Chapter 4 - The Man at Table Twelve
Carlo had been sitting beside Luca when he insulted me.
He had laughed.
He had watched everything.
And while Luca questioned me, Carlo had apparently been deciding whether I needed to disappear.
“We go now,” I said.
Luca stopped me.
“No.”
“My mother's there.”
“Which is why you don't go.”
“I am not waiting.”
“Elena.”
“Move.”
Something in my face convinced him.
We drove.
Not recklessly.
That surprised me.
Luca's men used separate cars and approached from different streets.
When we reached Mom's house, the front door stood open.
My mother sat at the table.
Alone.
Alive.
I ran to her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where's Carlo?”
“Gone.”
Luca entered.
My mother looked at him.
For several seconds neither spoke.
“You look like Salvatore,” she said.
“So I've been told.”
“Your father alive?”
“We don't know.”
She nodded slowly.
Then she handed him an envelope.
“Carlo left this.”
Inside was a photograph.
Michael Marino.
Salvatore Bellandi.
Carlo.
And a fourth man.
My mother pointed.
“Thomas Vale.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in Boston did.
Thomas Vale owned hotels, shipping interests, real estate developments, restaurants.
Including Bellacosta.
My workplace.
Suddenly my stomach dropped.
“He owns the restaurant.”
“Yes,” Luca said.
“So tonight wasn't random.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
“Not until now.”
Mom opened a drawer.
She removed another coin.
Silver.
M scratched into the edge.
“You had one?”
“Michael gave it to me.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
She placed it beside mine.
“Michael had one. I had one. Salvatore had one.”
“That's three.”
“The fourth went to a federal investigator.”
“And the fifth?”
She looked at the photograph.
“Thomas Vale.”
Everything became quiet.
“Dad trusted him?”
“Once.”
“What changed?”
“Vale discovered how valuable Michael's evidence could be.”
Luca understood first.
“He didn't want to expose the network.”
Mom nodded.
“He wanted to own it.”
The records weren't merely proof of crimes.
They mapped relationships.
Companies.
Politicians.
Payments.
People who could be blackmailed.
Michael wanted the information destroyed after investigators acted.
Vale wanted control.
“So Vale killed Dad?”
“I never knew.”
“But Carlo works for him.”
“Apparently.”
Luca called his people.
Within minutes they began tracing Vale's businesses, known associates, and vehicles.
I hated how efficient it was.
“How do we get Salvatore back?”
“We don't,” Luca said.
“You don't?”
“We find out what Vale wants.”
“He wants the records.”
“The records burned.”
“No.”
Everyone looked at me.
I remembered the storage locker.
The newer entries.
Someone had been maintaining them.
“The box wasn't the archive.”
Luca frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Because Dad died seventeen years ago. Entries continued until six months ago.”
Mom stood.
“What?”
“Someone kept updating them.”
She looked terrified.
“Then the federal investigator is alive.”
“Who?”
“I never knew his name.”
The missing second name on the tape.
We had our next lead.
The damaged cassette wasn't destroyed completely.
An audio restoration technician extracted several seconds after the cut.
A syllable.
“Har—”
Luca searched retired federal agents connected to organized crime investigations seventeen years earlier.
Three names appeared.
One was dead.
One lived in Arizona.
The third lived in Massachusetts.
Daniel Hart.
Retired FBI.
Age sixty-eight.
We drove to his house the next morning.
His mailbox was overflowing.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, the house looked untouched.
No struggle.
No blood.
But Hart was gone.
On his desk sat an old cassette.
My father's handwriting labeled it:
FOR ELENA.
My hands trembled as I inserted it into the recorder.
Michael's voice filled the room.
“If Elena hears this, then Vale won the first round.”
I closed my eyes.
“Daniel, protect her from the records. Not with them.”
Then came something I never expected.
“Luca Bellandi may become dangerous. But don't assume he becomes his father. Judge the son by what he chooses when power costs him something.”
Luca stared at the recorder.
My father had left instructions about him.
Seventeen years ago.
The tape continued.
“The complete archive isn't paper. Daniel knows where it is.”
Then Michael gave a code.
Seven digits.
I wrote them down.
Luca looked over my shoulder.
“A bank account?”
“No.”
A sound came from upstairs.
We froze.
Luca signaled his bodyguard.
The older man moved toward the staircase.
A floorboard creaked.
Someone was in Hart's house.
The bodyguard climbed.
A door slammed.
Footsteps.
Luca followed.
I ignored his command to stay downstairs.
At the end of the upstairs hallway, a bedroom window stood open.
A man disappeared over the backyard fence.
On the floor lay a phone.
Still recording.
Luca picked it up.
A live audio connection remained open.
Someone on the other end spoke.
“Elena.”
My blood chilled.
The voice was calm.
Older.
“You sound like Michael.”
“Who is this?”
“You already know.”
Thomas Vale.
“Where's Salvatore?”
“Safe.”
“Daniel Hart?”
“Also safe.”
“For now?”
He laughed quietly.
“You are your father's daughter.”
“What do you want?”
“The fifth coin.”
“My mother said you already had it.”
“I did.”
“Then why—”
“Your father stole it back the night he died.”
I touched the coin in my pocket.
No.
Mine had supposedly belonged to Dad.
“What happens if you get it?”
“You finally learn why Michael died.”
The call disconnected.
Luca looked at me.
I took out my coin.
For the first time, we examined it carefully beneath bright light.
Along the rim were tiny numbers.
Seven digits.
The exact seven digits Michael had spoken on the tape.
It wasn't just a coin.
May you like
It was a key.
And somebody downstairs had just opened the front door.
