Chapter 5 - THE BLUE BOOK
Dante held Victor’s ring in his palm for almost a full minute.
I didn’t interrupt him.
Whatever broke inside a person when someone who raised them became a suspect probably deserved sixty seconds of silence.
Finally he said, “This could have been planted.”
“By whom?”
“Anyone who knows the ring.”
“Do many people?”
“Too many.”
“So we still don’t accuse him.”
“No.”
I crossed my arms.
“You really want him to be innocent.”
Dante’s eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
The answer was so simple that my anger disappeared.
Not because I agreed.
Because I understood.
He wanted the man who had held his life together after his father died to be innocent.
Wanting it did not make him stupid.
Only human.
“I want my mother to be innocent too,” I said.
His expression softened.
“Then we find out.”
By noon, Marco Vitelli was sitting across from us inside an abandoned Italian restaurant his family owned on Taylor Street.
Neutral ground, apparently.
I had insisted on coming.
Both men had objected.
I had reminded them I was the only person in the room who had been kidnapped over the information they were discussing.
That ended the debate.
Marco looked at the bruises on my arms.
His jaw tightened.
“Luca is gone.”
Dante went cold.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he disappeared after you took Emma.”
“You let him escape?”
“I didn’t know he was Salvi’s son until you told me.”
Marco looked at me.
“I gave him access to the house. That is on me.”
“Yes,” I said.
He did not look away.
“I did not order him to hurt you.”
“You ordered men to grab me off a sidewalk.”
“Yes.”
“At least we agree on reality.”
A humorless smile touched his mouth.
“I owe you more than an apology.”
“You owe me several years of therapy.”
“That too.”
Dante’s fingers tightened around his coffee cup.
I gave him a look.
He loosened them.
Progress.
Marco slid a folder across the table.
“This is why I took you.”
Inside was a photocopied ledger page.
Several transfers.
Laura Chase’s signature appeared beside them.
Twelve million dollars moved out of St. Agnes over fourteen months.
My stomach dropped.
“You thought she stole this.”
“I thought she helped Carlo Moretti steal it.”
Dante looked at Marco.
“You knew my father was involved?”
“I believed he was.”
“Based on this?”
“And something Victor showed me.”
Of course.
“What?”
“A letter Matteo wrote two days before he died.”
Marco removed another sheet.
Dante read first.
Then handed it to me.
If Carlo refuses to return Mercy, there will be no peace between us.
“That sounds bad,” I admitted.
Marco nodded.
“I spent eighteen years thinking Carlo killed my brother after this.”
Dante’s expression was rigid.
“I spent eighteen years thinking your family killed my father in retaliation.”
“Exactly.”
I looked between them.
“And neither of you ever compared evidence?”
Two mafia bosses looked vaguely uncomfortable.
I almost laughed.
“You started an eighteen-year war without comparing notes?”
Marco leaned back.
“We were grieving.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Dante looked at me.
“No. It’s the reason.”
That was different.
And more honest.
I put the letter beside my mother’s ledger page.
Something bothered me.
“Mercy is capitalized.”
“So?” Marco asked.
“It’s a proper name.”
Dante understood first.
“The fund.”
I nodded.
“What if Matteo wasn’t saying Carlo stole twelve million dollars?”
I pointed to the sentence.
“What if he meant Carlo was refusing to return control of the Mercy Fund?”
Marco stared at the page.
For years he had read one meaning.
Now another existed.
A reversal hiding in plain sight.
Dante placed the St. Agnes token beside it.
“Box twenty-seven.”
Marco’s gaze sharpened.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother hid it.”
He stared at me.
Then removed something from his jacket.
A blue-beaded bracelet.
I froze.
It looked almost identical to mine.
“What is that?”
“Matteo’s.”
My pulse jumped.
“Why did he have a bracelet?”
“He didn’t. Laura gave it to him.”
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Marco opened one bead.
Empty.
“He kept the token separately.”
“What number?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Dante went still.
Two storage boxes.
27 and 28.
Two men.
Two halves of something.
Marco looked at me.
“Laura divided the evidence.”
“To keep either family from controlling all of it.”
“Smart woman,” Dante said.
