Chapter 4 - THE SECRET INSIDE SAINT MICHAEL'S
My first reaction was anger.
Not at Sophia.
At myself.
I had brought her to the one place she'd warned me had terrified her as a child.
Then I'd left her in a vehicle because I believed armor and armed men were enough to keep someone safe.
I'd treated the problem like a war.
Sophia had treated it like history.
History had won.
"We track the Mercedes," I said.
Marco was already moving.
"Plate came back stolen."
"Traffic cameras."
"Working on it."
Isabella grabbed my coat.
"You need to listen."
"I am."
"No. You're doing what everyone does."
That stopped me.
"What does everyone do?"
"Deciding before Sophia gets to explain."
The words hit harder than they should have.
"Then explain."
Isabella looked at the chapel.
"When Sophia was thirteen, my father brought her here for three weeks."
"Why?"
"Because she ran away."
"At thirteen?"
"She made it six blocks."
My jaw tightened.
"What did they do to her?"
"I don't know everything."
"What do you know?"
Isabella swallowed.
"When she came back, she didn't argue anymore."
No thirteen-year-old should return from anywhere with obedience as the visible injury.
"Who ran Saint Michael's?"
"Not priests. It was already closed."
"Then who?"
"Aunt Teresa. Enzo. Some woman named Mrs. Vale."
Marco looked over.
"Vale?"
Isabella nodded.
"She used to teach at Sophia's school."
"What did they teach?"
"Rules."
The word came out bitterly.
"How to sit. How to dress. What to say. How to behave when my father had guests. How to apologize."
Isabella's voice dropped.
"How not to embarrass the family."
I looked down the hallway.
Every room suddenly felt contaminated.
"What does any of that have to do with Sophia leaving?"
"There's something hidden here."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"How do you know?"
"Because Sophia came back three years later."
"When she was sixteen?"
"Yes. She made me promise not to tell anyone."
"Why did she return?"
"She said she needed proof."
Proof.
Of course.
"What kind?"
"She never told me. But after that, she started hiding money."
I stared at Isabella.
"Sophia?"
"Twenty dollars here. Fifty there. Birthday cash. Anything."
"For what?"
"She said one day we'd leave."
That altered the picture again.
Sophia wasn't weak.
She'd been planning.
Quietly.
Patiently.
Terrified people could still be brave.
Sometimes bravery looked like hiding twenty-dollar bills for seven years.
A man called from the chapel.
"Boss!"
We crossed the courtyard.
Inside the chapel, dust covered the pews.
The stained-glass windows had been removed years ago.
One of my men stood beside the altar.
"Found something."
A panel beneath the altar had been loosened.
Inside was a cavity.
Empty except for an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
MATTEO DELUCA
The handwriting belonged to Sophia.
I tore it open.
Inside was a single page.
Matteo,
If you're reading this, I went willingly.
I'm sorry.
Please don't follow me until you understand why.
There is a brass key beneath the third pew on the left.
Use it downstairs.
Room 14.
Don't trust anyone who says my mother died in childbirth.
—Sophia
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Marco read over my shoulder.
"Her mother?"
"Lucia Bellucci died when Sophia was six."
Isabella whispered, "They told us it was an infection."
I looked at her.
"Not childbirth?"
"No."
"Did Lucia have another baby?"
Isabella shook her head.
"Not that I know."
We found the brass key taped beneath the third pew.
The basement door was hidden behind a storage cabinet.
Room 14 sat at the end of a narrow corridor.
The key turned.
Inside was an office frozen in time.
Metal desk.
Old filing cabinets.
A tape recorder.
Stacks of ledgers.
And dozens of Polaroids.
Sophia.
At thirteen.
Sitting rigidly in a chair.
Sophia with her hands flat on a table.
Sophia standing against a wall.
No graphic injuries.
Nothing that could put a man in prison by itself.
But every image showed fear.
Dates were written beneath them.
DAY 3 — NONCOMPLIANT
DAY 7 — IMPROVEMENT
DAY 15 — SILENCE ACHIEVED
Elena would have burned the building if she'd been there.
I nearly did.
Marco opened a drawer.
"Matteo."
He removed a ledger.
Names.
Payments.
Judges.
Police officers.
Union officials.
Companies.
Then another name caught my eye.
LUCA DELUCA.
My father.
I took the ledger.
Beside his name:
$2,000,000 — LUCIА MATTER — 2009
My father's name connected to Sophia's mother's death.
Suddenly her message made sense.
Don't trust anyone who says my mother died in childbirth.
I had been sixteen in 2009.
My father had been alive and at war with nobody.
Back then, the DeLucas and Belluccis still attended weddings together.
"What was the Lucia matter?" Marco asked.
"I don't know."
We searched.
In the bottom cabinet, Isabella found a cassette marked with one date.
October 11, 2009.
The day Lucia Bellucci died.
There was an old recorder on the desk.
I inserted the tape.
Static.
Then a woman's voice.
Terrified.
"Vittorio, please."
A man answered.
Vittorio.
Younger, but unmistakable.
"You signed it."
"I didn't understand what you were doing."
"You understood enough."
"Those companies belong to Sophia."
I looked at Isabella.
She looked at me.
Lucia continued.
"My father left them to her."
Vittorio said, "Your father left them to the family."
"No. To Sophia. In trust."
Something slammed.
Lucia gasped.
Then another male voice spoke.
My heart stopped.
My father.
Antonio DeLuca.
"Vittorio, this has gone too far."
Vittorio laughed.
"Now you develop a conscience?"
"I agreed to the transfer. Not this."
"You took the money."
"I'll give it back."
"You can't."
"Watch me."
There was movement.
A chair scraping.
Then Lucia said something that changed everything.
"If anything happens to me, the trust activates when Sophia turns twenty-one."
Silence.
Then Vittorio's voice.
"Where are the originals?"
"You'll never find them."
The recording ended.
I stared at the machine.
Sophia wasn't being forced into marriage simply to end a war.
She was three months away from turning twenty-one.
And apparently about to inherit something her father had been trying to steal since she was six.
Marco opened another ledger.
"Found company names."
"How much?"
He scanned numbers.
His eyebrows rose.
"This isn't a few restaurants."
"How much?"
"If the trust still controls what these documents suggest..."
He looked at me.
"North of four hundred million."
Isabella made a sound.
I barely heard it.
I was staring at my father's name.
Two million dollars.
He'd been involved.
Maybe Sophia knew.
Maybe that was why she'd gone willingly.
Not because the Belluccis had taken her.
Because she had discovered something that could destroy both our families.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Sophia's voice came through.
"Matteo."
"Where are you?"
"I'm safe."
"Location."
"I can't."
"Don't tell me you can't."
"Please."
I closed my eyes.
"I found the tape."
Silence.
"So now you know."
"I know your father stole from you. I know mine helped."
"No."
Her voice cracked.
"You don't know the worst part."
"What is the worst part?"
"My father didn't kill my mother."
I stared at the tape recorder.
"What?"
"He ordered it."
Cold moved through me.
"Who did it?"
Sophia began crying.
"I saw the original payment record last night."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"Who?"
She whispered the name.
And for a second I thought I'd misunderstood.
May you like
"Say it again."
"The person who killed my mother," Sophia said, "was your father."
