Chapter 9 - THE BULLET THROUGH MY MOTHER'S WINDOW
I had grown up hearing bottles break in restaurant kitchens.
A gunshot through glass was different.
It entered the body before the sound finished.
Luca shoved me behind the old counter.
Enzo returned fire through the shattered window.
Marco pulled Father Bellini down.
Matteo dragged Vanessa behind a support column.
More shots cracked from the street.
Then tires screamed.
Silence came after.
Short.
Terrible.
No one was hit.
Barely.
The bullet in the wall sat inches from where Luca had been standing.
Enzo found the casing outside.
Not random gang fire.
Professional.
Message.
Matteo looked at Luca.
“Still want full disclosure?”
Luca stood slowly.
“Yes.”
Good.
Then police arrived because neighbors had called.
This mattered.
Old Luca might have handled everything privately.
This Luca let officers document the scene.
Gave statements.
Turned over the casing.
No disappearing evidence.
That mattered more than words.
Then Vanessa received a call.
Her grandfather.
Carlo Bellini.
Not dead.
I had assumed he was.
Apparently he had been “retired” in Florida for years.
His voice came through speaker, smooth and warm.
“Vanessa.”
She trembled.
“Nonno.”
“You made a mess.”
“You lied to me.”
“I prepared you.”
“To steal from my future husband?”
“To secure what belongs to our blood.”
Luca’s face hardened.
Carlo Bellini continued:
“Luca, if you are listening, remember your father understood partnership.”
“My father was a thief.”
A soft laugh.
“Your father was practical.”
Then:
“Give me the ledger, the Reed files, and my granddaughter. This ends quietly.”
No one spoke.
Then Carlo added:
“If not, I start with Emma’s father.”
The world stopped.
My father, Paul Reed, lived in a rehabilitation apartment after his stroke.
He had nothing to do with any of this.
Or so I thought.
I called him.
No answer.
My hands began shaking.
Luca was already calling Enzo.
“Send men to her father.”
“No,” I snapped.
He stopped.
“My father doesn’t need mafia men around him.”
“He needs protection.”
“Then send police.”
He looked like every instinct in him fought that.
Then he nodded.
“Police first.”
Progress.
Too late?
We reached my father’s building twenty minutes after officers did.
He was alive.
Confused.
But someone had been there.
His medication cabinet open.
Files missing.
And on his kitchen table sat one photograph.
My mother.
My father.
Marco Santori.
Standing together outside Reed’s six years earlier.
Marco went pale.
I turned to him.
“You knew my father too?”
He whispered:
“Your father worked with me before the stroke.”
“What?”
“He was helping us trace the Bellini invoices.”
My father had not simply been a victim of bad health.
He had been part of the investigation.
Then the stroke that ended his career suddenly looked less natural.
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On the back of the photograph were four words:
ASK MARCO WHO FELL.
