Chapter 8 - THE FIRE AT STARLIGHT DINER
No one died.
That was the only good news.
Jim had gone home.
The manager was visiting his sister.
The old sleeping customer wasn't there.
Fire crews contained the flames before they reached neighboring businesses.
But the office burned completely.
Sadi stood behind police tape watching three years of her life turn black.
Roman stayed beside her.
Not touching.
She appreciated that.
Then a firefighter brought out a metal cash box.
Inside:
Payroll records.
Old receipts.
And one envelope addressed to Sadi.
Unburned.
Marcus's handwriting.
Again.
He had hidden contingency messages everywhere.
Inside:
If the diner burns, Lucia knows.
Sadi looked at Roman.
“Your aunt.”
He called Lucia.
She answered sweetly.
“Roman, darling.”
“Did you burn the diner?”
Silence.
Then:
“You've always lacked manners.”
Roman's face hardened.
“Answer.”
Lucia sighed.
“No.”
“Then why did Marcus say your name?”
“Because Marcus Vale was paranoid.”
“Was he wrong?”
Another silence.
“No.”
That answer surprised everyone.
Lucia asked to meet.
Federal agents advised recording.
She agreed.
At her Beacon Hill townhouse, Lucia poured tea as though murder archives were normal family business.
“I bought the diner to watch Sadi.”
Sadi said:
“Why?”
“To keep Arthur from finding her.”
Another supposed protector.
Lucia admitted laundering old money.
Yes.
She had committed financial crimes.
But she claimed she never supported trafficking.
Carlo lied to her for years.
When she learned the truth, she quietly redirected funds toward victim-support charities.
Illegal restitution.
Not innocence.
Complication.
“Who burned the diner?” Roman asked.
Lucia looked at Damian.
“Your brother.”
Damian stood.
“No.”
Lucia produced security footage.
A man working for Damian entered the alley an hour before the fire.
Damian recognized him.
Nathan Briggs.
His operations chief.
Damian went pale.
“I didn't order it.”
Sadi believed him too quickly.
She hated that.
Briggs disappeared immediately after the fire.
Then federal agents traced his phone.
Last contact:
Arthur Bellini.
Arthur had recruited Damian's own man.
The network was collapsing inward.
Then Lucia gave Sadi something.
A legal file.
Marcus had left it with her.
Inside was a draft federal complaint naming Arthur, Carlo, Lucia, and Lorenzo Moretti.
Roman's father.
Lorenzo had allegedly obstructed justice after learning David Vale's death was murder.
Not the killer.
The cover-up.
Then Lucia whispered:
“Roman, your father didn't pay Sadira's medical bills because he felt guilty.”
Roman looked at her.
“Why then?”
“Because Sadira had something he wanted.”
May you like
Sadi's mother possessed the original recording David made the night before he died.
And Lorenzo had spent twenty-six years trying to find it.
