdered in an underground parking garage.
The papers blamed a rival family.
Victor Hale’s connection had never become public.
“Why was your brother near my school?”
Dante turned the photograph over.
There was writing.
Luca’s.
Not Dad’s.
Hale found Reyes’s daughter.
Move her before Friday.
I sat down.
My father had still been alive then.
He died six months later.
“Victor was watching me when I was sixteen.”
Marcus whispered, “Yes.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“He showed me pictures.”
My stomach twisted.
“What pictures?”
“Years of them.”
Dante’s face became terrifyingly blank.
Marcus continued quickly.
“He said Daniel hid something with Mia. Something she didn’t even know she had.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What?”
Marcus shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I am.”
His gaze fell toward my neck.
Then stopped.
My hand went automatically to the thin silver chain I wore beneath my blouse.
My mother’s necklace.
A tiny oval locket.
I had worn it since Dad gave it to me after Mom died.
Marcus stared.
“I’ve seen that symbol.”
“What symbol?”
I pulled the locket free.
The front was etched with a little compass rose.
Marcus’s face went pale.
“Victor has the same mark on the inside of the watch.”
My father’s stolen watch.
Dante leaned closer without touching me.
“The watch has a matching symbol?”
Marcus nodded.
I pressed the compass design.
Nothing.
Then Giuseppe said quietly, “Daniel always turned it north.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“The compass.”
I rotated the locket so the longest point faced upward.
The metal clicked.
A hidden back opened.
Inside was no photograph.
No message.
A micro-storage card.
Tiny.
Modern enough that Dad must have replaced the original contents shortly before his death.
Marco found an adapter.
The card held one audio file.
Date:
Two days before my father’s fatal heart attack.
I pressed play.
Dad’s voice filled the archival room.
“Mia, if you’re hearing this, I failed to keep you outside it.”
My throat closed.
Dante looked away, giving me privacy without leaving.
Dad continued.
“Victor Hale believes Luca Castellano died because he found the ledger.”
A pause.
“He’s wrong.”
Dante’s head snapped toward the recorder.
“Luca died because he found the name of the man above Victor.”
Silence.
Above Victor?
Dad’s voice became quieter.
“Anthony knows part of it. Giuseppe knows nothing. Dante knows less than anyone, and that may be the only reason he’s alive.”
Dante’s face hardened.
Then:
“If Victor ever reaches for you, do not run toward the Castellano family.”
I stared at Dante.
Dad continued.
“Run from them.”
May you like
My blood chilled.
“Because the man Victor works for is one of them.”
