“Because he knew someone would eventually come looking.”
She thought of the old metal box beneath her grandfather's bed.
The one he never allowed her to touch.
Her stomach dropped.
Dante noticed.
Nora looked up.
“I think I know where it is.”
They drove to her apartment.
Not in a convoy.
Just Dante, Nora, and one security driver.
Nora lived above a laundromat in Bridgeport.
The hallway smelled of detergent and old paint.
Her apartment was small.
A sofa.
A kitchen table.
A shelf crowded with books.
Dante looked around without comment.
Nora appreciated that.
She knelt beside her bed and pulled out the metal box.
It was heavier than she remembered.
The lock had rusted.
She opened it with the key her grandfather had kept on a chain.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
A faded passport.
And a leather-bound ledger.
Nora lifted it.
Dante went still.
On the first page was a name.
SALVATORE GALLO.
Beneath it were dozens of dates.
Payments.
Locations.
And a handwritten note in Sicilian.
Nora translated aloud.
“If my brother ever comes looking, tell him the man who betrayed us was not the one he believed.”
Dante stared.
Nora turned the page.
A photograph slipped out.
It showed a younger Salvatore standing beside Pietro.
Between them stood a third man.
Dante picked it up.
His face changed.
“That's impossible.”
“Who is he?”
Dante swallowed.
“My godfather.”
He turned the photograph toward her.
“Vincenzo Carbone.”
The man who had spent twenty years presenting himself as the Gallo family's most loyal ally.
Chapter 4
Vincenzo Carbone was seventy-one.
He owned shipping companies, restaurants, and several warehouses along the Chicago River.
He attended church every Sunday.
Donated generously to hospitals.
And had been Dante's godfather since birth.
According to Salvatore, Vincenzo had helped the Gallo family escape Sicily during a violent conflict.
He had also arranged many of their earliest business deals in America.
Dante trusted him.
Or believed he did.
But Pietro's ledger told another story.
The entries described payments made to rival organizations.
Secret transfers.