Chapter 3 - The Name Everyone Feared
By midnight, St. Catherine Medical Center no longer looked like an ordinary hospital floor.
Two Moretti security men stood near each elevator.
Another guarded the service staircase.
A fourth sat in the waiting area pretending to read a magazine while watching every reflection in the dark windows.
The hospital administrator had objected.
Then Marco quietly explained that credible threats had been made against a patient and a six-year-old child.
The objections stopped.
Inside Room 814, Emma slept curled on the pullout sofa beneath a pale blue blanket.
Sophia did not sleep.
Neither did Alessandro.
He had returned upstairs after receiving the photographs.
Sophia watched him from the bed.
“You should go.”
“No.”
“You have people who can protect us.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
Alessandro stood beside the window with the curtain closed.
“Because someone photographed this room.”
“And?”
“And I dislike mysteries.”
Sophia almost smiled.
“You look like you dislike everything.”
Marco, standing near the door, glanced down.
Alessandro turned.
“That’s inaccurate.”
“What do you like?”
“Quiet.”
“That I believe.”
For the first time, the tension in the room eased.
Only slightly.
Sophia looked toward Emma.
“She shouldn’t be involved in this.”
“She became involved when someone threatened her.”
“She became involved because I copied that payroll page.”
“You copied evidence of theft.”
“I was trying to protect myself.”
“You did.”
“No.”
Sophia shook her head.
“I made things worse.”
Alessandro walked closer.
“Do not teach your daughter that telling the truth makes her responsible for what dishonest people do afterward.”
Sophia stared at him.
The sentence had come too quickly.
As if he had once needed someone to say it to him.
“Who taught you that?”
“No one.”
“Then how do you know?”
Alessandro did not answer.
Marco’s phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found the photographer.”
Sophia stiffened.
“Alive?”
Marco looked at her.
“Yes.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Alessandro said.
Marco continued.
“His name is Evan Pike. Freelance surveillance contractor. Mostly divorce cases and corporate work.”
“Who hired him?”
“He says through an intermediary.”
“Name?”
“Leonard Shaw.”
Alessandro frowned.
“Should I know that?”
“No. Because Leonard Shaw died eighteen months ago.”
Sophia swallowed.
Marco scrolled.
“Pike was paid through a shell company called Sable Urban Consulting.”
Alessandro looked at him.
“Trace it.”
“Already started.”
“And Bellandi?”
“At the mansion.”
“He went in at 10:42.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“His office first. Then the silver room.”
Alessandro’s eyes sharpened.
“How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
“Camera?”
“Hallway only. Nothing inside the silver room.”
“Of course.”
Sophia whispered, “He knows.”
Alessandro looked at her.
“He suspects.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No.”
“To people like me, it is.”
The phrase stopped him.
People like me.
People without armored cars.
People without guards.
People whose mistakes cost jobs instead of contracts.
People whose illnesses required six-year-olds to consider cleaning windows.
Alessandro nodded slowly.
“Then we change that.”
“How?”
“You tell me.”
Sophia looked confused.
“What would make you feel safe?”
She almost laughed.
“You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t felt safe in years.”
Her answer settled heavily between them.
Alessandro pulled a chair closer.
“Start small.”
Sophia looked at Emma.
“A lock on our apartment door that actually works.”
Alessandro blinked.
That small.
“The landlord won’t fix it?”
“He says it works.”
“Does it?”
“You have to lift the door and turn the knob at the same time.”
Marco typed something into his phone.
Sophia noticed.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting someone to fix your door.”
“I was making a point.”
“So is he,” Alessandro said.
Sophia stared at both men.
Then something unexpected happened.
She laughed.
It immediately became a cough, but it was still laughter.
Emma stirred.
Everyone froze.
The girl rolled over and went back to sleep.
Sophia lowered her voice.
“You people are strange.”
Marco almost smiled.
“We’ve been called worse.”
At 1:17 a.m., Alessandro received the first financial report.
Marco handed him the tablet.
“Bellandi’s official salary is two hundred twenty thousand.”
“He has investment income.”
“Apparently very successful investment income.”
“How successful?”
“Three properties in New Jersey, one condo in Miami, a lake house in upstate New York.”
“Total?”
“Approximately four point eight million.”
