Chapter 10 - THE THIRD LEDGER
The third ledger contained names missing from both other copies.
Judges.
Police officers.
Port officials.
Union leaders.
People who had spent twenty years pretending they were clean.
Thomas created it as a final safeguard.
He never told my father.
He barely told Marco.
But Adrian found it after Thomas died.
That explained everything.
Adrian didn’t need Emma dead.
He needed everyone believing she might know where the remaining evidence was.
Fear made people reveal what they protected.
He attacked Emma.
Expected me to move.
Expected hidden records to surface.
And they had.
“Then we gave him exactly what he wanted,” Lucia said.
“Partly.”
Emma touched the duplicate ledger.
“He doesn’t know we found this.”
“No.”
“Can it still hurt him?”
“Yes.”
“Then use it.”
Simple.
No hesitation.
Emma Carter had spent fourteen months polishing my furniture while hiding a spine stronger than half the men who worked for me.
The FBI copied everything.
We kept the original secured.
Adrian finally called me himself.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Cousin.”
His voice was older.
But unmistakable.
“Adrian.”
“You took your time.”
“You’ve been hiding.”
“I’ve been building.”
“On dead men.”
“That’s what families do.”
I looked through my office window toward Emma in the garden.
“No.”
“That’s what ours did.”
“Maybe yours.”
He laughed.
“You think one housekeeper changed you?”
Interesting.
“You’re watching.”
“Always.”
“What do you want?”
“The duplicate.”
“And?”
“The Carter girl.”
My voice went cold.
“No.”
“She knows where her father’s insurance files are.”
“She knows nothing you need.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind handing her over.”
“I said no.”
“Still sentimental.”
He sounded exactly like his father.
That almost made me pity him.
Almost.
“You had her beaten to provoke me.”
“Yes.”
Emma, standing ten feet away now, heard through the speaker.
Her face remained still.
Adrian continued:
“I thought you’d send bodies into Brooklyn by sunrise.”
“I disappointed you.”
“You’ve disappointed every Castellano who came before you.”
“Good.”
Silence.
Then Adrian laughed.
“Salvatore would hate what you became.”
“My father left protection orders for Emma’s family.”
Another silence.
“He never left anything without a price.”
“Maybe you never understood him.”
Adrian hung up.
Thirty seconds later, Emma’s phone buzzed.
A photograph.
Nathan.
Her nineteen-year-old brother.
Sitting in his wheelchair outside the rehabilitation center in Ohio.
Taken that morning.
Emma went white.
A message followed.
THE NEXT WARNING WON’T BE AN ALLEY.
I called the security team around Nathan.
No breach reported.
Which meant the photograph might have been taken from distance.
Or earlier.
But Emma did not care about technical distinctions.
“I’m going home.”
This time I didn’t stop her.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Dominic—”
“He threatened your brother because of me.”
“He threatened my brother because of my father.”
“Both can be true.”
She stared.
Then nodded.
We flew to Ohio that night.
Nathan was furious at having bodyguards.
He was also funny.
I liked him immediately.
“So you’re the scary employer.”
Emma groaned.
“Nathan.”
“What? Mom calls him that.”
Rose looked mortified.
I almost smiled.
Then Nathan wheeled himself toward me.
“If you hurt my sister, I’ll run over your foot.”
“Fair.”
Emma stared at him.
“Can everyone stop threatening everyone?”
For ten minutes, we almost felt like a normal family.
Then Nathan brought out an old toolbox that belonged to Thomas.
“I found something.”
Emma frowned.
“Where?”
“False bottom.”
Inside was a flash drive.
And a letter addressed to his children.
Plural.
Emma and Nathan.
Thomas had known the danger would outlive him.
The flash drive contained scanned pages from the third ledger.
Not all of it.
Enough.
But one file was different.
A video.
Thomas Caruso appeared on screen.
Older.
Tired.
Alive three days before his death.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Adrian Castellano ever comes looking for my children, it means Salvatore was right about the betrayal.”
I stopped breathing.
Thomas continued:
“But Adrian is not the one you should fear most.”
May you like
And then he said a name none of us expected.
“Marco Moretti.”
