Chapter 7 - The Name on the Certificate
"No."
Maeve backed away.
Kathleen closed her eyes.
"Maeve—"
"Who is my father?"
Kathleen's silence answered before her words did.
"Salvatore."
The church became impossibly quiet.
Dante stared at Maeve.
Then at his father.
Salvatore looked devastated.
"I didn't know until years later."
Maeve felt nauseated.
The implications arrived all at once.
Dante.
Luca.
Nico.
Her growing attachment to them.
Her confusing feelings toward Dante.
Kathleen immediately shook her head.
"Not Salvatore Falcone."
Everyone froze.
Maeve stared.
"You just said Salvatore."
"Salvatore Moretti."
Maeve nearly screamed.
"Could this family please use different first names?"
Even Dante laughed once, involuntarily.
The tension cracked.
Kathleen explained that Maeve's father had been Salvatore Moretti, a Falcone associate unrelated by blood.
He'd died before Maeve was born.
The certificate had been altered because Moretti knew too much about Hale's operation.
Maeve sank into a pew.
"Thank God."
Dante looked at her.
Their eyes met.
Something passed between them.
Kathleen noticed.
Maeve immediately looked away.
The evidence was copied and distributed to multiple attorneys and federal contacts.
For the first time, Hale and Marco could no longer erase everything by stealing one object.
But Marco still wanted Maeve.
Why became clear that evening.
A recorded conversation revealed Kathleen had established a trust using stolen funds recovered from Hale's network.
Legally, the beneficiary was Maeve.
Worth nearly forty million dollars.
Maeve stared at the number.
"I have twenty-three dollars in my checking account."
Nico leaned over.
"Twenty-three?"
"Twenty-three fifty-eight."
"Breakfast is on you tomorrow."
Maeve threw a napkin at him.
The money wasn't merely wealth.
It represented proof.
If Maeve claimed it, she could connect Hale directly to decades of laundering.
She agreed.
Dante objected.
"Too dangerous."
Maeve faced him.
"I spent my whole life being protected by lies. I'm done."
He understood.
He hated it.
But he understood.
The plan was simple.
Maeve would publicly file the trust claim.
Marco and Hale would believe she possessed additional evidence.
They would move against her.
The Falcones would be waiting.
But someone leaked the plan first.
That night, Maeve woke to glass breaking.
She reached beneath her pillow for the emergency alarm Dante had given her.
Nothing.
The bedside table had been moved.
Her bedroom door opened.
A figure entered.
Maeve grabbed the lamp and swung.
"Maeve!"
She stopped.
Elena.
The missing housekeeper stood before her.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Terrified.
"Elena?"
"We don't have time."
"Where have you been?"
"Marco took me."
Maeve reached for her phone.
Elena grabbed her wrist.
"No. Someone inside the house is helping him."
Maeve froze.
"Who?"
Elena looked toward the hallway.
Footsteps approached.
May you like
Then she whispered a name.
And Maeve realized the traitor was already outside her door.