Sophia’s eyebrows rose.
Alessandro did not react.
“Accounts?”
“We found domestic holdings of another three million.”
“On a two-hundred-thousand-dollar salary.”
“Yes.”
“Anything connected to Santoro?”
“Not yet.”
Alessandro handed the tablet back.
“Keep digging.”
Sophia looked at him.
“You really didn’t know?”
“No.”
“You trust people too much.”
Marco made a sound suspiciously close to a cough.
Alessandro stared at him.
“Something amusing?”
“No, boss.”
Sophia smiled weakly.
“I didn’t think mafia bosses had that problem.”
Alessandro’s eyes returned to her.
“Television has misled you.”
That made her smile wider.
Then her expression changed.
“What happens if Bellandi stole from you?”
“He returns what he stole.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
She looked away.
“You don’t want to know the rest.”
“Probably not.”
A few minutes passed.
Then Sophia said, “Vittorio Santoro.”
Alessandro looked up.
“You said he was supposed to be dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Your face.”
Marco spoke.
“Nine years ago, Vittorio’s older brother Carlo organized an attempt on Alessandro’s life.”
Sophia looked at Alessandro.
“What happened?”
“I survived.”
“And Carlo?”
“He didn’t.”
Sophia understood enough not to ask how.
“What about Vittorio?”
“Disappeared.”
Marco continued.
“We believed he fled the country.”
“But he didn’t?”
“We don’t know.”
Sophia looked frightened again.
“What would he want with your household payroll?”
“That’s the interesting question.”
Marco’s phone vibrated again.
He read the message.
Then his face changed.
“Boss.”
Alessandro stood.
“What?”
“Sable Urban Consulting owns another company.”
“And?”
“Blackstone Domestic Services.”
Sophia sat straighter.
“I know that name.”
Both men looked at her.
“What is it?” Alessandro asked.
“They supply temporary staff.”
“To the mansion?”
“Sometimes.”
Her voice became urgent.
“Kitchen assistants. Laundry workers. Two gardeners last summer.”
Marco was already scrolling.
“Blackstone has invoices from Moretti Holdings.”
“How much?”
“Last twelve months?”
“Yes.”
“Three point one million.”
Alessandro’s face became still.
Sophia whispered, “For temporary staff?”
Marco looked at her.
“Apparently.”
“We don’t have that many.”
“How much should it cost?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
Sophia hesitated.
“Maybe two hundred thousand? Three?”
Marco looked at Alessandro.
“Three point one million.”
More than ten times the likely amount.
Alessandro walked toward the window.
Bellandi was not stealing seventy dollars here and eighty dollars there because he needed the money.
Those deductions were camouflage.
Tiny thefts that normalized missing payroll.
If employees expected discrepancies, larger accounting manipulations could disappear inside the same system.
Sophia’s copied page had not exposed a petty thief.
It had exposed an operation.
“What was Bellandi doing in the silver room tonight?” Alessandro asked.
Marco answered.
“Probably destroying whatever Sophia saw.”
“Then why did he leave after seven minutes?”
“Maybe because what he wanted wasn’t there.”
Sophia’s face changed.
Alessandro noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Sophia.”
She looked toward the sleeping child.
Then at Marco.
“I took something else.”
Neither man spoke.
“From the folder?”
She nodded.
“What?”
“A memory card.”
Marco stepped closer.
“What kind?”
“Small. Black. From a camera, maybe.”
“Where is it?”
Sophia hesitated.
“At my apartment.”
Alessandro’s voice became very quiet.
“Where?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“In Emma’s room.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
Of course.
Sophia mistook his frustration.
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did the best you could.”
“I thought if Bellandi searched my things, he wouldn’t go through a child’s room.”
Marco and Alessandro exchanged a look.
Men like Bellandi absolutely would.
“When did you take it?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Does Bellandi know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why take it at all?”
Sophia’s eyes filled with shame.
“Because there was a photograph in the folder.”
“Of what?”
“Not what.”
She looked at Alessandro.
“Who.”
He waited.
“You.”
That was unexpected.
“What kind of photograph?”
“You were leaving a restaurant.”
“And?”
“There was a red circle drawn around your head.”
Marco moved instantly.
“Date?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
“September.”
“This year?”
“Yes.”
