Chapter 5 - MY MOTHER DIDN'T DIE THE WAY I WAS TOLD
My mother died after falling down the stairs in our apartment building.
That was the story.
Accident.
She'd been carrying laundry.
Neighbor found her.
I was seventeen.
I signed forms I didn't understand.
There was no autopsy.
Now Mara had the original incident report.
One detail had been removed from the copy given to me.
Possible assault preceding fall.
Witness heard argument.
Male voice.
My stomach turned.
“Who?”
The witness died two years later.
But she'd described the man.
Forties.
Tall.
Dark hair.
Scar near right eyebrow.
Marco Rossi had a scar near his right eyebrow.
Gabriel went silent.
I watched his hands close into fists.
“Don't.”
His eyes snapped toward me.
“What?”
“Don't decide he's guilty before evidence.”
He looked almost offended.
“You're defending him?”
“No. I'm defending facts.”
That seemed to reach him.
Mara continued.
Marco had been in Syracuse the day my mother died.
Cell records placed him within three miles.
Official reason:
Real-estate meeting.
Then we found the trust transfer.
Marco had accessed my money four weeks earlier using documents naming him successor trustee after Sofia resigned.
But Sofia never resigned.
Her signature was forged.
“Why steal from me?”
The trust originally held $740,000.
Not small.
Money Antonio Bellini placed there after leaving criminal assets through legitimate channels.
Marco transferred almost all of it into a holding company.
That company later invested in a warehouse portfolio.
Gabriel recognized the name.
North Hudson Logistics.
One of his family's most profitable businesses.
Part of the Rossi empire had been built using money stolen from me.
That realization changed the air.
Gabriel looked ill.
“I'll return it.”
I stared.
“You didn't take it.”
“My family did.”
“Still not the same thing.”
“It is to me.”
“There. That's the problem.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Everything becomes yours to punish or repair.”
For a moment, the terrifying mafia boss had no answer.
Then Mara received a call.
Ballistics from the attack had returned.
The crescent marking on the ammunition was linked to a private weapons supplier used historically by the Bellini organization.
So Marco wearing a crescent-marked cartridge might not indicate his own network.
It could indicate Bellini.
Which meant someone wanted us to think Rossi.
Or someone wanted Gabriel to think Bellini.
Then a nurse entered.
Leo was asking for me again.
He had drawn a picture.
Gabriel brought it.
Crayon.
Blue sunroom.
Black SUV.
Three masked men.
And another figure inside the house.
A woman.
Long yellow hair.
Standing behind the attackers.
“Who's this?” I asked.
Leo whispered:
“Miss Anna.”
Anna Whitmore.
His nanny.
May you like
The same nanny who had been sleeping beside him days before.
The woman whose sudden “doctor appointment” had taken her away exactly thirty minutes before the attack.
