Chapter 3 - The Name His Father Used
"Teo."
Matteo had not heard the nickname in eleven years.
His father had been the only person who called him that.
A man emerged from the tunnel.
Not Carlo.
Father Benedetti.
The retired priest was seventy-four now, thinner than Matteo remembered, with silver hair and shoulders bowed by age.
Two armed men stood behind him.
Matteo raised his gun.
"Tell them to lower their weapons."
Benedetti lifted a hand.
The men complied.
"So should you."
"No."
"Fair enough."
Matteo kept the pistol aimed.
"Why are you here?"
"Because I heard gunshots."
"Underground?"
"I've known about these tunnels since before you were born."
Matteo's expression remained flat.
"Apparently I'm the only person who didn't."
"Your father wanted it that way."
"Everyone keeps telling me what my father wanted. Unfortunately, he's not here to confirm any of it."
Benedetti saw Elena.
His face changed.
"Dear God."
"You knew she was here?" Matteo asked.
"No."
Elena stepped forward.
"I called him the night I disappeared."
Matteo looked at her.
"You had a phone?"
"Before they took it."
"Why call him?"
"Because my mother told me if I ever found the ledger, Father Benedetti was the only person I could trust."
Benedetti looked at Isabella.
"And apparently she was wrong."
Isabella stiffened.
"I didn't betray Elena."
"You told Carlo."
"I told him because I thought he could protect her."
"Carlo protects Carlo."
Matteo lowered his gun slightly.
"Someone is going to explain everything now."
Benedetti looked at the ledger.
"Not here."
"Here is fine."
"No. Because the men who imprisoned Elena know this place."
"Who are they?"
Benedetti looked at Isabella.
"Her brothers."
Matteo frowned.
Isabella had always claimed she was an only child.
She closed her eyes.
"I have two half-brothers."
"Names."
"Gabriel and Tomas."
Matteo knew both.
Gabriel Caruso controlled several construction companies.
Tomas served as deputy mayor.
Neither had ever publicly acknowledged Isabella as family.
"Why hide that?"
"Because my mother had me before she married their father."
"With whom?"
Isabella hesitated.
Benedetti answered.
"Carlo Valenti."
Matteo stared.
"Carlo is your father."
Isabella nodded.
That meant she was Matteo's cousin.
A secret Valenti heir.
And Carlo had spent decades pretending she was merely the daughter of an allied family.
"Why?"
"Because your grandfather would have killed my mother," Isabella said. "She was eighteen. Carlo was married."
Matteo rubbed his jaw.
None of this explained his father.
"What does this have to do with Room 317?"
Benedetti glanced down the corridor.
"We move first."
Matteo turned to Elena.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
He handed the ledger to Luca, who had finally descended after hearing gunshots.
"Don't let this out of your hands."
They returned upstairs.
Sophie ran across the room when she saw Elena.
"Mommy!"
Elena fell to her knees.
The reunion stopped everyone.
Sophie buried herself in her mother's arms.
"I waited."
"I know, baby."
"You said you'd come back."
"I'm sorry."
Sophie sobbed.
Elena kissed her hair again and again.
Matteo looked away.
There were kinds of pain he understood better when he did not watch them too closely.
He ordered a doctor.
Then he took Benedetti, Isabella, Luca, and Elena into the library once Elena had been examined.
Sophie refused to leave her mother, so she slept curled beside her on the sofa.
Matteo placed the ledger on the table.
"Start."
Benedetti sat.
"Your father discovered that the Valenti organization had changed."
"Everything changes."
"Not like this."
Alessandro had inherited an empire built on extortion, smuggling, gambling, and protection.
But by the time Matteo was a teenager, powerful men outside the criminal world had begun using the Valentis.
Politicians wanted intimidation without fingerprints.
Corporations wanted competitors destroyed.
Police commanders wanted rivals silenced.
The family became a weapon rented by respectable men.
Alessandro hated what it became.
"So he grew a conscience?" Matteo asked.
"Not exactly," Benedetti said. "Your father never pretended to be a saint. He simply believed there were lines."
Children.
Families uninvolved in business.
Human trafficking.
Narcotics sold near schools.
Political assassinations.
Carlo thought those rules were weakness.
"Carlo wanted expansion," Benedetti continued. "Your father refused."
"And this ledger?"
"Alessandro began recording everything. Payments. Orders. Names. Accounts. Enough evidence to destroy both the criminal families and the officials controlling them."
Matteo looked at Elena.
"Your mother helped?"