Alessandro’s expression changed.
Someone had been conducting surveillance on him from inside his own estate.
Sophia whispered, “There were pictures of Marco too.”
Marco became still.
“And another man.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe him.”
“Older. White hair. Glasses.”
Alessandro and Marco looked at each other.
“Judge Fallon,” Marco said.
Sophia frowned.
“Who?”
“A federal judge.”
Sophia looked horrified.
“Why would someone have pictures of a judge?”
Alessandro’s answer was simple.
“Leverage.”
Marco was already on the phone.
“Send two teams to Delgado’s apartment. Quietly.”
Sophia sat forward.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“My neighbor.”
“What neighbor?”
“Mrs. Turner.”
“The woman who was watching Emma?”
“She has a spare key.”
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“Could Bellandi know that?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco spoke into the phone.
“Move now.”
Sophia removed her oxygen tubing.
Alessandro stopped her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going with them.”
“No.”
“It’s my apartment.”
“You have pneumonia.”
“My daughter’s things are there.”
“We’ll retrieve them.”
“The memory card is hidden inside something.”
“Tell Marco.”
“No.”
“Sophia.”
“If that card is important enough for someone to threaten Emma, I’m not telling anyone where it is until I see who walks into that apartment.”
Marco looked offended.
“You think we work for Bellandi?”
“I think Bellandi worked for Mr. Moretti for twenty-seven years without either of you knowing what he was doing.”
Silence.
Marco slowly lowered his phone.
Alessandro looked at Sophia for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
Marco glanced at him.
“Boss?”
“She’s right.”
Sophia was surprised.
Again.
Alessandro took out his phone.
“Video call.”
Marco understood.
“We send a body camera.”
“And Sophia directs them from here.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, a Moretti security officer stood outside Sophia’s apartment in East Harlem wearing a live camera.
The video appeared on Marco’s tablet.
Sophia watched from the hospital bed.
“Third floor.”
The officer climbed.
“Apartment 3C.”
He stopped.
The door was slightly open.
Sophia’s breath caught.
“I locked it.”
Alessandro looked at Marco.
The officer drew his weapon.
“Mrs. Turner?” Sophia called through the live audio.
No response.
The door opened.
The apartment was dark.
A lamp lay broken in the living room.
Drawers had been pulled out.
Sophia covered her mouth.
“Oh God.”
“Mom?”
Emma was awake.
Sophia immediately turned the tablet away.
“Nothing, baby.”
Emma climbed from the sofa.
“Is that our house?”
“No.”
Emma saw enough.
“Our lamp.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
Alessandro crouched beside Emma.
“Someone went inside.”
“Mr. Bellandi?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Emma’s lower lip trembled.
“My rabbit.”
“What?”
“Buttons.”
Sophia looked at her.
“The stuffed rabbit.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears.
“He’s on my bed.”
Alessandro looked at the tablet.
The officer moved into Emma’s bedroom.
The mattress had been overturned.
Drawers emptied.
Books scattered.
A pink lamp shattered.
And in the center of the floor lay a small stuffed rabbit with one ear torn open.
Emma made a tiny sound.
Sophia grabbed her.
Then the officer said something through the camera.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Alessandro leaned closer.
“What?”
“I found something.”
Beside the rabbit was an envelope.
The officer picked it up.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed Emma walking toward school.
Taken days earlier.
On the back, someone had written three words.
WHERE IS IT?
Sophia began crying.
Emma buried her face against her mother.
Marco swore under his breath.
Alessandro’s face became completely emotionless.
The kind of emotionlessness that had terrified men far more dangerous than Renato Bellandi.
Then the officer moved the camera toward the bedroom wall.
Someone had written another message directly above Emma’s bed.
Black marker.
Large letters.
NEXT TIME ASK NICELY.
Marco whispered, “Boss.”
Alessandro rose.
“Get Bellandi.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Alive?”
Alessandro looked at Emma crying over a torn stuffed rabbit.
His answer came without hesitation.
“Very.”
Because Alessandro Moretti no longer wanted Renato Bellandi punished.
He wanted him conscious.
May you like
He wanted him talking.
And most of all, he wanted the man who had spent twenty-seven years hiding behind the Moretti name to understand exactly whose attention he had finally earned.
