Chapter 7 - THE PRIEST WITH FATHER BELLINI’S EYES
The man outside did not knock again.
He simply stood beneath the awning while rain began to gather on his black coat.
Sophia watched him through the security monitor.
He looked calm.
Too calm.
The kind of calm she had learned to fear.
“He knows we are watching,” Lorenzo said.
“Yes.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
Emma appeared beside Sophia’s desk, holding Biscotti in both arms.
“Is he a priest?”
Sophia looked at her daughter.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
The man wore a priest’s collar, but Sophia had learned long ago that costumes did not reveal character.
Father Bellini had worn a rosary while arranging murder.
Vincent had worn a navy suit while lying to the family that trusted him.
Sophia herself had worn a maid’s uniform while being ignored by everyone who thought power only lived in expensive rooms.
Lorenzo spoke into his phone.
“Marco, I need the building surrounded quietly. No weapons visible. No one enters through the front.”
Sophia looked at him sharply.
“Not quietly enough that he disappears.”
“I know.”
The stranger finally lifted his hand and pressed the intercom.
Sophia answered.
“What do you want?”
His voice came through warm and composed.
“I would like to speak with Sophia Rossi.”
“You are speaking with her.”
“My name is Father Gabriel Bellini.”
Sophia’s fingers tightened around the intercom.
Bellini.
Lorenzo heard it too.
His expression went flat.
“Father Bellini had no children,” Lorenzo said.
“Not publicly,” Sophia replied.
The man outside smiled faintly, as if he had heard them through the camera.
“My father made many sacrifices for the Duca family,” Gabriel said through the intercom. “It is time the family returned the favor.”
“You are not welcome here,” Sophia said.
“I am not asking for welcome.”
“What do you want?”
“The wooden boat Matteo Rossi carved for his daughter.”
Emma’s body stiffened beside Sophia.
Sophia rested one hand on her shoulder.
“That boat is not yours.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “But what is inside it belongs to people who have waited a long time to reclaim their future.”
Lorenzo stepped closer to the intercom.
“Your father is in prison.”
“My father is dying in prison,” Gabriel replied. “And he told me enough before the end.”
Sophia felt cold.
“What did he tell you?”
“That Lorenzo Duca’s family has always survived by burying evidence beneath charity, loyalty, and fear.”
Lorenzo’s jaw hardened.
Gabriel continued.
“And that Matteo Rossi stole a record capable of destroying men who still hold power in this city.”
Sophia looked at Lorenzo.
“Who else is named in the ledger?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The page we found was incomplete.”
Gabriel laughed softly.
“Then perhaps you should ask the right question.”
“What question?” Sophia asked.
“Why did Matteo die?”
The rain fell harder.
Sophia stared at the speaker.
Gabriel’s voice became lower.
“Vincent did not kill Matteo because Father Bellini ordered it. Vincent killed him because Matteo discovered the name of the man who financed the entire network.”
“Who?” Lorenzo asked.
Gabriel paused.
Then he said, “Your father.”
The line went silent.
Lorenzo did not move.
Sophia looked at him.
His father, Antonio Duca, had been dead for fifteen years. Lorenzo had spent most of his adult life trying to separate himself from the criminal legacy Antonio left behind.
But there were things no son wanted to hear.
And some truths could still wound long after the person responsible was buried.
“That is a lie,” Lorenzo said.
“Maybe,” Gabriel replied. “But the boat can prove it.”
Sophia looked down at Emma.
Her daughter’s eyes were wide.
“Mama, is Papa’s boat bad?”
Sophia crouched in front of her.
“No,” she said. “Your papa was good.”
“Then why do bad people want it?”
“Because good people sometimes leave behind the truth.”
Marco’s cars arrived quietly at the curb.
Gabriel saw them.
He did not run.
Instead, he placed the wooden boat on the front step and stepped backward into the rain.
“Midnight,” he said through the intercom. “The old chapel beneath Duca House.”
Sophia’s breath caught.
“The chapel was sealed.”
“Nothing is sealed forever,” Gabriel said.
Then he looked directly into the camera.
“Bring the real boat, Sophia. Or I will tell the city what Lorenzo’s father did—and I will make certain everyone believes Matteo Rossi helped him.”
He turned and walked into the rain.
Marco rushed after him with two officers.
But by the time they reached the corner, Gabriel Bellini was gone.
Only the wooden boat remained on the front step.
Inside it, tucked beneath the painted mast, was a single item.
A black mother-of-pearl button.
May you like
Engraved with a silver D.
Lorenzo’s father’s button.