"She worked in the house. Your father trusted her."
"Why?"
"Because she once saved your life."
Matteo frowned.
Elena looked surprised.
"You didn't know?"
"No."
"You were six."
A rival crew had entered the mansion disguised as repairmen.
Lucia Romano saw one of them draw a gun near the kitchen.
She locked Matteo in a pantry and triggered an alarm.
Two guards died.
Matteo survived.
"My father never told me."
"He protected her identity afterward," Benedetti said. "Nobody could know she was his confidential assistant."
Matteo laughed once.
"His maid was his assistant."
"People ignore maids," Elena said. "That's why they hear everything."
Matteo could not argue.
"Then he died."
Benedetti nodded.
"Alessandro planned to turn the ledger over to a federal prosecutor."
"Which one?"
"David Mercer."
Matteo knew the name.
Mercer had died in a boating accident the same month.
Matteo leaned back.
"Not an accident."
"No."
"And neither was my father's heart attack."
"No."
Matteo stared at the table.
"Poison?"
"Digitalis."
"Who administered it?"
"We never proved it."
"But you suspect Carlo."
Benedetti hesitated.
"Yes."
Matteo stood.
The room changed when he did.
Isabella watched carefully.
"You knew?"
She shook her head.
"My mother suspected."
"And never told me."
"She was protecting me."
"Everyone keeps using that word."
Elena spoke gently.
"Matteo."
He looked at her.
"My mother hid the ledger after your father died. She moved it to Room 317. Before she passed away, she told me the truth."
"Why wait seven years?"
"Because I didn't want this life."
"And then?"
"Three weeks ago I found someone searching my apartment."
Sophie shifted in her sleep.
Elena lowered her voice.
"I realized someone knew."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"So you came here."
"Yes."
"And found the ledger."
"Yes."
"Then Isabella saw you."
Elena looked at her.
"She followed me."
Isabella finally spoke.
"I thought Elena was stealing from you."
Elena's expression hardened.
"You called Carlo."
"I thought he would know what to do."
"He sent Gabriel and Tomas."
Isabella looked sick.
"I didn't know."
Matteo believed that part.
Fear had a texture.
So did guilt.
Isabella had guilt, but not the clean, defensive kind of someone who had ordered violence.
He opened the ledger.
Names filled the pages.
Judges.
Council members.
Police officers.
Businesses.
Dates going back more than fifteen years.
Then one entry caught his eye.
C. VALENTI — TRANSFER AUTHORITY AFTER A.V. REMOVAL.
Removal.
Not death.
Matteo stared.
Below it:
PAYMENT AUTHORIZED BY M.V.
He stopped breathing.
M.V.
Matteo Valenti.
His own initials.
Everyone noticed.
Luca leaned closer.
"Boss?"
Matteo looked at Benedetti.
"What is this?"
Benedetti frowned.
"I don't know."
"My initials authorized payment for my father's removal."
"Matteo, you were twenty-three."
"I know how old I was."
He flipped pages.
M.V. appeared again.
Transfer approved.
Funds cleared.
Security reassigned.
Each entry connected to the week of Alessandro's death.
Isabella whispered, "Someone used your name."
Matteo's mind moved backward eleven years.
He had been in Sicily that week.
Sent by his father.
A meeting.
A shipment dispute.
Carlo had arranged the trip.
He looked at Benedetti.
"Who had access to my accounts?"
"Your father."
"Carlo."
Luca answered instead.
"And your financial manager at the time."
Matteo froze.
"What manager?"
Luca had already opened his phone.
He searched old files.
"Here."
He turned the screen.
Matteo recognized the man instantly.
Anthony Russo.
Quiet.
Brilliant with numbers.
Disappeared after Alessandro's death.
Supposedly fled with money.
"Find him."
Luca's face changed.
"Boss."
"What?"
"Russo didn't disappear."
Matteo waited.
"He changed his name."
"To what?"
Luca turned the phone again.
A recent photograph appeared.
Matteo knew the face.
Everyone in the city did.
A respected businessman.
Philanthropist.
And one of Matteo's closest allies for the past decade.
Victor Hale.
Before Matteo could speak, the mansion alarm began screaming.
Luca reached for his weapon.
A guard's voice exploded through the radio.
"Security breach! East entrance!"
Matteo looked toward the sleeping child.
Then the lights died.
In the darkness, Sophie screamed.
When the emergency lamps flickered on, Elena was still on the sofa.
May you like
But the black ledger was gone.
And so was Father Benedetti.
