Chapter 6 - THE MAN ROMAN BURIED
Roman stared at the photograph until I thought he might tear the phone apart with his bare hands.
“My father is dead.”
Luca spoke first.
“So was Mother.”
Roman looked at him.
“That isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
Mira sat down.
“I didn’t know who he was. I only knew I recognized him.”
“From where?” I asked.
“The men who threatened me after Paulina was born.”
My skin prickled.
“He was one of them?”
“No.”
“He was in the car.”
Roman closed his eyes.
That seemed worse.
“Did he speak?”
Mira nodded.
“One sentence.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t tell Roman.”
Roman turned away.
For ten years, I had imagined him powerful.
Untouchable.
The man everyone feared.
Now I watched him discover that the architecture of his entire adult life might have been built by someone he believed buried.
“What was your father’s name?” I asked quietly.
“Vittorio Bellini.”
I remembered him only from portraits.
Roman’s father died five years before our wedding.
A heart attack, supposedly.
Roman was twenty-two.
Luca seventeen.
Isabella became the grieving widow.
Father Matteo became the adviser.
Every answer opened another door.
“Who identified him?”
Roman didn’t respond.
Luca did.
“Matteo.”
Of course.
“What about you?”
“I saw the coffin.”
“Face?”
“No.”
Roman looked at his brother.
“I did.”
“Did you?”
Roman frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“You were twenty-two and drunk enough to barely stand.”
Roman’s face darkened.
“You don’t get to rewrite my memories.”
“I’m trying to stop other people from doing it.”
Silence.
Mira handed me the hospital photograph.
Isabella’s handwriting seemed almost alive.
Roman must know. This ends now.
I looked at Roman.
“If your father was alive nine years ago, why keep Paulina from you?”
“He wanted control.”
Luca answered.
Roman shook his head.
“That’s too simple.”
He was right.
People didn’t usually build lies this elaborate without something larger beneath them.
“What did Vittorio want from you?” I asked.
Roman looked at the Christmas tree in Mira’s apartment.
“My father believed the Bellini organization should survive him exactly as he built it.”
“And you changed it.”
“I tried.”
“How?”
“No trafficking. No drugs near schools. No street crews collecting from family businesses. I moved money into construction, restaurants, shipping.”
Luca nodded.
“Father called that weakness.”
“Father was supposedly dead.”
“He wrote letters.”
Roman stared.
“What?”
“To Mother.”
Roman’s voice went quiet.
“You saw them?”
“One.”
Luca removed a folded page from his coat.
Old paper.
Water-stained.
Roman recognized the handwriting instantly.
He read silently.
Then handed it to me.
Isabella,
The boy has mistaken mercy for leadership.
If he continues dismantling what took us thirty years to build, we will become prey.
Keep him afraid enough to obey.
V.
My stomach turned.
“Keep him afraid.”
Roman laughed softly.
“That part worked.”
The letter had no date.
Luca pointed toward the bottom.
A watermark.
Hotel San Marco.
“Closed twenty-one years ago,” Roman said.
“So the letter could be old.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning it doesn’t prove he lived past his funeral.”
“No.”
Again, nothing simple.
“Then we find the man in the photograph.”
Mira shook her head.
“I watched him leave church.”
“With Matteo?”
“No.”
“Where did he go?”
“Across the street.”
She looked at Luca.
“To the old parish school.”
Roman immediately stood.
I grabbed his arm.
“You are not going alone.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“This is my father.”
“This is my daughter’s grandfather, apparently, and whoever he is has been part of threatening her since birth.”
Roman looked down at my hand on his sleeve.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
Not command.
Agreement.
It was so unfamiliar between us that it almost hurt.
The old parish school had been closed for renovation since October.
We entered through a side door Mira said the gray-haired man used.
Dust covered the hallway.
Christmas decorations from the church school still hung crookedly from bulletin boards.
Roman walked ahead.
Luca followed.
I stayed between them and Mira.
On the second floor, one classroom had light beneath the door.
Roman pushed it open.
Empty.
But someone had been there recently.
Coffee still steamed in a paper cup.
A dark overcoat hung over a chair.
Roman touched the collar.
His face changed.
“What?”
“My father had this made in Rome.”
“You’re sure?”
“The inside pocket.”
He turned it out.
Three embroidered initials.
V.A.B.
Vittorio Angelo Bellini.
Luca swore.
Mira crossed herself.
On the desk lay an old family photograph.
Roman and Luca as children.
Isabella.
Vittorio.
Someone had drawn a circle around Roman.
Another around Paulina’s photograph taped beside it.
A line connected them.
I felt sick.
Underneath lay a handwritten page.
Not elegant.
Not Matteo’s controlled script.
Harsh, slanted writing.
Roman read aloud.
Blood is inheritance.
Inheritance is obligation.
The Bellini line ends if Roman gives the family to outsiders.
I stared at him.
“Ends?”
Luca picked up another photograph.
Paulina outside school.
Recent.
“Father doesn’t see her as a child.”
Roman’s jaw hardened.
“He sees an heir.”
My blood ran cold.
“An heir to what?”
Before anyone answered, Mira noticed something beneath the desk.
A leather ledger.
She opened it.
Rows of names.
Payments.
Dates.
Political donations.
Police contacts.
Businesses.
Then a column labeled SUCCESSION.
Three entries.
Roman Bellini — Unreliable.
Luca Bellini — Defector.
Paulina Bellini — Recoverable.
My hands shook.
“She is not a Bellini.”
Roman looked at me.
“She is if she chooses to be.”
“Not like this.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“Never like this.”
Luca turned pages.
“There.”
Another entry.
Christmas Eve.
St. Michael’s Church.
Reconciliation protocol initiated.
Roman frowned.
“He knew I was coming.”
I looked at him sharply.
“You arranged the church meeting.”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone know?”
“One person.”
“Who?”
Roman’s face changed.
“Matteo.”
Everything clicked.
Roman had believed he chose the time and place.
But Matteo knew.
Vittorio appeared.
Mira photographed him.
This entire reunion might have been staged.
Roman closed the ledger.
“We leave.”
“Why?”
“Because this room is bait.”
The overhead lights died.
Darkness swallowed us.
A second later, red emergency lights came on in the hallway.
No explosion.
No gunfire.
Just the click of an old public-address system.
Then Father Matteo’s voice filled the empty school.
“Roman.”
Roman stopped.
The voice came through ceiling speakers.
“You were always easier to control when you believed you were choosing.”
My skin went cold.
Matteo continued.
“Bring your wife to the gymnasium.”
Roman’s hand went toward his coat.
“No.”
A quiet laugh came over the speaker.
Then another voice.
Small.
Frightened.
“Mama?”
My heart stopped.
Paulina.
I ran toward the hallway.
Roman caught me before I made two steps.
“No!”
Over the speaker, Paulina cried, “Mama, I’m okay.”
I couldn’t breathe.
She had been upstairs in our apartment.
Safe.
Except she wasn’t.
Mira went white.
“I left her with my neighbor.”
Matteo’s voice returned.
“Ten years ago, Roman chose to break your heart to save your life.”
A pause.
“Tonight he gets to make another choice.”
Roman looked at me.
May you like
The speakers crackled.
“His father... or his daughter.”
