Chapter 2 - THE NAME HIDDEN INSIDE THE MUSIC
"Don't stop!" Carmine screamed.
Vincent reached the bed in two strides.
"Dad, you're going to hurt yourself. Lie back."
"Get your hands off me!"
The old man's strength seemed impossible for someone who had barely lifted a finger in three days. He clutched the guardrails while the heart monitor accelerated into a frantic rhythm.
Norah rose from the piano bench.
The melody died in the room.
Carmine's head snapped toward her.
"Play it again."
Vincent stared at his father. "What?"
"The song!" Carmine rasped. "Play the song!"
Norah hesitated.
She had never seen a dying man look so frightened of silence.
"I don't know its proper name," she said. "My mother taught it to me when I was little."
Carmine's eyes widened.
"Your mother."
It wasn't a question.
"Her name was Evelyn Hale."
The reaction was immediate.
Carmine's fingers released the guardrail.
For one terrible second, he looked as though the bed had vanished beneath him.
Vincent turned toward Norah.
"What did you just say?"
"Evelyn Hale. She died eight years ago."
Carmine began shaking his head.
"No. No, that isn't possible."
The nurse hurried to the bed, checking his pulse and adjusting the oxygen tubing.
"Mr. Marino, your heart rate is dangerously high. You need to calm down."
"Get out!" Carmine shouted.
The nurse froze.
Vincent looked at her. "Give us a minute."
"Mr. Marino, I really don't think—"
"Now."
She left, pulling the door shut behind her.
Carmine stared at Norah as though he were seeing a ghost wearing a living woman's face.
"Who taught your mother that song?"
"Her mother, I suppose. She never told me much about her family."
"Did she ever mention a village in Sicily? A place called Belladonna?"
Norah searched her memory.
She remembered her mother speaking of a village near the sea, a grandmother who sang while baking bread, and a family photograph that had been destroyed in a kitchen fire.
But Belladonna meant nothing to her.
"No."
Carmine closed his eyes.
A tear escaped the corner of his right eye and disappeared into the deep lines beside his nose.
Vincent had spent his entire life watching his father negotiate with politicians, threaten rivals, and order men killed without changing his expression.
He had never seen him cry.
"Thirty men," Carmine whispered.
Vincent leaned closer. "What thirty men?"
"The harbor. The fire. We buried thirty men."
His breathing became shallow.
"She was supposed to be dead."
Norah stepped backward.
"Who was supposed to be dead?"
Carmine looked at her again.
"Your mother."
The words struck harder than a slap.
"My mother died of pneumonia."
"That's what they told you."
Vincent moved between them.
"Enough. Dad, you're exhausted. Norah, go home."
"No!" Carmine grabbed his son's wrist with startling desperation. "Don't let her leave."
Vincent stared down at the bony fingers gripping him.
"Why?"
"Because they know."
"Who knows?"
Carmine's gaze shifted toward the darkened window.
For a moment, the room contained only the sound of the rain.
Then he whispered four words.
"They've found the music."
A sharp crash came from the hallway.
Vincent immediately released his father's wrist and drew a pistol from beneath his sweater.
Norah flinched.
Two armed men rushed into the room.
"Boss, we have a problem."
Vincent kept his weapon lowered but ready.
"What happened?"
"Someone breached the east gate. We found a dead guard by the service road."
"How many?"
"We don't know. The cameras went down three minutes ago."
Vincent's face hardened.
"Lock the estate. Nobody enters or leaves."
The men hurried away.
Norah stood beside the piano, unable to process what she had heard.
Her mother had supposedly lived an ordinary life, working two jobs, paying bills late, and apologizing whenever she couldn't afford to buy Norah new shoes.
Now a dying mafia patriarch was claiming she had been murdered—or was supposed to have been.
And someone had just attacked the estate because of a song.
Vincent turned to Norah.
"You're staying here tonight."
"I want to go home."
"That's not happening."
"You can't keep me here."
"I can, and I will, until I know whether someone followed you."
His expression softened slightly.
"Listen to me. I don't know what your mother was involved in. But my father has enemies who have waited twenty years for him to die. If your name means anything to them, leaving now could get you killed."
Norah swallowed.
"What did my mother do?"
Vincent looked toward the bed.
Carmine had closed his eyes again, but his fingers were still curled around the guardrail.
"I intend to find out."
A guard escorted Norah to a guest room on the second floor. The windows were locked, the hallway monitored, and a man with a gun stood outside her door.
She didn't sleep.
At 2:17 a.m., she heard footsteps stop outside.
A soft knock followed.
"Miss Hale?"
It was the voice of the housekeeper, an older woman named Teresa.
Norah opened the door a few inches.
Teresa looked pale.
"You need to come with me."
"Why?"
"Because Mr. Marino wasn't the only person who recognized that melody."
She slipped a small photograph into Norah's hand.
It showed a young woman standing beside a piano in a sunlit room.
The woman was Evelyn.
Beside her stood a much younger Carmine Marino.
But it was the third person in the photograph who made Norah's blood turn to ice.
A little girl stood between them, wearing a silver locket around her neck.
The child had Norah's face.
And on the back of the photograph, someone had written a date.
October 17, 2006.
Norah looked up.
"My mother was holding me in her arms in 2006. I was a baby."
Teresa's lips trembled.
"Then there's something your mother never told you."
Before Norah could ask another question, a gunshot echoed from downstairs.
Teresa shoved her into the room and slammed the door.
Then came the unmistakable sound of someone screaming.
And a man's voice shouted from the hallway:
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"Find the girl! The boss wants her alive!"
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