Chapter 3 - A Photograph That Shouldn’t ExistThe stranger’s name was Victor Hale.
He refused to explain who employed him.
For three hours, Gerardo questioned him inside the restaurant office while Molly sat in the adjoining room drinking coffee she never touched.
At 2:13 a.m., Victor asked for a lawyer.
Gerardo surprised everyone by giving him one.
“You're letting him go?” Molly demanded.
“Eventually.”
“Why?”
“Because frightened men run home.”
She understood.
“You're going to follow him.”
“Yes.”
“You could have just said that.”
“I did.”
“No. You said something dramatic because you enjoy making everything sound like a funeral.”
Gerardo stared at her.
Then he laughed.
It was quiet and brief, but everyone outside the office heard it.
His lieutenant, Marco Bellini, looked genuinely alarmed.
Molly discovered that frightening Gerardo’s employees was becoming one of the few affordable pleasures in her life.
But the humor disappeared when Gerardo placed another photograph before her.
James Warner stood outside a warehouse beside three men.
One was twenty-something Gerardo.
Another was Gerardo’s uncle, Salvatore Romani.
The third man had been scratched from the photograph.
Molly looked up.
“You said you didn't know my father.”
“I said I knew of him.”
“You were standing six feet from him.”
“I attended hundreds of meetings with my uncle. I didn't remember Warner until tonight.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
She expected anger.
Instead Gerardo looked tired.
“My father died when I was twenty-two. Salvatore took control of the family businesses. I trusted him because grief made trust easier than thinking.”
“And now?”
“Now I trust almost nobody.”
“Welcome to the club.”
Gerardo pointed toward the photograph.
“Your father wasn't merely gambling.”
“What was he doing?”
“Accounting.”
Molly frowned.
“For your family?”
“For Salvatore.”
The truth arrived piece by piece.
James Warner had been an accountant for construction companies secretly controlled by Salvatore Romani. He discovered millions being moved through fake subcontractors.
But the stolen money had not come from Gerardo.
It came from pension funds.
Union workers.
Widows.
Ordinary families.
James had copied the records.
Then his house burned.
“Where are the records?” Molly asked.
“Nobody knows.”
“You think Dad hid them with me?”
“I think Salvatore believed he did.”
“My mother would've told me.”
“Unless telling you would have endangered you.”
Molly remembered something.
Her mother moving constantly.
Never keeping photographs.
Never letting Molly open certain boxes.
And one sentence repeated throughout childhood.
If anyone asks what your father left you, say nothing.
Molly had thought it referred to debt.
Maybe it hadn't.
Her apartment suddenly seemed very far away.
“I need to go home.”
“No.”
She glared at Gerardo.
“That wasn't a request for permission.”
“Your apartment is being watched.”
“By your people?”
“By Salvatore's.”
“You said your uncle—”
“Is retired.”
“That doesn't sound retired.”
“It isn't.”
Gerardo reached for his coat.
“You'll stay somewhere secure.”
“No.”
“Molly.”
“No mansions. No armed guards. No becoming somebody's prisoner because powerful men made decisions seventeen years ago.”
Gerardo stepped closer.
“Then choose.”
“What?”
“Hotel. Safe apartment. Police station. Friend's home. Anywhere except your apartment.”
The offer surprised her.
Choice.
Men like Gerardo rarely offered it.
“I want my apartment.”
“Then I go with you.”
She laughed.
“You'd last six minutes in Queens.”
“Five if the radiator is as bad as my report says.”
She stared.
“You investigated my radiator?”
“I investigate thoroughly.”
“You're insane.”
“I've heard worse.”
At 3:00 a.m., a black SUV stopped outside Molly’s building.
Gerardo looked at the graffiti-covered entrance.
“This building should be condemned.”
“Careful. That's almost an insult to my landlord.”
They climbed four flights because the elevator had been broken since spring.
Inside her apartment, Gerardo seemed too large for the room.
Molly ignored him and pulled open the drawer containing collection notices.
Underneath lay everything her mother had left.
A cheap watch.
Two photographs.
A Bible Molly never opened.
And a brass key.
Gerardo noticed it.
“What does that open?”
“No idea.”
She turned it over.
Stamped into the metal was a number.
Molly's heartbeat accelerated.
Her father used to take her to Grand Central Terminal every Sunday.
He would buy her hot chocolate and tell her stories beneath the painted constellations.
Her mother had forbidden them from returning after his death.
“Locker,” Molly whispered.
“What?”
“I think it's a locker key.”
A floorboard creaked outside.
Gerardo’s head snapped toward the door.
Then the lights went out.
Molly heard glass break.
Gerardo grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down just as a bullet tore through the window.
She landed against his chest.
“Stay down.”
Another shot.
Gerardo drew a pistol.
Molly stared at it.
“You brought a gun into my apartment?”
“Are we discussing etiquette now?”
“Fair point.”
He pushed her toward the bathroom.
“Lock yourself inside.”
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“Not tonight, Molly.”
Something in his voice made her obey.
Seconds later came footsteps.
A struggle.
Furniture crashed.
Then silence.
“Molly.”
She opened the door.
Gerardo stood over a masked man.
Blood ran from Gerardo’s eyebrow.
The attacker had escaped through the window onto the fire escape.
But something had fallen from his pocket.
A photograph.
Molly picked it up.
It showed her at eight years old.
Beside her stood her father.
And behind them was a man Molly had never noticed before.
Salvatore Romani.
May you like
On the back, written in her mother's handwriting, were four words:
Never trust this man.
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