Chapter 15 - Eleven Dead Men and One Hidden Name
Alejandro spent sixteen hours answering questions.
Federal investigators.
State detectives.
Organized crime units.
Financial prosecutors.
Every room looked the same.
Gray table.
Cheap chairs.
Recorder.
People trying not to appear impressed or afraid.
Alejandro answered more than anyone expected.
Some crimes he admitted.
Some he refused to discuss without counsel.
Others belonged to men long dead.
The prosecutors quickly understood something.
Alejandro had not come seeking immunity.
He came offering demolition.
At hour fourteen, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Hale closed a file.
“You understand what you're giving us could dismantle half your family's organization.”
“That is the idea.”
“You could face charges.”
“Yes.”
“You have excellent attorneys.”
“Yes.”
“They're furious.”
“I know.”
“Why now?”
Alejandro looked at the clock.
Emma would be eating dinner.
Maybe refusing vegetables.
Maybe asking Isabella when he would return.
“My daughter.”
Rebecca studied him.
“That's convenient.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Convenient would have been discovering morality before forty.”
She leaned back.
“At least you're self-aware.”
“Occasionally.”
Rebecca opened another file.
“The eleven men killed in the convoy.”
Alejandro's expression changed.
“We believe Rizzo ordered it.”
“So do I.”
“We also believe someone else funded it.”
“Dominic?”
“No.”
Alejandro looked up.
Rebecca slid a document across the table.
International transfer.
Offshore account.
Old Moretti code.
Alejandro recognized the account designation.
E.M.
Elena Moretti.
His mother.
“Impossible.”
“Account opened thirty-two years ago.”
“My mother never handled business.”
“That is what everyone believed.”
Alejandro stared.
“Where did the money go?”
“Most funds were emptied ten years ago.”
“When she died.”
“Yes.”
“But a secondary trust remained active.”
“Who controlled it?”
“We don't know.”
Rebecca pointed to a transfer.
“Three hundred thousand dollars moved from it two weeks before the convoy attack.”
Alejandro felt cold.
“My mother's money funded the attack?”
“Someone using her trust.”
He looked at the initials again.
Elena Moretti had been the gentlest person he knew.
She hated Vittorio's violence.
She had once taken Alejandro aside after his first serious fight and said something he remembered perfectly:
Your father thinks fear makes men stay. Fear only makes them wait for a chance to leave.
Alejandro had forgotten that lesson for years.
“Who knew about the trust?”
“We hoped you could tell us.”
“No.”
Rebecca studied him.
“Rizzo?”
“Maybe.”
“Dominic?”
“Maybe.”
“Gabriel?”
Alejandro looked up.
Possible.
Father Gabriel had been close to Elena.
Too close?
He thought of Emma's eyes.
His mother's distinctive eyes.
Then something else.
“Get Gabriel's birth records.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Why?”
“Do it.”
“Alejandro—”
“My mother's maiden name was Rossi.”
Silence.
Rebecca sat forward.
“Same as Father Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“Because Gabriel always said there was no relation.”
“Maybe there isn't.”
“Maybe.”
Alejandro's memory shifted.
Childhood Christmas.
Gabriel visiting.
His mother greeting him more warmly than other priests.
Vittorio disliking him.
Gabriel disappearing for months after Elena died.
Could Father Gabriel be family?
If he was, Daniel Rossi might be too.
And the trust—
The door opened.
Marco entered with legal permission.
“You're coming home.”
Alejandro blinked.
“What?”
“Temporarily.”
Rebecca sighed.
“We're not charging you today.”
“Why?”
“Because you're more useful outside.”
Marco smiled.
“Also your attorneys threatened to purchase the courthouse.”
Alejandro stood.
Rebecca pointed.
“This is not freedom.”
“I know.”
“You leave the state, we arrest you.”
“I understand.”
“You contact Dominic, we monitor it.”
“Fine.”
“You hide assets—”
“I already gave you most of them.”
