Chapter 5 - THE LEDGER UNDER THE CUSTOMS HOUSE
Alessandro refused to use Emma as bait.
Enzo expected him to.
That became the advantage.
The federal team wanted Isabella to wear a wire.
She agreed.
Alessandro did not like it.
He had lost the right to mistake dislike for authority over her choices.
Meanwhile Marco took Alessandro beneath Bellport’s old customs house.
The building had been closed for fifteen years.
Dust covered the tiled floor.
Old immigration counters sat beneath broken lights.
Marco stopped beside a brass inspection table.
“Your father liked hiding things in plain sight.”
He pressed beneath the edge.
Nothing happened.
Then Alessandro saw a tiny hole.
Old-fashioned key slot.
Marco removed a key from around his neck.
Alessandro stared.
“You had it.”
“I had a key.”
“To a safe you said you thought was empty.”
Marco looked almost embarrassed.
“I realize how that sounds.”
“Terrible.”
“Yes.”
The hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a leather ledger wrapped in oilcloth.
Black.
Alessandro almost laughed.
Enzo had been right.
Marco looked sick.
“I never knew.”
Alessandro believed him.
Mostly.
They opened it.
Vittorio Moretti’s handwriting filled the pages.
Payments.
Names.
Bribes.
Properties.
Things Alessandro already suspected about his father.
Then Bianca.
His sister.
One page carried the date of her death.
ANTONIO REQUESTED VEHICLE CHANGE. OBJECTED. M. SAW HIM NEAR GARAGE.
Below it:
BIANCA KNEW ABOUT UNION ACCOUNT. ANTONIO PANICKED.
Alessandro stared.
His uncle had sabotaged Bianca’s car because she discovered financial theft.
His father had known.
And buried it to avoid a war between brothers.
Another family secret protected at the expense of the dead.
Marco turned pages.
Then stopped.
“Enzo.”
The first entry was twelve years old.
ENZO MOVING CASH THROUGH HARBOR SERVICES.
Another.
E. MET WITH RUSSIAN BROKER WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION.
Another, five years later.
ENZO SUSPECTED IN RIVERA DISAPPEARANCE. NO PROOF.
Recent enough that Vittorio could not have written it.
Alessandro frowned.
Then understood.
The ledger had been continued after his father died.
By someone else.
Marco.
Alessandro looked at him.
“You.”
Marco closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The betrayal hurt.
Not because Marco had committed the acts.
Because he had investigated them in secret and never told Alessandro.
“Why?”
“Your father told me the ledger existed to protect the family from itself.”
“And you believed him?”
“For too long.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Enzo?”
“I had suspicions.”
“You wrote them down.”
“I needed proof.”
“You watched him for twelve years.”
“Yes.”
“And while you watched, he kidnapped Luca.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“Emma.”
“I know.”
“Isabella.”
“I know.”
Alessandro stepped away.
Rage would have been easier.
Instead came disappointment.
Marco had been his standard for trust.
Now even Marco had used secrecy as protection.
Again.
Marco said:
“You should fire me.”
“Probably.”
“I’d understand.”
“That isn’t why I’m angry.”
Marco looked at him.
“I am angry because every man in my life seems to believe my right to the truth depends on whether the truth is convenient.”
Silence.
Marco nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Alessandro closed the ledger.
“From now on, no private investigations involving my family.”
“Yes.”
“No hidden files.”
“Yes.”
“No promises to dead men that override living people.”
A faint expression crossed Marco’s face.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Alessandro handed the ledger to federal investigators.
Marco stared.
“You’re giving them everything?”
“Yes.”
“That book implicates your father.”
“He’s dead.”
“And half the old organization.”
“They can answer for themselves.”
“What about you?”
Alessandro looked at the ledger.
“My name is in there too.”
Marco stopped.
There were entries from Alessandro’s early years.
Cash settlements.
Illegal shipments.
Orders he had convinced himself were simply what leadership required.
“Then?”
“I answer too.”
That decision ended the old Moretti order more surely than any rival family ever could.
By afternoon Isabella met Enzo in a private gallery in Manhattan.
Wire hidden beneath her dress.
Federal surveillance surrounding three blocks.
Alessandro listened from a van.
Enzo arrived wearing black onyx cuff links.
Emma had been right.
Again.
“You look tired,” Enzo told Isabella.
“My brother.”
“Alive.”
“I want to see him.”
“You want many things.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“You kidnapped a six-year-old.”
Enzo smiled.
“That was unfortunate.”
Alessandro’s hand clenched.
Isabella stayed controlled.
“She saw you.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Children are pests with memories.”
Alessandro closed his eyes.
He would remember that sentence.
Isabella asked:
“What do you really want?”
“Bellport.”
“And the ledger.”
“Mostly the ledger.”
“Why?”
Enzo looked at a painting on the wall.
“Because dead men write cruel biographies.”
Confirmation.
“You killed people.”
“I inherited problems.”
“You sound like Vittorio.”
Enzo smiled.
“That is not an insult.”
To Alessandro it was.
Isabella continued:
“And Luca?”
“When I have the ledger.”
“What about Alessandro?”
“He steps down from Bellport.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Enzo’s expression changed.
“Then he learns what it feels like to lose family because somebody else made the decision.”
There.
Motive deeper than money.
Alessandro listened.
Isabella asked quietly:
“This is about your father.”
Enzo stared.
“My father died with the world believing he was a thief.”
“He was.”
A mistake.
Enzo’s face hardened.
“You’ve been reading.”
Isabella recovered.
“Alessandro talks.”
Not anymore.
Enzo continued:
“Antonio Moretti built half the routes Vittorio took credit for.”
“He killed Bianca.”
Silence.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
Enzo smiled.
“My father made one mistake.”
One mistake.
A woman dead.
A family ruined.
Isabella’s voice trembled.
“And you’re protecting him?”
“I’m correcting history.”
She whispered:
“By kidnapping children?”
Enzo leaned closer.
“By reminding Alessandro that family survival requires unpleasant choices.”
The Moretti disease.
Again.
Isabella asked:
“Where is Luca?”
Enzo smiled.
“Close.”
Then he looked directly at the small decorative mirror on the wall.
Not at Isabella.
At the reflection behind her.
Toward the federal surveillance position.
His smile vanished.
“You wore a wire.”
Isabella froze.
Enzo grabbed her.
The gallery lights went black.
Gunfire exploded.
Alessandro was out of the van before anyone could stop him.
By the time agents entered, Enzo was gone.
Isabella was alive.
A guard lay wounded.
And on the gallery floor was Enzo’s phone.
One recent map remained open.
A private marina on Long Island.
One boat registered under a shell company.
Departure scheduled for 11:00 p.m.
Destination:
Nova Scotia.
Marco looked at Alessandro.
“Luca.”
“Yes.”
Enzo was leaving the country.
May you like
And he was taking Isabella’s brother with him.
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