Chapter 9 - THE BLACK LEDGER
The chapel stood on the oldest Rossi property outside Boston.
Small.
Stone.
Private.
Matteo had not visited since his mother’s funeral.
We arrived before sunset with six men Matteo still trusted.
Not men wearing crests.
Men whose families Elena knew personally.
That was the new standard.
Trust had become expensive.
The chapel smelled like dust and cold stone.
A portrait of Isabella Rossi hung beside the altar.
She was beautiful.
Young.
Her eyes looked like Matteo’s.
I understood suddenly why he never spoke about her.
Grief had shaped him long before power did.
Elena knelt beside the altar and pressed a carved rose.
A section of stone shifted.
Behind it was an old steel door.
Matteo stared.
“My father never told me.”
“No,” Elena said. “He told your mother.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
Inside the vault were no stacks of cash.
No guns.
No jewels.
Only documents.
Boxes of them.
And one black leather ledger.
Matteo opened it.
Names filled the pages.
Payments.
Dates.
Promises.
Threats.
Decades of corruption.
Then Matteo reached the final section.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned the book toward me.
LUCA BELLINI.
Payment records going back fifteen years.
But these were not payments from Vittorio to Luca.
They were from Luca to government officials after Vittorio died.
“He continued it,” I whispered.
Matteo nodded.
“Under my name.”
Every transaction had been disguised as a Rossi directive.
If investigators found the ledger without context, Matteo would appear responsible for years of bribery he never authorized.
Adrian cursed.
“That’s his endgame.”
“What?” I asked.
“Luca doesn’t need Matteo dead.”
He pointed at the ledger.
“He needs him convicted.”
Matteo’s phone rang.
Luca.
Of course.
Matteo answered.
“We found it.”
Luca laughed.
“I know.”
My stomach dropped.
Matteo looked around.
A tiny red light blinked above one of the old wall sconces.
Camera.
Luca had been watching.
“Leave the ledger,” he said.
“No.”
“Then your wife loses the one thing she moved all that money to protect.”
My hand covered my stomach.
Matteo’s face became stone.
“What did you do?”
Luca’s voice softened.
“I didn’t touch the baby.”
Pause.
“Yet.”
I stepped toward the phone.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“You said you wanted clean money.”
“I wanted options.”
“Where do we meet?”
Matteo looked at me sharply.
Luca answered:
“Not you.”
I almost laughed.
“You built this entire plan around me.”
“Yes.”
“Then talk to me.”
Silence.
Finally:
“Midnight. Pier 17.”
Matteo shook his head.
I ignored him.
Luca continued.
“Bring the ledger.”
“And then?”
“I give you the original medical file proving Matteo’s father falsified his genetic test.”
“We already know he carries the mutation.”
Luca laughed softly.
“No, Norah.”
My blood chilled.
“That file says Matteo wasn’t the child Vittorio tested.”
Matteo went still.
Luca continued:
May you like
“Vittorio tested someone else.”
Then the line disconnected.
