Chapter 10 - Saint Matthew’s
My mother refused to stay behind.
“No.”
That was my answer.
She sat across from me in the private hospital room, arms folded.
“No?” she repeated.
“No.”
“I am sixty-eight years old.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not an argument.”
“You have memory problems.”
“So do most men your age.”
I stared.
She smiled slightly.
For one second, she was the mother I remembered.
Sharp.
Impossible.
I almost laughed.
Then I remembered Bellaro’s message.
“He wants you there.”
“I know.”
“That’s why you’re not going.”
She looked toward the window.
“Luca, I spent half my life letting dangerous men decide where I could go.”
“This is different.”
“No.”
Her eyes returned to mine.
“It only feels different because this time the dangerous man is asking through you.”
That shut me up.
She stood slowly.
“I’m going.”
I wanted to argue.
Instead, I called Miguel.
We built a plan.
Bellaro said alone.
He had not specified how far alone extended.
Saint Matthew’s had been abandoned for fifteen years.
Old brick church.
Industrial neighborhood.
Condemned after roof damage.
My mother said the laundry workers used to attend services there.
The priest, Father Gabriel, had helped workers hide cash, documents, even medicine from abusive employers.
“Why the ledger there?”
“Because nobody searched churches,” she said.
At 11:55 a.m., we entered.
No security visible.
Miguel’s people watched from surrounding buildings.
My mother carried the crucifix.
The tiny key remained inside.
The church smelled of dust and rain.
Broken stained glass scattered colored light across the floor.
At the altar stood Vincent Bellaro.
My father.
In person, the resemblance was worse.
Same height.
Same eyes.
Same habit of placing one hand in a pocket when impatient.
He looked at my mother first.
“Rosa.”
She stopped.
Twenty-seven years passed silently between them.
Then she said:
“You got old.”
Bellaro laughed.
“So did you.”
“Not dead enough for your liking.”
His smile disappeared.
“I never ordered your death.”
“No. You only built the machine that made men like Harland think killing me was good business.”
He accepted that.
Then looked at me.
“Luca.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Say my name like you earned it.”
His mouth tightened.
“I followed your career.”
“That doesn’t make you a father.”
“I protected you.”
I laughed.
“Harland used the same line.”
Bellaro flinched slightly.
Interesting.
“You trusted him,” I said.
“For too long.”
“He put people in cages.”
“I know.”
“He held a child on my property.”
“I know.”
My voice hardened.
“You knew?”
“He exceeded his instructions.”
“Instructions?”
My mother touched my arm.
She knew what my temper was doing.
Bellaro continued.
“Harland was supposed to watch your operation.”
“My operation?”
“Your companies.”
“For what?”
“To keep Crane out.”
I stared.
“You infiltrated my businesses to protect them?”
“At first.”
“And the laundering?”
He said nothing.
“Exactly.”
Bellaro walked toward a side chapel.
“There’s something you need to understand.”
“No. There’s something you need to understand. I’m not taking your organization.”
He stopped.
“I didn’t bring you here to offer it.”
That surprised me.
“Then why?”
“To destroy it.”
Silence filled the church.
My mother stared at him.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I’m dying.”
“That doesn’t make you honest.”
“No.”
He looked tired.
“It makes time expensive.”
He sat on a broken pew.
For the first time, he looked ill.
Not powerful.
Not legendary.
Just old.
“Crane has spent ten years moving the organization away from me,” he said. “Harland helped him.”
“Why?”
“They knew I was sick before I did.”
“How?”
“Medical records.”
I almost laughed at the irony.
The men who collected everyone’s vulnerabilities had collected his too.
“They planned to inherit without waiting.”
“So you used me.”
Bellaro looked at me.
“I used your businesses.”
“Same thing.”
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t lie.
“Why destroy it now?”
“Because Crane changed the rules.”
“What rules could criminals possibly have?”
He looked at my mother.
“Children.”
My jaw tightened.
“He started using families.”
Javier.
Nora.
Employees’ children.
Leverage.
Bellaro continued.
“I built something ugly. But there were lines.”
“Congratulations.”
He accepted the contempt.
“I deserve that.”
My mother looked shocked.
Maybe Bellaro had never admitted fault in his life.
“Crane has accounts, politicians, contractors, judges, unions,” he said. “Arresting him doesn’t destroy the system.”
“Then what does?”
“The ledger.”
My mother’s hand moved toward the crucifix.
Bellaro noticed.
“The original ledger connects the beginning to everything that followed.”
“Why?”
“Account codes never changed.”
I understood.
Modern transactions could be tied to original shell structures.
A chain.
Twenty-seven years long.
“Why didn’t you turn it over yourself?”
“I didn’t have it.”
My mother laughed.
“You spent twenty-seven years looking.”
“Yes.”
“And never found it.”
“No.”
She smiled.
That pleased her more than it should have.
Bellaro stood.
“The key opens a deposit box beneath the old confessional.”
We moved to the side chapel.
Behind the confessional was a loose stone.
My mother found it immediately.
Inside was a steel box.
The tiny key fit.
She turned it.
Click.
Inside lay a thick ledger wrapped in waxed cloth.
My mother touched it like something alive.
“This ruined everything.”
Bellaro shook his head.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“We did.”
That silence was different.
Not forgiveness.
Truth.
I picked up the ledger.
“Then it goes to federal investigators.”
“Yes,” Bellaro said.
Too easy.
I narrowed my eyes.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He looked at me.
“If you surrender it, your companies will be investigated.”
“I know.”
“You may lose contracts.”
“I know.”
“Banks may freeze accounts.”
“I know.”
“You could lose hundreds of millions.”
“I know.”
“And people will believe you were involved.”
That one landed.
Reputation.
The empire I built.
Everything I used to prove I was no longer the boy on Jackson Avenue.
My mother looked at me.
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“Yes, I do.”
Bellaro studied me.
“What will you do?”
I thought of Nora.
Three years old.
Hands red from freezing water.
Did I do good?
I thought of Javier counting train sounds.
Maria hiding from her sister.
My mother living under another name.
I closed the ledger.
“I turn it over.”
Bellaro nodded slowly.
Pride appeared in his eyes.
I hated it.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I became the man you wanted.”
His expression fell.
“I became the man she raised.”
I pointed to my mother.
Her eyes filled.
Then a sharp crack echoed from the rear of the church.
Glass shattered.
Bellaro jerked.
My mother screamed.
He fell.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“Down!”
I pulled my mother behind the stone wall.
Another shot struck the altar.
Miguel’s team moved outside.
Police radios erupted.
Bellaro lay ten feet away.
Still conscious.
Barely.
I crawled toward him.
My mother grabbed me.
“Luca!”
“He’s bleeding.”
“He’ll get you killed.”
“He saved nothing about my life.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
I looked at the old man on the floor.
“Because I’m not Crane.”
I moved.
Reached Bellaro.
Dragged him behind the wall.
He looked up at me, shocked.
“Why?”
“Don’t make me answer that.”
He laughed weakly.
Then coughed blood.
Sirens approached.
The shooter disappeared.
Miguel entered minutes later.
“We lost him.”
“Who?”
He held up a recovered rifle case.
Inside was an engraving.
W.C.
Walter Crane.
I stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Crane was in custody.
Miguel’s expression was grim.
“He was released this morning.”
“What?”
“Judge granted emergency bail.”
Bellaro closed his eyes.
“He owns judges.”
The ledger suddenly felt heavier in my hands.
Crane wasn’t running anymore.
May you like
He was cleaning the board.
And everyone I loved had just become a target.
