Chapter 6 - My Mother's Last Recording
We played the tape.
Sofia's voice filled the bakery.
My mother.
A woman I barely remembered.
She had recorded Antonio confessing.
Not merely to murder.
To everything.
Judges.
Police.
Extortion.
Disappearances.
The criminal empire had been built through decades of coercion.
But Sofia had also named legitimate witnesses.
People still alive.
Antonio couldn't survive the tape becoming public.
“Why hide it here?” I asked.
Dad looked at the ovens.
“Because nobody searches a bakery for evidence against the mafia.”
Fair point.
We digitized it.
Made copies.
Sent encrypted versions to multiple attorneys.
Vincent insisted one copy go directly to federal prosecutors.
Antonio reacted within hours.
Dad disappeared.
Not voluntarily this time.
His car was found abandoned.
Blood on the driver's seat.
Then Antonio called me.
“Bring the original.”
I gripped the phone.
“You killed my mother.”
“Yes.”
The casual answer broke something inside me.
Vincent reached for the phone.
I stopped him.
“Where's my father?”
“Alive.”
“For now?”
“For exactly as long as you're useful.”
He gave me an address.
The same alley behind my bakery.
Of course.
Everything returned there.
Vincent refused to let me go alone.
Adrian agreed.
We formed a plan with federal agents.
But Antonio anticipated it.
He jammed communications across the block.
Again.
When I stepped into the alley, memories slammed into me.
Rain.
Guns.
Vincent bleeding.
Men laughing.
Antonio stood where Vincent had stood that first night.
Dad knelt beside him.
Gun against his head.
Antonio Costello was seventy.
Elegant.
Silver-haired.
He didn't look monstrous.
Maybe monsters rarely did.
“Lighter,” he said.
I froze.
“Excuse me?”
“The Zippo.”
He knew.
I removed it.
Antonio smiled.
“That belonged to Sofia.”
I stared at Dad.
He nodded.
My mother had carried it.
The scratched E wasn't Edward.
It stood for Elena Sofia Costello, the name she'd been born with before everyone shortened it.
Antonio wanted the tape.
I held it up.
He released Dad.
Not completely.
Just enough.
Vincent appeared behind me.
Antonio smiled.
“My son.”
“I'm not your son anymore.”
“You'll always be my son.”
“No.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“I'm evidence of what you failed to destroy.”
Antonio's expression hardened.
Adrian emerged next.
Then Marcus.
Antonio realized he was surrounded.
But he laughed.
“You think witnesses matter?”
I looked down.
Fuel.
Again.
Antonio had arranged it deliberately.
He knew the story of our first escape.
“You light that,” he said, “everyone burns.”
I opened the Zippo.
Vincent stared at me.
“Nora.”
Antonio smiled.
“You wouldn't.”
“No,” I said.
“I wouldn't.”
I closed it.
Then turned on the bakery's sprinkler controls.
Water blasted from newly installed exterior safety pipes.
Antonio's men shouted.
Federal agents surged from both ends of the alley.
Antonio reached for his gun.
Dad tackled him.
Vincent kicked the weapon away.
Antonio fell.
Handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
For one beautiful second, I thought it was finished.
Then Antonio laughed.
Vincent looked down at him.
“What?”
Antonio stared directly at me.
“You still don't understand why Edward chose you.”
Dad froze.
Antonio's smile widened.
“Tell her.”
“Don't,” Dad said.
Antonio ignored him.
“The forty-eight million was never a restitution fund.”
My stomach tightened.
Vincent looked at Dad.
“What is he talking about?”
Dad couldn't meet my eyes.
Antonio was dragged toward the federal vehicle.
May you like
But before the door closed, he called out:
“Ask your father who the money really belongs to.”
