Chapter 3 - The Room Beneath the Warehouse
The warehouse smelled of rust, dust, and old rain.
Lorenzo entered first.
Isabella stayed behind him despite his order to remain in the car.
"You don't follow instructions," he whispered.
"You noticed."
Marco almost smiled.
They reached the basement.
The steel door stood open.
A light burned below.
Lorenzo drew his pistol.
Isabella saw it.
"Logistics?"
"Complicated logistics."
They descended.
The basement contained no drugs.
No weapons.
No money.
Only filing cabinets.
Hundreds of them.
Gabriel Rossi had built an archive.
Marco opened the nearest drawer.
Invoices.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Names.
Twenty-five years of secrets.
Isabella found a desk.
A photograph of her as a child sat beneath its glass.
Her breath caught.
"My father worked here."
Lorenzo approached.
Beside the photograph was an envelope.
ISABELLA.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Inside was a letter.
If you are reading this, then Enzo failed to keep this place hidden.
Trust Elena Moretti.
Trust her son only if he has become a better man than his father feared he might.
Lorenzo read that twice.
"Comforting."
Isabella continued.
Victor Bellini is not the beginning.
He is the door.
Do not mistake the door for the room behind it.
Marco swore softly.
There was more.
The person stealing from Enzo had access to family accounts, private schedules, security routes, and medical records.
Medical records.
Lorenzo thought of his father's heart attack.
Elena had said he came home bleeding.
Maybe the death had never been natural.
A sound came from upstairs.
Footsteps.
Marco killed the basement light.
Three men entered the warehouse.
Lorenzo recognized Victor's voice.
"Find the archive."
Isabella froze.
Lorenzo touched one finger to his lips.
Marco motioned toward a rear passage.
They moved silently.
Before leaving, Isabella grabbed her father's letter.
The passage opened into an alley.
They escaped seconds before Victor's men reached the basement.
Back at the Moretti house, Lorenzo confronted Elena.
"Father was murdered."
Elena closed her eyes.
"I believe so."
"You let me bury him believing his heart stopped."
"It did."
"Because someone made it stop?"
She couldn't answer.
Lorenzo struck the desk with his palm.
Isabella flinched.
He saw it and immediately stepped away.
That bothered him more than his mother's silence.
He had frightened her.
"I'm sorry."
Isabella looked surprised.
Perhaps mafia bosses weren't supposed to apologize.
Elena sat down.
"Enzo had a heart condition. Someone changed his medication."
Lorenzo stared.
"Who?"
"We never proved it."
"Victor?"
"Your father suspected him."
"But Gabriel's letter says Victor isn't the beginning."
Elena nodded.
"Enzo believed someone else controlled him."
Lorenzo spent the next two days examining the archive.
Isabella refused to leave.
She organized Gabriel's files faster than Marco's analysts.
Her father had used a color system she remembered from childhood.
Blue for business.
Red for personal.
Green for dangerous.
Black for something she couldn't remember.
On the third night, Lorenzo found her asleep over a stack of files.
He placed his jacket around her shoulders.
She woke.
"You don't have to do that."
"I know."
"Why do you?"
He didn't answer.
She studied him.
"People are terrified of you."
"Usually useful."
"Your mother isn't."
"No."
"Neither is Marco."
"No."
"I'm not sure I am."
"You should be."
"Why?"
Lorenzo looked toward his father's photograph.
"Because I've done things you wouldn't forgive."
Isabella didn't ask what.
Instead she said, "People aren't only the worst thing they've done."
He looked at her.
"That's generous."
"No. It's practical. Otherwise nobody gets to become better."
Something moved inside Lorenzo that he had spent years teaching himself not to feel.
Hope.
He disliked it immediately.
The next morning, Isabella discovered a black-coded ledger.
Inside were payments to a physician.
Dr. Samuel Hart.
The same cardiologist who had signed Enzo's death certificate.
Marco found Hart living in Wisconsin under another name.
They brought him to Chicago.
Hart was seventy now.
He began crying before Lorenzo asked a question.
"I didn't kill Enzo."
"You changed his medication."
"I was ordered to."
"By Victor?"
Hart shook his head.
"No."
"Who?"
"I never met him."
"Him?"
"Payments came through Bellini, but instructions came from someone else."
"Name."
"I don't know."
Lorenzo leaned forward.
Hart trembled.
"I swear."
Isabella placed Gabriel's ledger on the table.
Hart stared at it.
Then his face drained of color.
"Where did you get that?"
"My father."
"Gabriel Rossi?"
Isabella nodded.
Hart stood abruptly.
"Then you're not safe."
Lorenzo blocked him.
"Sit."
"You don't understand. Gabriel discovered the succession plan."
"What succession plan?"
Hart looked at Lorenzo.
"Your father's empire wasn't supposed to become yours."
Silence.
"Whose was it supposed to become?"
Hart whispered, "Victor's."
Lorenzo frowned.
That made no sense.
Victor was not Moretti blood.
"Why?"
"Because Victor wasn't supposed to keep it."
"Who was?"
Hart looked toward Elena.
She had entered without anyone noticing.
His face changed.
"You."
Elena went pale.
"That's impossible."
Hart backed away.
"No. Not you."
He pointed past her.
Everyone turned.
A man stood in the doorway.
Gray hair.
Black coat.
A face Lorenzo had seen in family photographs his entire childhood.
Elena whispered his name.
"Matteo?"
Lorenzo stopped breathing.
May you like
Matteo Moretti, his father's older brother, had been declared dead twenty-nine years ago.
And he was smiling.
