Chapter 5 - THE RED LEDGER
The estate went into lockdown.
Twenty armed men searched the grounds.
Security footage was reviewed.
Phones were collected from staff.
Vehicles were inspected.
Nobody found the intruder.
That disturbed Dominic more than the attack itself.
People did not vanish from the Moretti estate accidentally.
Someone had helped him.
At 2:00 a.m., Norah remained beside Salvatore’s bed.
“You need sleep.”
Salvatore glared.
“Yes, I know. Everyone trying to kill you makes bedtime difficult.”
Another glare.
“You’re still sleeping.”
His left hand tapped the blanket.
Norah handed him the board.
He spelled:
CHAPEL.
Norah frowned.
“There’s a chapel?”
Yes.
“What about it?”
RED.
Her pulse jumped.
“The ledger?”
Yes.
Norah found Dominic in the security room.
He had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves above his forearms. Three monitors showed exterior cameras.
He looked exhausted.
“Your father gave us the location.”
Dominic straightened.
“Where?”
“The chapel.”
The Moretti chapel sat nearly half a mile behind the main house.
Small.
Stone.
Older than the estate itself.
Dominic insisted Norah remain behind.
Norah reminded him that Salvatore refused to reveal the exact hiding place unless she came.
“That man has discovered manipulation remarkably late in life,” Dominic muttered.
They went together.
Frank accompanied them.
Rain had stopped.
The grounds smelled of wet pine.
Inside the chapel, candles had burned recently.
Dominic noticed immediately.
“Someone’s been here.”
Frank drew his gun.
Norah stayed close behind them.
The chapel contained six pews, a small altar, and a statue of Saint Michael.
Salvatore’s clue had been:
ANGEL HEART.
Norah studied the statue.
Saint Michael held a sword over a defeated demon.
“Heart.”
Dominic examined the chest.
Nothing.
Norah looked lower.
A carved heart-shaped shield rested beneath the saint’s hand.
She pressed it.
Click.
A narrow panel opened beneath the altar.
Frank whispered, “I’ll be damned.”
Inside was a red leather ledger.
Dominic lifted it carefully.
The first pages contained handwritten dates going back twenty-seven years.
Companies.
Names.
Payments.
Account numbers.
Initials.
Later pages documented legitimate businesses.
And theft.
Millions siphoned slowly from Moretti companies into shell corporations.
All connected to Victor Rizzo.
Dominic’s face became colder with every page.
Then Norah noticed another section.
“Dominic.”
He looked.
Several entries were labeled V.M.
Medical.
Payments to a physician named Dr. Alan Pierce.
The same physician who supervised Salvatore’s post-stroke care.
Frank swore.
Norah turned another page.
A final handwritten note had been added approximately four months earlier.
If my condition worsens unexpectedly, investigate Rizzo and Pierce.
Dominic sat down on the front pew.
He looked suddenly less like a crime boss and more like a son discovering he had misunderstood the final months of his father’s life.
“He knew.”
Norah sat beside him.
“Apparently.”
“He knew Victor was stealing.”
“And poisoning him.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Norah looked at him.
“You weren’t speaking.”
Dominic laughed once without humor.
“My father and I haven’t had a real conversation in seven years.”
“Why?”
He stared toward the altar.
“My mother.”
Norah waited.
Dominic rarely volunteered personal information.
When he did, interrupting felt wrong.
“She died when I was twenty-nine. Car accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She had been leaving him.”
Norah said nothing.
“He had controlled everything. Where she went. Who she saw. What money she had. She finally told me she wanted out.”
Dominic’s voice became quieter.
“I helped her arrange an apartment.”
Norah understood before he continued.
“She died the next night.”
“Did you think Salvatore caused it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Dominic looked at the ledger.
“I don’t know.”
Frank, standing near the altar, suddenly turned pages faster.
“You need to see this.”
He brought the ledger over.
One entry.
Seven years earlier.
The date of Maria Moretti’s death.
Vehicle maintenance — M.M.
Then:
Investigation suppressed by V.R.
Dominic went white.
“What does that mean?”
Norah read again.
Frank whispered, “Victor controlled security then.”
Dominic stood.
“Give me the book.”
They returned to the mansion.
Victor was waiting in the foyer.
“How was your walk?”
Nobody answered.
Victor saw the ledger in Dominic’s hand.
For the first time, he lost control of his face.
Only for a second.
But Dominic saw.
So did Norah.
Victor smiled.
“Where did you find that?”
Dominic descended the final stair.
“You recognize it?”
“Everyone older than forty recognizes it.”
Dominic held the ledger tighter.
“My father documented some interesting transactions.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“This is not a conversation you want to have in front of staff.”
“Norah isn’t staff.”
The words surprised all three of them.
Norah looked at Dominic.
Victor noticed.
Something calculating entered his expression.
“No,” he said softly. “I suppose she isn’t anymore.”
Dominic ignored the implication.
“Did you steal from this family?”
Victor laughed.
Then stopped.
“Careful.”
“Did you?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
Victor stepped closer.
“How many times did I clean up your father’s mistakes?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“How many wars did I prevent? How many investigators disappeared? How many men remained loyal because I paid them when Salvatore was too proud?”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I kept this family alive.”
“You drugged him.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“The old man was destroying everything.”
“You poisoned him.”
“I controlled him.”
Norah felt cold.
Victor looked at her.
“You think medicine makes you understand power?”
“No.”
She held his gaze.
“But I understand dosage.”
Victor smiled thinly.
Dominic stepped between them.
“Don’t look at her.”
Victor’s eyebrows rose.
There it was again.
Something personal.
Something visible.
Norah wished it did not make her heart beat faster.
Victor glanced toward Frank.
“You see what’s happening?”
Frank remained silent.
“A hospice nurse appears from nowhere,” Victor continued, “and suddenly Salvatore communicates, Dominic questions everything, and twenty years of loyalty mean nothing.”
Norah’s anger rose.
“I didn’t create your bank transfers.”
“No. But perhaps you created your grandmother.”
Silence.
Norah frowned.
Victor smiled.
“Elena Bellini.”
Dominic turned.
“How do you know that name?”
Victor’s expression became almost nostalgic.
“Because Salvatore talked about her whenever he drank too much.”
Norah’s pulse increased.
Victor continued.
“The saint who supposedly saved his soul.”
“What happened?”
Victor looked at Salvatore’s staircase.
“She betrayed him.”
Norah shook her head.
“My grandmother never mentioned any betrayal.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because she stole something from him.”
Dominic’s voice sharpened.
“What?”
Victor looked directly at Norah.
“A child.”
The room became absolutely silent.
Norah stared.
“What?”
Victor smiled.
“Ask your grandmother’s ghost why Salvatore spent fifty years searching for the baby Elena Bellini disappeared with.”
Norah’s stomach dropped.
Dominic’s face changed.
Victor walked past them.
At the doorway, he stopped.
“If you’re wondering whether that makes you family, Miss Gallagher…”
He looked back.
May you like
“It might.”
And suddenly the attraction neither Dominic nor Norah had admitted became something far more dangerous.
