Chapter 12 - THE LAST BELLINI
My grandfather’s name was Arturo Bellini.
Officially dead twenty-six years.
Naturally.
By then I had stopped being impressed by resurrected relatives.
We found him in Vermont running a bookstore.
A bookstore.
The former head of a crime family spent his seventies selling mystery novels to tourists.
“You’re Lena.”
He knew immediately.
“I’m beginning to hate that name.”
He smiled.
“You look like your mother when she’s angry.”
“She’s angry frequently.”
“My fault.”
At least he knew.
Arturo left organized crime after realizing Francesco Rosselli planned to absorb the Bellini network through marriage, debt, and murder.
He disappeared to protect Sofia.
But he made the same mistake everyone else did.
He confused absence with protection.
“You could have come back.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Cowardice.”
That answer disarmed me.
No strategy.
No noble excuse.
Just cowardice.
He gave me something my mother had never seen.
A ledger separate from Francesco’s.
It showed Arturo secretly investing legitimate Bellini money in community properties across Boston.
Restaurants.
Apartment buildings.
Clinics.
Scholarship funds.
One property was Aurelia.
I stared.
“What?”
“The Bellinis owned the building.”
Nicholas only owned the restaurant business.
The real estate belonged to a trust.
My trust.
I laughed.
Again.
Apparently I had spent eleven months waiting tables inside a building I unknowingly owned.
Arturo smiled.
“Your grandmother had a sense of humor.”
“Did she arrange that?”
“No.”
He looked thoughtful.
“Maybe fate does.”
I hated sentimental old men.
Mostly because sometimes they were right.
Then he handed me another document.
A foundation charter.
Forty million dollars.
Legitimate.
Untouched.
Intended for descendants who chose not to enter organized crime.
“That’s me.”
“Yes.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Anything.”
I thought of restaurant staff living paycheck to paycheck.
Women like my mother changing names to survive powerful men.
Children raised inside secrets.
I knew.
Months passed.
I created the Bellini-Rosselli Family Safety Foundation.
Terrible name.
Marco suggested it.
I threatened to fire him from a job he didn’t technically have.
The foundation funded emergency housing, legal assistance, childcare, and financial counseling for families escaping violence.
My mother ran the accounting.
Lucia handled legal advocacy.
Julian volunteered too much.
I still hadn’t decided what kind of relationship I wanted with him.
He accepted that.
Leo grew.
Walked.
Talked.
Called me “Nena.”
Close enough.
He visited Dante regularly.
Dante served twenty-two months after receiving credit for cooperation.
The day before his release, I received a letter.
Not from him.
From prison administration.
Dante had been attacked.
My blood turned cold.
He survived.
Barely.
But the man who attacked him had one message:
THE ROSSELLI NAME DOESN’T GET TO GO LEGITIMATE.
May you like
Someone outside still wanted the old empire alive.
And Dante’s release was supposed to trigger a war.
