Chapter 6 - THE LEDGER BENEATH THE FLOOR
Luca didn't speak for nearly a minute.
He stood in the therapy room with the authorization form in his hand, staring at his father's signature as if the ink might rearrange itself into something less terrible.
Then he folded the paper carefully.
“Daniel, find every surviving record associated with this account. Marco, get me access to my father's old office.”
“It's been locked since he died,” Marco said.
“Then unlock it.”
I looked at Luca.
“What if the ledger proves your father was responsible for the fire?”
He met my eyes.
“Then I'll stop protecting his reputation.”
It was the first time I'd seen him look less like a powerful businessman and more like a son who had just discovered that the man he admired might have been a stranger.
My mother insisted on taking my father home. I wanted to stay with them, but Dad asked me to follow Luca.
He needed the ledger found.
Whatever had happened eighteen years earlier, he believed it was connected to the people who were now using his identity.
Luca drove me to the oldest of his family's properties, a stone mansion on the outskirts of Chicago that had once served as Dominic's private residence. The house had been empty for years, maintained by a caretaker who rarely spoke and appeared relieved when Luca arrived with a reason to enter.
We descended a narrow staircase into the basement.
The air smelled of dust and old wood.
“My father kept business records here,” Luca explained. “He believed electronic systems could be compromised. Important documents were stored in duplicate locations.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He told me enough to make me think I understood him.”
He stopped before a locked storage room.
Marco opened the door.
Inside were filing cabinets, boxes of account books, and an old wooden desk with a broken lamp. Luca began searching the cabinets while I examined the shelves.
Most of the documents concerned restaurants, property leases, and supplier agreements.
Then I found a small metal box tucked behind a row of ledgers.
It had no lock.
Inside lay a black notebook, a brass key, and a photograph.
The photograph showed my parents standing outside Bell Street Kitchen on opening day. My mother was young, laughing with flour on her apron. My father stood beside her, one arm around her shoulders.
Between them stood Dominic Moretti.
He was smiling.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Eighteen years earlier.
Luca took the photograph from me.
“I've never seen this.”
I opened the notebook.
The first pages contained ordinary financial entries. Then the handwriting changed.
Payments to Adrian Bellini's father.
Payments to an inspector.
Payments to a company that had dissolved shortly before the fire.
Several entries carried the same notation.
B.S.K. — settlement.
Bell Street Kitchen.
My fingers shook as I turned the pages.
“Your father was paying my family.”
Luca read over my shoulder.
“Or paying someone else in connection with your family.”
The distinction felt thin.
At the back of the notebook, I found a folded sheet of paper with my father's name written across the top.
Beneath it was a list of dates and amounts.
The final entry was dated two days before the fire.
Refusal received. Original documents secured.
“Refusal of what?” I whispered.
Luca examined the page.
“Perhaps your father refused to sign something.”
I remembered the fake signature on the modern company registration. Someone had been willing to use my father's identity because they believed he could be made to cooperate—or because his records could be manipulated.
What if the same thing had happened eighteen years earlier?
Luca turned another page.
A second name appeared.
Eleanor Bellini.
Vanessa's grandmother.
Beside the name was a note.
If anything happens to Teresa or Samuel, deliver the original ledger to the attorney.
My stomach tightened.
“Your father knew my parents were in danger.”
Luca looked at the page for a long time.
“Yes.”
“Did he protect them?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he cause the fire?”
“I don't know that either.”
I closed the notebook.
“I'm tired of not knowing.”
He didn't argue.
Instead, he took out his phone and photographed every page.
“We'll find out.”
Before we could leave, Marco called from upstairs.
“Luca! You need to see this.”
We hurried into the front hall.
A small package had been left beside the entrance. There was no return address, only Luca's name written in block letters.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Stop searching for the past, or the past will bury Emma Reed.
Luca's expression became lethal.
He immediately ordered the caretaker to secure the property and asked Daniel to arrange protection for my parents.
I should have been terrified.
I was terrified.
But something else had begun to grow beneath the fear: anger.
Someone had used my father's medical condition to manipulate him. Someone had attached my mother's address to fraudulent companies. Someone had hidden a history that might have destroyed our family.
And now they were threatening me because I had refused to lie.
I turned to Luca.
“Don't send me home and tell me to stay out of this.”
He studied me.
“That's exactly what I was going to do.”
“I know.”
“You're not trained for this.”
“No. I'm trained to recognize when someone is lying about a bill, when a signature doesn't belong to the person whose name is on it, and when rich people assume nobody will challenge them.”
I stepped closer.
“That's how this started. You need someone who understands the details, not another man who thinks money will make the problem disappear.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he nodded.
“You'll work with Daniel. You won't meet Adrian or Vanessa alone. And if I tell you to leave a dangerous situation, you leave.”
“Agreed.”
He held out his hand.
I shook it.
His grip was warm, steady, and unexpectedly gentle.
For a second, the world narrowed to the space between us.
Then my phone rang.
It was my mother.
“Emma,” she said, crying. “Your father is gone.”
My blood turned cold.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Someone came to the house. They said they were taking him for an emergency evaluation. I thought they were from the clinic.”
“Mom, did you see their identification?”
“No.”
I heard a door slam in the background.
“Emma, they left something.”
“What?”
Her voice broke.
“A note.”
May you like
She read it aloud.
Bring the ledger to the old restaurant by midnight. Come alone, or your father dies.
