Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE LEDGERSonia wanted answers.
Instead, she got a safe house.
Dante moved Sonia, Emma, and Robert to a penthouse above a private medical facility his organization controlled.
“I’m not staying here forever,” Sonia said.
“No.”
“How long?”
“Until I know why Luca knows your name.”
“That sounds suspiciously like forever.”
Dante leaned against the kitchen counter.
“You always argue this much?”
“Only when kidnapped politely.”
“You’re not kidnapped.”
“Can I leave?”
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow.
Dante sighed.
“Point taken.”
That night, Sonia examined copies of Robert’s ledger while Dante took calls in another room.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Evelyn Mitchell.
Her mother.
Sonia stared.
Evelyn had died when Sonia was twelve.
According to Robert, it had been a highway accident.
Yet the ledger listed payments to her for years afterward.
Sonia confronted Robert the next morning.
His face told her the truth before his mouth did.
“Mom worked for the Morettis?”
“She was an accountant.”
“You told us she worked for an insurance company.”
“She did. That was how she found the accounts.”
Robert explained that Evelyn had discovered a laundering network secretly operated by Luca and several senior Moretti associates.
She gathered proof.
Before she could expose it, her car went off a bridge.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Sonia whispered.
Robert cried.
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“So you hid the ledger.”
“I hid you.”
Robert explained the final secret.
Evelyn had created an encrypted financial key.
It could unlock accounts worth hundreds of millions.
But she had divided the key.
Robert possessed half.
The other half had been hidden somewhere Sonia unknowingly carried for years.
“My mother left me something?”
Robert nodded.
“Her necklace.”
Sonia touched her throat.
The silver pendant she had worn since childhood.
Dante entered.
“Take it off.”
He examined the pendant and discovered a tiny memory chip sealed inside.
Sonia laughed once, without humor.
“So my whole life is apparently a crime novel.”
Dante looked at her.
“Your mother was trying to protect you.”
“She got killed.”
“And your father spent seventeen years making sure you didn’t.”
“Until I started working at your restaurant.”
Dante’s expression shifted.
He finally understood.
Luca had arranged Sonia’s employment at Lombardi’s.
Vinnie had not hired her randomly.
He had been instructed to.
“Why?”
“To keep you close,” Dante said.
“Until they needed the key.”
That afternoon, Dante’s cybersecurity specialist opened the chip.
It contained the second half of Evelyn’s records.
And a video.
Sonia’s mother appeared on-screen.
Younger.
Terrified.
“If Robert is showing you this, then something happened to me.”
Sonia covered her mouth.
Evelyn explained that Luca was not the true architect of the conspiracy.
Someone older had recruited him.
Someone inside the Moretti family.
Then she said the name.
“Salvatore Moretti.”
Dante stepped backward.
“My uncle.”
Salvatore had practically raised Dante after his father died.
He was the family’s respected elder.
The man Dante trusted above everyone else.
The video continued.
“If Salvatore learns I copied the accounts, he will kill me. And eventually he will kill Dante too, because Dante is the only thing standing between him and everything his brother built.”
The screen went black.
Dante said nothing for a long time.
Sonia looked at him.
“Where is your uncle?”
Dante checked his watch.
“Coming here.”
The elevator chimed.
Sonia’s heart stopped.
Dante reached beneath his jacket.
The doors opened.
Salvatore Moretti stepped out carrying flowers.
He was seventy-two, silver-haired and elegant.
“My God,” he said warmly. “I heard about Robert.”
His eyes moved to Sonia.
Then to the necklace in Dante’s hand.
For only half a second, Salvatore’s smile disappeared.
But Sonia saw it.
And so did Dante.
Salvatore placed the flowers down.
“What’s wrong?”
Dante smiled.
“Nothing, Uncle.”
Then he embraced him.
Sonia watched Dante whisper into the old man’s ear.
“You should have stayed away.”
May you like
Salvatore’s face remained calm.
But his hand slipped slowly toward his coat.
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