Chapter 5 - THE LEDGER MY FATHER LEFT BEHIND
By midnight, my engagement party had become a federal search.
There are Christmas traditions I don't recommend.
Agents entered through the front doors while my lawyers arrived through the side.
Carlo Vitale was taken into custody.
The documents in Lily's backpack remained with Enzo because, fortunately, Carlo had never touched them long enough to remove them.
But the federal warrant was real.
Someone had provided investigators with information about financial records hidden inside my father's study.
There was only one problem.
I didn't have illegal financial records there.
My father had.
And he'd been dead fifteen years.
Agent Rebecca Shaw entered the study at 12:14 a.m.
She was forty-something, calm, and clearly disappointed that I wasn't stupid enough to threaten her.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Agent Shaw.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Is this how your family celebrates?”
“Usually with worse coffee.”
She handed my attorney the warrant.
They searched.
Twenty-three minutes later, an agent found a compartment behind my father's bookshelves.
Inside was a leather ledger.
I had never seen it.
Victoria had.
I knew from her face.
Agent Shaw noticed too.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
My mother sat down.
“May I speak to my son?”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You knew about the ledger.”
She didn't answer.
“Mother.”
“Yes.”
The word landed like another betrayal.
Agent Shaw took the ledger.
I wanted to be angry.
Instead I was tired.
Every room in my house seemed to contain another secret.
Sophia stood in the hallway with Lily.
She had changed the little girl into pajamas one of the housekeepers found in a guest room.
My daughter.
I still couldn't think those words without feeling something break open inside me.
Lily noticed me watching.
“Are you mad?”
I crouched.
“No.”
“You look mad.”
“I'm working on that.”
She considered this.
Then she held out half a cookie.
“For you.”
I took it.
“Thank you.”
She leaned toward me.
“Mommy says cookies don't fix problems.”
“Your mommy's very smart.”
“But they help.”
I almost smiled.
“They do.”
Sophia watched us.
Her expression hurt more than anger would have.
Four Christmases.
Four birthdays.
First words.
First steps.
Nightmares.
Fevers.
All gone.
Not because Sophia had stolen them.
Because fear had.
My mother's fear.
Sophia's fear.
Mine.
I stood.
“Can we talk?”
Sophia nodded.
We went to the conservatory while Enzo stayed with Lily.
Snow pressed against the windows.
“I don't know how to do this,” I admitted.
Sophia folded her arms.
“Do what?”
“Be furious with you and understand why you left at the same time.”
“You can do both.”
“Did you ever plan to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I believed Lily could survive being your daughter.”
That hurt.
“You think I couldn't protect her?”
“I think protection is the language everyone in your family uses when they're taking choices away from people.”
I had no answer.
She continued.
“I watched the newspapers, Dominic. Shootings. Investigations. Men disappearing. Warehouses burning. Every time I thought about calling you, something happened.”
“A lot of those stories weren't true.”
“Some were.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
There it was.
The truth neither of us could avoid.
I wasn't an innocent man.
Maybe I'd never killed the people tabloids claimed.
Maybe my businesses were cleaner now than they'd been under my father.
But violence had followed my name.
Sophia had been right to fear it.
“I've been changing things,” I said.
“For Isabella?”
“For myself.”
She looked unconvinced.
“I've spent three years separating legitimate companies from everything my father left behind.”
“Why?”
“Because I got tired of wondering whether every car slowing beside me contained a gun.”
I paused.
“And because four years ago, the woman I loved disappeared. I thought she'd looked at my life and decided it wasn't worth staying for.”
Sophia's eyes filled.
“So I started wondering whether she was right.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then Sophia whispered, “I didn't leave because I stopped loving you.”
The sentence hit harder than anything that night.
I stepped closer.
She didn't move.
“I didn't stop either.”
Her breath caught.
But she shook her head.
“That doesn't fix four years.”
“I know.”
“It doesn't make us a family.”
“I know.”
“And Lily isn't a reason for us to pretend.”
“I know.”
She looked almost annoyed.
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“I've waited four years to talk to you. I'm trying not to ruin the first five minutes.”
She laughed.
Just once.
But it was Sophia's laugh.
The sound pulled me backward through time.
Then Enzo appeared.
His expression erased everything else.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“Agent Shaw opened the ledger.”
“And?”
“It isn't your father's financial record.”
“What is it?”
He looked at Sophia.
“A list of payments.”
“To whom?”
“Judges. Port officials. Police officers.”
My jaw tightened.
“That's not surprising.”
“No.”
Enzo handed me a photocopied page.
One name had been circled.
Carlo Vitale.
Beside it was a payment dated four years earlier.
The week Sophia disappeared.
$250,000.
Description:
CARTER PROBLEM — FINAL RESOLUTION.
Sophia read it.
Her face drained of color.
I looked at Enzo.
“My father was dead.”
“Yes.”
“So who authorized it?”
Enzo pointed to the initials beside the payment.
V.M.
Victoria Moretti.
I turned.
My mother stood in the doorway.
She had heard everything.
Sophia backed away from her.
Victoria's eyes filled.
“That isn't my signature.”
I stared at her.
“Then whose is it?”
May you like
She whispered:
“Your brother's.”
