Chapter 3 - THE DEBT MY FATHER LEFT ME
I had spent my entire adult life paying for my father’s decisions.
But I had never heard Thomas Caruso’s name connected to one of them.
“Which Castellano?” I asked.
Rose looked disgusted.
“Your father.”
Lucia had entered behind me.
She stopped.
Emma stared between us.
“My father was killed by his father?”
Rose nodded.
I didn’t.
“Prove it.”
Rose’s eyes flashed.
“You sound exactly like him.”
“Then prove me different.”
That stopped her.
Emma whispered:
“Mom, tell me everything.”
Rose sat.
Twenty-seven years earlier, Thomas Caruso had worked for Viktor Kolov’s father, Alexei.
He tracked shipping payments.
Shell businesses.
Cash movement.
Nothing romantic.
Nothing honorable.
Until he discovered the Kolovs were using legitimate cargo contracts to hide something much uglier.
Thomas wanted out.
Alexei refused.
So Thomas copied the books.
Then he went to the one man powerful enough to negotiate his exit.
My father.
Salvatore Castellano.
According to Rose, Salvatore promised protection.
A new identity.
Money.
A life far away from New York.
In exchange, Thomas surrendered one copy of the ledger.
“And then?” Emma asked.
Rose’s voice broke.
“Your father changed his name. We moved to Pennsylvania first. Then Ohio.”
“So Grandpa Castellano kept his promise.”
“For eleven years.”
I frowned.
“What changed?”
Rose looked at me.
“Your father died.”
My father had been shot outside a restaurant thirteen years earlier.
I inherited everything at twenty-nine.
Businesses.
Enemies.
Promises I didn’t know existed.
Rose continued:
“Six months after Salvatore died, someone found us.”
“Kolov?”
“I thought so.”
“Then why blame my father?”
“Because Thomas received a message the week before he died.”
She opened her purse.
Inside was an old folded piece of paper protected in plastic.
Emma stared.
“You carry that?”
“Every day.”
Rose handed it to her.
The note was short.
TOMMASO —
SALVATORE IS GONE.
THE AGREEMENT IS OVER.
RETURN WHAT BELONGS TO US.
C.
Emma looked at me.
“C.”
“Yes.”
“Castellano?”
“Maybe.”
Rose laughed bitterly.
“That is what Thomas thought.”
I studied the paper.
Something felt wrong.
My father never signed threatening notes with initials.
Neither did I.
Too theatrical.
Too useful later.
“Where did this come from?”
“Under our apartment door.”
“Did Thomas still have something?”
Rose’s silence answered.
“The ledger?”
“One copy.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Carter.”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at Emma.
“Thomas never told me.”
Emma looked sick.
“So Dad died because of some book?”
“No,” Rose whispered. “He died because he thought hiding it would keep us safe.”
I studied the note again.
Then one line bothered me.
Return what belongs to us.
Us.
If a Castellano wanted the ledger, the message would have said me.
My father had already possessed a copy.
Why demand another?
I asked Rose:
“How did Thomas die?”
“Construction platform collapse.”
“Sabotage?”
“The bolts had been cut.”
Lucia covered her mouth.
Rose’s eyes burned into mine.
“The detective called it an accident anyway.”
“What detective?”
She said the name.
“Paul Danner.”
Marco, who had been standing quietly near the door, looked at me.
I knew that name too.
Paul Danner had never worked for my father.
But for ten years he had been on Viktor Kolov’s payroll.
I turned the note over.
There, barely visible beneath the plastic, was a printer code.
Marco leaned closer.
His face changed.
“What?”
“That paper came from an office printer.”
“Whose?”
He looked at me.
“We have samples.”
“From where?”
“The old Kolov shipping headquarters.”
Rose went pale.
Emma slowly looked at her mother.
My father had not sent the threat.
May you like
Kolov had forged it.
And someone had murdered Thomas Caruso while making sure his family blamed mine.
