Chapter 2 - THE SECRET BETWEEN MY WIFE AND MARCO
I nearly hit him.
For ten years, Marco had stood beside me through funerals, raids, betrayals, and wars.
Then he told me he had been secretly helping my wife investigate my family.
“You went behind my back.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eight months.”
My hands curled into fists.
“What did she want?”
“The truth.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters.”
I grabbed his jacket.
Marco did not resist.
“Tell me why my wife was looking for my father’s ledger.”
His voice stayed calm.
“Because she found a name.”
“What name?”
“Gabriel Vale.”
I released him.
I knew it.
Not well.
But enough.
Gabriel Vale had worked with my father twenty-two years earlier.
According to family history, he stole from us and disappeared before punishment found him.
Marco looked toward the old kitchen.
“Isabella discovered Gabriel never stole anything.”
“Then what happened?”
“He wanted out.”
My jaw tightened.
“That was before my time.”
“You were seventeen.”
“I wasn’t involved.”
“No.”
Marco’s expression became harder.
“But your father was.”
I turned away.
Everyone knew Vittorio Rossi had not been a gentle man.
I spent half my adult life telling myself that inheriting his empire did not mean inheriting his sins.
Maybe that had only been another lie.
“Why did Isabella care about Gabriel?”
Marco pulled a photograph from his coat.
Isabella had found it inside an old Rossi archive.
Gabriel stood beside a woman and two young girls.
One girl was perhaps twelve.
The other six.
On the back someone had written:
Gabriel, Elena, Serena, and Mia.
“What happened to them?”
“After Gabriel disappeared, his wife died.”
“And the girls?”
“Separated.”
I looked at him.
“Serena.”
Marco nodded.
“The woman on the phone.”
My pulse changed.
“How do you know?”
“Because Isabella met her.”
Silence.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Rage returned.
“My wife met the daughter of one of my father’s enemies and nobody told me?”
“She was afraid you’d shut it down.”
“She was right.”
Marco almost smiled sadly.
“That was exactly the problem.”
I stared at him.
“What did Isabella find?”
“She found evidence Gabriel had been preparing to testify against Vittorio.”
“For what?”
“Murders. Bribery. Extortion.”
Nothing surprised me until Marco added:
“And one kidnapping.”
My blood went cold.
“Who?”
He looked at me carefully.
“Your mother.”
I stopped breathing.
My mother, Lucia Rossi, died when I was twelve.
At least, that was what I had been told.
Car accident in Sicily.
Closed coffin.
No questions allowed.
Marco continued:
“Isabella found records suggesting Lucia never died in Italy.”
I stared.
“What are you saying?”
“She disappeared in Boston.”
My voice came out low.
“Don’t.”
“She may have tried to leave your father.”
“Stop.”
“And Gabriel helped her.”
I slammed my fist into the wall.
Pain shot through my hand.
Marco waited.
Then quietly said:
“Luca, the woman holding Isabella isn’t asking for money.”
I looked at him.
“She wants the ledger because she believes it proves what happened to her father.”
“And my mother?”
Marco swallowed.
“She believes it proves what happened to her too.”
Then his phone buzzed.
Security analysis.
The red number behind Isabella had been identified.
Warehouse 17.
But the location was not in the river district.
It belonged to an old Rossi storage complex forty miles north.
A property I had personally ordered demolished six years earlier.
May you like
Except according to the new satellite image—
one building was still standing.
