Chapter 5 - The Mafia Princess
Isabella Marino arrived at Costa headquarters wearing white.
Clara thought the choice was deliberate.
White dress.
White coat.
Pearl earrings.
Innocence packaged by a stylist.
Gabriel sat behind his desk.
Clara stood near the windows.
Marco, against medical advice, occupied the sofa with stitches in his side and an expression suggesting he was enjoying the drama far too much.
Isabella looked at Clara.
“You're still here.”
Clara smiled faintly.
“Disappointing?”
“Surprising.”
Gabriel placed the staged kidnapping photograph on his desk.
“Explain.”
Isabella didn't even glance down.
“My father made me do it.”
Marco laughed.
“Record time. Thirty seconds and she's already blaming Daddy.”
“Marco,” Gabriel warned.
Isabella's composure cracked.
“You don't understand my father.”
“Then enlighten us,” Clara said.
Isabella looked at her.
“Paul Marino has spent twenty years preparing for the day the Costas became vulnerable.”
Gabriel leaned back.
“And marrying you to me accomplishes that?”
“It gives him access.”
“To what?”
“You.”
The room became quiet.
Isabella swallowed.
“My father never intended the merger to survive the wedding.”
She explained.
Paul Marino believed Vittorio Costa had stolen territory from him decades earlier.
The marriage would consolidate assets temporarily.
Then Gabriel would die.
Isabella would inherit enough voting authority to fracture Costa Holdings while Paul seized criminal operations during the confusion.
“And Clara?” Gabriel asked.
Isabella hesitated.
“My father hates her because of Thomas Bennett.”
Clara stepped forward.
“What did my father discover?”
“I don't know everything.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
“Thomas discovered my father had been paying someone inside the Costa family.”
Gabriel went still.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Convenient,” Marco said.
Isabella glared at him.
“My father doesn't tell me names. He tells me instructions.”
Clara touched the brass key in her pocket.
“What does this open?”
For the first time, Isabella lost color.
“You found that?”
“So you recognize it.”
“My father has spent years looking for it.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas Bennett hid the original ledger.”
Clara’s pulse accelerated.
A ledger capable of identifying the traitor.
Possibly her father's killer.
Gabriel stood.
“Where?”
Isabella looked at Clara.
“The key is only half of it.”
“What’s the other half?”
“Something Thomas left with his daughter.”
Clara laughed bitterly.
“My father left me nothing.”
Isabella shook her head.
“He did. You just don't know what it is.”
Clara thought of her childhood.
Her father had left almost no possessions.
Her mother had sold the house after his death.
There were photographs.
Books.
A watch.
Then Clara remembered.
“The encyclopedia.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“The hollowed-out one?”
She nodded.
The book where she had hidden $60,000.
It had belonged to her father.
They drove to Clara's damaged apartment.
The broken window had been boarded.
She pulled the encyclopedia from the shelf and removed the cash.
Nothing.
Gabriel examined the spine.
“May I?”
Clara handed it over.
He cut through the inner binding carefully.
A thin metal plate fell out.
Numbers had been engraved across it.
Clara stared.
“A bank box.”
Not a bank.
A private vault company that had closed twelve years earlier.
Gabriel recognized its successor.
Three hours later, lawyers and considerable Costa influence opened the forgotten deposit box.
Inside was a black ledger.
Clara's hands shook as she opened it.
Her father's handwriting covered every page.
Payments.
Dates.
Names.
Then one name appeared repeatedly.
SALVATORE COSTA.
Gabriel's uncle.
The man who had helped raise Gabriel after Vittorio died.
The man sitting on the Costa board.
The man who controlled half their political relationships.
Gabriel read the entry twice.
Marco whispered, “Uncle Sal?”
Clara turned another page.
The final entry had been written two days before Thomas died.
S.C. meeting P.M. Friday. If I don't return, protect Clara.
Gabriel looked at her.
Friday was the night Thomas Bennett died.
Clara closed her eyes.
Sixteen years of grief suddenly had a face.
“We confront him,” Marco said.
“No,” Clara replied.
Gabriel looked at her.
“If Salvatore knows we found this, he disappears.”
“So what do you suggest?”
Clara closed the ledger.
“We let him think I'm still running.”
Gabriel immediately understood.
“No.”
“Here we go again.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He wants the ledger. He believes my father gave me the key. He’s been watching me.”
“And he has already tried to shoot you.”
“Which means he'll follow me.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“I will not use you as bait.”
“You aren't using me.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“I'm choosing.”
That stopped him.
For years Gabriel had protected people by removing their choices.
Clara could see how difficult it was for him not to do it again.
Finally, he nodded.
“One condition.”
“What?”
“I stay close.”
“How close?”
“Close enough to annoy you.”
“That won't require much effort.”
Marco groaned from behind them.
“If you two survive this, please either get married or kill each other. The tension is exhausting.”
Clara ignored him.
That evening, she deliberately booked a train ticket to New York under her real name.
Then she walked alone through Union Station carrying the black ledger in her bag.
Gabriel’s men remained invisible.
At 7:42 p.m., a man bumped into her.
“Sorry.”
He continued walking.
Clara reached into her coat pocket.
A note had been placed inside.
TRACK 18. TEN MINUTES. ALONE.
She walked toward Track 18.
The platform was almost empty.
A man waited beneath a broken light.
Not Salvatore.
Paul Marino.
He smiled.
“You look exactly like your father when you're angry.”
Clara stopped.
“Did you kill him?”
Paul's smile widened.
“No.”
“Who did?”
A voice came from behind her.
“I did.”
Clara turned.
Salvatore Costa stepped from the shadows.
And beside him stood someone Clara had never expected to see.
May you like
Gabriel.
With a gun pointed directly at her.
