Chapter 6 - MERCY
“My mother gave Victor control?”
The idea felt impossible.
Dante read the line again.
“Transfer Control: Victor Salvi.”
Marco leaned over his shoulder.
“Date?”
“Three days before Carlo died.”
I stared at both men.
“Then maybe she trusted him.”
Neither looked convinced.
I took the page.
Under Victor’s name was a second notation written in Mom’s tiny accounting shorthand.
V.S. TEMP. ONLY. C.M./M.V. ACCESS REVOKED UNTIL SAFE.
Dante read it.
“She temporarily locked both families out.”
“Why?”
Marco answered.
“Because she knew someone inside both organizations was stealing.”
That changed the meaning entirely.
Mom had not handed Victor eighteen million dollars.
She had made him custodian while she investigated.
But if Victor was the thief, she had unknowingly handed the vault to the robber.
Unless—
“Maybe she already suspected him.”
Dante looked at me.
“Why give him control then?”
“To watch what he did.”
Marco whistled softly.
“Your mother had nerve.”
“She argued with insurance companies while receiving chemotherapy.”
I folded the page carefully.
“You have no idea.”
We returned to St. Agnes.
This time we went through every page.
The Exit Corridor wasn’t a secret payout to me.
It was a relocation program.
Families who wanted out received rent, job placement, travel money, sometimes new names.
E.C.
My initials had been coincidence.
For four days men had threatened and kidnapped me over eighteen million dollars that had never belonged to me.
It was almost funny.
Almost.
Near the back of Volume Two, I found a list of recipient numbers.
No names.
That was intentional.
Mom had protected the people who escaped.
But one account had remained active for eighteen years.
M-1.
Monthly payments.
Small.
Consistent.
“What is M-1?” I asked.
Dante studied the page.
“Could be Matteo.”
“He was dead.”
“Maybe his family.”
Marco shook his head.
“We never received Mercy money.”
Dante checked another index.
“M-1 started after Matteo died.”
I kept scanning.
The destination was a trust administered through St. Catherine Medical Group.
My stomach dropped.
“That hospital treated my mother.”
Everyone went quiet.
We followed the account history.
M-1 had paid insurance premiums for one person.
Laura Chase.
Marco stared at me.
“Your mother was receiving money from Mercy.”
“No.”
The amounts were there.
But they had not gone to her bank account.
They had paid insurance premiums anonymously for years.
Then the premiums stopped.
Six months before her diagnosis.
The exact month Victor Salvi purchased St. Agnes.
My mouth went dry.
“He canceled it.”
Dante’s expression became lethal.
“We don’t know that.”
I appreciated the restraint even while seeing what he wanted to do.
Marco pointed to an authorization code.
V.S.
There it was.
Victor had terminated the policy.
Six months later, Mom was diagnosed.
Without insurance, she accumulated the debt that had swallowed the last year of our lives.
Something inside me broke.
Not loudly.
I simply sat down on the dusty floor.
“She thought she’d missed payments.”
Dante crouched several feet away.
“She blamed herself.”
I remembered Mom crying at the kitchen table.
I thought I renewed it.
I was sure I renewed it.
She had.
Victor had canceled it.
Not to kill her.
That would have been too simple.
To pressure her.
To make her desperate enough to reveal where she hid the books.
Marco sat opposite me.
His voice was quiet.
“I kidnapped the daughter of the woman who saved my brother’s escape fund.”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
“I believed Victor.”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was a fool.”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“You were grieving for eighteen years and someone fed the grief exactly what it wanted.”
“That doesn’t excuse what I did to you.”
“No.”
“I know.”
For the first time, Marco Vitelli looked less like a mafia boss and more like a tired man realizing that loyalty had been weaponized against him.
“I will make it right.”
“You can’t undo it.”
“No.”
He looked me directly in the eye.
“But I can stop pretending that because I had reasons, I had the right.”
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
We found another photograph inside the second volume.
Carlo.
Matteo.
My mother.
Standing outside Union Station.
All three held train tickets.
Dante flipped it over.
Three destinations were written.
Milwaukee.
Detroit.
St. Louis.
“They were leaving?” I asked.
Marco shook his head.
“Decoys.”
“How do you know?”