I looked at him.
“She was.”
We went to St. Agnes together.
The old building stood on the South Side between a shuttered pharmacy and a community center.
Faded stone letters still read ST. AGNES COMMUNITY TRUST.
Victor had owned it for twelve years.
But he had never demolished it.
That suddenly mattered.
Inside, dust covered the old offices.
Metal safe boxes lined a records room.
Twenty-seven opened with my token.
Inside sat a blue accounting book.
My breath stopped.
“The blue book.”
Marco opened box twenty-eight with his token.
Another blue book.
Almost identical.
We placed them together.
Volume One.
Volume Two.
My mother hadn’t hidden a single ledger.
She had split it between the two families.
Dante opened Volume One.
The first pages confirmed transfers into legitimate housing and medical programs.
Then came withdrawals authorized by Victor Salvi and Paolo Vitelli.
Large amounts.
Repeated.
Marco’s face turned gray.
“My uncle.”
“Yes,” Dante said.
Marco closed his eyes briefly.
“He raised me after Matteo died.”
The parallel hit all of us.
Victor raised Dante.
Paolo raised Marco.
Two grieving young men guided by the very people who benefited from their hatred.
I opened Volume Two.
The missing money had not gone to Carlo Moretti.
It had not gone to Laura.
It had moved through shell businesses controlled by Victor and Paolo.
Then Laura transferred most of it back.
“She recovered it,” I whispered.
Dante looked at me.
“Your mother saved the fund.”
My eyes filled.
Eighteen years.
Marco had believed she stole from his family.
Dante’s people had apparently believed the same.
She had died broke because she had returned money she could easily have taken.
I touched her signature.
“Mom.”
Dante’s hand moved toward mine.
Then stopped.
He waited.
I turned my palm upward.
Only then did he take it.
Warm fingers.
No command.
No claim.
Just there.
Marco looked away.
I noticed.
“So Victor and Paolo started everything,” I said.
“Not necessarily the murders,” Dante replied.
“Still protecting him?”
“No.”
His eyes had changed.
“Separating what we can prove from what we want to believe.”
Fair.
I kept reading.
Near the back, a page had been removed.
Not recently.
The paper edge was yellow.
Marco swore.
“What was there?”
An index listed the missing section.
FINAL DISTRIBUTION — MERCY.
E.C.
$18,400,000.
My heart stopped.
“E.C.”
Marco looked at me.
“Emma Chase.”
“No.”
But my voice was weaker than I wanted.
Dante stared at the number.
Eighteen million dollars.
My mother had died in debt.
And somewhere inside her secret ledger was a missing page suggesting eighteen million had been placed under my initials.
Marco watched me carefully.
“This is why Victor kept looking.”
Dante shook his head.
“No. He already knew about the fund.”
“Then what does E.C. mean?”
Nobody answered.
I turned the book over.
Something was taped beneath the back cover.
A photograph.
Hospital room.
My mother.
Thin.
Sick.
Sitting in bed.
Victor Salvi stood beside her.
So did another man.
Luca.
Victor’s son.
The date stamp was three days before she died.
I stared at Luca’s hand.
The black onyx ring was visible.
My bruises began to ache just looking at it.
Then I noticed what my mother was holding.
A red winter scarf.
I remembered it.
She had made me take it home because she said the hospital was too warm.
The scarf was still in a box beneath my bed.
Something had been sewn into the fringe.
I remembered feeling it years ago and assuming it was a knot.
I looked at Dante.
“The missing page.”
He understood.
We drove back immediately.
My hands shook as I pulled the red scarf from storage.
I found the hard section inside the fringe.
Cut one stitch.
A folded strip of ledger paper slid into my palm.
E.C.
$18,400,000.
And beneath it, in my mother’s handwriting:
NOT EMMA CHASE.
EXIT CORRIDOR.
Before I could read further, Dante’s face changed.
“What?”
He pointed to the final line.
TRANSFER CONTROL: VICTOR SALVI.
Marco whispered a curse.
Dante looked at me.
“My father didn’t give Victor power after he died.”
I swallowed.
“Then who did?”
May you like
Dante’s eyes darkened.
“Your mother did.”
