Chapter 6
I did not come alone.
Men like Victor expected obedience because fear had always worked for him.
But I had learned long ago that fear is only useful until someone has nothing left to lose.
Luis had nothing left to lose.
I had something worse.
A child’s voice in my ear.
A dog who would not stop staring at the door.
And a dead father’s name dragged out of a grave.
The ledger Victor wanted was real.
I had heard whispers about it when I was young.
My father, Salvatore Bellandi, kept records on everyone.
Payments.
Murders.
Judges.
Politicians.
Names that built the city from rot.
When he died, the ledger vanished.
I always assumed he burned it.
Victor clearly did not.
“Where would your father hide it?” Tony asked.
“In a place I would hate looking.”
Tony understood immediately.
“My mother’s house.”
My mother, Teresa, had died eight years earlier.
Her townhouse had been kept untouched, locked behind grief and old dust.
I had not entered since her funeral.
Bruno came with me.
Inside, the air smelled like lemon polish and closed curtains.
Every room felt like an accusation.
I searched my father’s study first.
Nothing.
Then the kitchen.
Nothing.
Then Bruno stopped outside my mother’s sewing room.
He scratched the door.
My chest tightened.
My mother used to sit there hemming my school pants because I grew too fast and complained too loudly.
I opened the door.
Bruno went straight to an old wooden chest.
Inside were fabric scraps, needles, thread, and beneath them, a false bottom.
Tony pried it up.
There was no ledger.
There was a stack of photographs.
Victor with my father.
Victor with Marco.
Victor with a woman I did not know.
And one photograph that made my breath stop.
A baby in a hospital blanket.
A note on the back.
Dante,
If Victor ever comes back, remember he never wanted money first.
He wanted blood.
Protect the child.
My hands shook.
“What child?” Tony asked.
I turned the photo over again.
There was a name written beneath the date.
Elena Maria Salerno.
Salerno.
Victor’s name.
No.
I looked at the image.
The baby could have been anyone.
But the date was seven years ago.
Elena Vasquez.
The little girl in the coffin.
The girl Victor called evidence.
My phone rang again.
Victor.
I answered.
“You found the picture,” he said.
I felt the room narrow.
“Who is Elena?”
May you like
Victor laughed.
“My daughter.”