“Matteo used that trick. Three tickets, one traveler.”
“Who was supposed to travel?”
Dante studied the picture.
“Laura.”
My mother.
“She was supposed to disappear.”
“Why didn’t she?”
I already knew the answer.
Me.
I would have been five years old.
Mom had stayed because of me.
My throat tightened.
“She wouldn’t leave me.”
Dante’s eyes softened.
“No.”
The photograph had another notation.
DECEMBER 17.
NORTH PIER.
1:15 A.M.
Dante’s face changed.
“My father’s watch.”
“What?”
“Carlo’s watch stopped when he was shot.”
“At what time?”
“1:17.”
Two minutes after the meeting time.
Marco stood.
“Matteo died forty-eight hours earlier.”
“So he couldn’t have been there,” I said.
“No.”
Dante stared at the date.
“But someone used his name to arrange the meeting.”
“Victor?”
“Or Paolo.”
We still had no proof of murder.
Only theft.
Manipulation.
A war built on planted assumptions.
Then Dante noticed something on the photograph.
A fourth shadow.
Someone stood behind my mother, almost outside frame.
Only half a coat.
A hand.
A ring.
Black onyx.
Victor.
My pulse jumped.
“We have him at the pier.”
Dante shook his head.
“We have part of him.”
“Enough to ask questions.”
Marco’s mouth hardened.
“I’m done asking.”
Dante looked at him.
“No.”
Marco stared.
“No?”
“We do this differently.”
Marco laughed once.
“Since when?”
“Since we spent eighteen years being exactly what Victor needed us to be.”
That silenced him.
Dante looked at me.
“We give copies of the ledgers to someone outside both families.”
“Police?”
“Federal investigators already looking at several old St. Agnes transactions.”
Marco looked offended.
“You have federal investigators?”
Dante gave him a dry look.
“So do you.”
Fair point.
I almost smiled.
We copied everything.
Every page.
Every photograph.
The original books remained with us for the moment.
As we finished, Marco walked toward me.
Dante immediately went still.
Marco noticed.
Something almost amused entered his face.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“You cannot stay at Moretti’s house.”
Dante’s voice turned flat.
“She can stay wherever she chooses.”
I looked at him.
That sentence cost him something.
I could tell.
Marco could too.
“My house is compromised,” Marco said. “His house may be worse. Victor raised half his security.”
“I’m standing here.”
“I know.”
Marco looked at me.
“I have an apartment in the Gold Coast registered to no one in either organization. Take it.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Absolutely—”
He stopped himself.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Then looked at me.
Marco actually raised an eyebrow.
Dante ignored him.
“It’s your choice.”
I wanted to kiss him for that.
Which was deeply inconvenient.
Instead I said, “I’m not going with either of you.”
Both men frowned.
“I’m staying with my roommate.”
“No,” they said together.
I stared.
Marco rubbed his forehead.
Dante looked annoyed with himself.
I almost laughed for the first time in days.
“My roommate left for Thanksgiving week. Her parents live in Wisconsin. Her apartment has a doorman and no connection to any of you.”
Dante considered.
“That is reasonable.”
Marco looked at him.
“You sound ill.”
“Be quiet.”
That evening, Dante drove me there personally.
At the door, he handed me my mother’s locket.
Our fingers touched.
Neither of us moved away immediately.
“You don’t have to stay outside,” I said.
His eyes lifted.
“That sounded different in my head.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“I understood.”
“Coffee?”
“I should check my people.”
There it was.
Duty.
Always.
I nodded.
He started to leave.
Then stopped.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“If Marco ever tries to take you anywhere again—”
I raised an eyebrow.
Dante exhaled.
“What?”
“You were about to say something very caveman.”
“I was.”
“Try again.”
He thought.
“If Marco ever pressures you, call me.”
“Better.”
“I’m learning.”
He left.
Ten minutes later, I opened my roommate’s kitchen drawer looking for tea.
Inside sat a black onyx ring.
Not Victor’s.
Not Luca’s.
This one carried Dante’s initials.
D.M.
And beside it lay a photograph taken less than an hour earlier.
Me entering the building.
Dante standing behind me.
May you like
Across the bottom, someone had written:
NOW CHOOSE WHICH BOSS SHE COSTS YOU.
