He found Nora sitting on the kitchen floor.
The letter lay beside her.
He didn't ask questions immediately.
He sat down.
Waited.
After several minutes, Nora handed him the pages.
He read them carefully.
His expression darkened.
When he finished, he looked at her.
“We need to verify this.”
He hesitated.
“But if it's true—”
She looked up.
“If it's true, Vincenzo killed my mother.”
Dante said nothing.
Nora wiped her face.
“And your father protected him.”
Dante flinched.
She continued.
“Maybe not deliberately. Maybe he didn't know. But he helped build the world that let men like Vincenzo do whatever they wanted.”
Dante lowered his head.
She hadn't expected agreement.
“I can't change what my family did.”
He paused.
“But I can decide what happens next.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Give the evidence to investigators.”
“And if your father objects?”
“Then he'll have to live with being disappointed.”
Nora looked down.
For the first time since reading the letter, she felt something other than grief.
Hope.
Dante reached toward her.
Then stopped.
“May I?”
He took her hand.
And for a long moment, they sat together on the kitchen floor.
Not as a Mafia boss and a waitress.
But as two people whose families had left them wounds they hadn't chosen.
Chapter 8
Salvatore came to Nora's apartment on a Sunday afternoon.
No bodyguards entered.
No expensive gifts.
Just an old man with a cane and a face full of regret.
Nora opened the door.
He looked at her.
“May I come in?”
Then stepped aside.
Salvatore sat at her kitchen table.
He looked around.
“This reminds me of Pietro's first apartment.”
Nora said nothing.
Salvatore folded his hands.
“Dante told me about Elena.”
“Did you know?”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
Salvatore flinched.
“I deserve that.”
Then he reached into his coat.
He removed a photograph.
Two boys stood beside a stone wall in Sicily.
One older.
One younger.
Both smiling.
“Pietro and me,” Salvatore whispered.
Nora took it.
Her grandfather looked barely sixteen.
Happy.
Unburdened.