Rebecca sighed.
“You're deeply irritating.”
“So I've been told.”
When Alejandro returned home after midnight, Emma was asleep on the stairs.
Again.
Isabella sat beside her.
“You were supposed to put her to bed.”
“I tried.”
Alejandro crouched.
Emma woke immediately.
“You came back.”
“Yes.”
She wrapped herself around him.
Alejandro picked her up.
“You should be sleeping.”
“You should stop leaving.”
He carried her upstairs.
“I'm working on that.”
When Emma was asleep, Alejandro told Isabella about the trust.
She frowned.
“Elena Rossi?”
“Before marriage.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Claims no relation.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“As a child.”
“What did he say?”
“That Rossi is common.”
Isabella considered.
“Maybe he lied about more than hiding us.”
At two in the morning, Marco arrived with records.
Father Gabriel Rossi.
Born Gabriel Moretti.
Name legally changed at twenty-one.
Alejandro stared.
“Moretti?”
Marco nodded.
“Your grandfather had another son.”
Alejandro looked up.
“What?”
“Gabriel was Vittorio's half-brother.”
Everything rearranged again.
Father Gabriel was Alejandro's uncle.
Daniel Rossi—
“His son?” Alejandro asked.
Marco shook his head.
“Not biologically.”
“What?”
“Daniel was adopted.”
“When?”
“Age seven.”
“Parents?”
“Unknown.”
Alejandro looked at the Elena trust records.
Gabriel had family access.
Maybe Elena created the trust to help him.
Or something else.
Then Marco placed another document down.
“We found Rizzo's ledger copy.”
“How?”
“One of his men flipped.”
Alejandro opened it.
Names.
Payments.
Dates.
Threats.
Then the convoy attack.
Funding source: E.M. Trust.
Authorization contact: D.R.
Daniel Rossi.
Alejandro closed his eyes.
Daniel had funded the attack.
Not just helped with surveillance.
He had paid for men to kill Alejandro.
Eleven others died instead.
Isabella stood behind him.
She read the line.
Her face went white.
“No.”
Alejandro said nothing.
“He told me he didn't—”
“He lied.”
“But he saved Emma when—”
“He kidnapped Emma.”
“He released her.”
“After taking her.”
Isabella sat.
Daniel had been kind for years.
Then obsession twisted kindness into entitlement.
Now evidence connected him directly to eleven deaths.
Marco said, “There's more.”
Alejandro looked up.
“Rizzo kept notes.”
Marco pointed.
Daniel supplied the money.
Dominic supplied route access.
Rizzo supplied shooters.
Three motives.
One attack.
Alejandro whispered, “They cooperated.”
“Yes.”
“Then turned on each other.”
“Yes.”
Alejandro looked at the eleven names.
Tomas.
Luca.
Pietro.
Men whose families were grieving because three selfish men each wanted something from Alejandro's absence.
Power.
Love.
Tradition.
Eleven lives had been treated as secondary.
Alejandro felt rage rising.
Then Emma's voice came from behind him.
“Dad?”
He turned.
She stood in pajamas.
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“Boring?”
“Very.”
She walked over.
“Can I sleep here?”
Alejandro looked at Isabella.
Emma explained.
“I had a bad dream.”
Alejandro closed the ledger.
“Come.”
She climbed onto the study sofa.
Alejandro placed a blanket over her.
Emma caught his hand.
“Stay.”
He looked at the evidence.
At Daniel's name.
At the men he wanted to punish.
Then at his daughter.
“Okay.”
Alejandro sat beside her.
Within minutes she slept.
Marco whispered, “What about Daniel?”
Alejandro looked toward the window.
Old Alejandro would have sent men immediately.
New Alejandro understood what Emma needed more.
“Morning.”
Marco stared.
“You're waiting?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Alejandro looked at his sleeping daughter.
“Because revenge doesn't get to take tonight too.”
Marco nodded.
At sunrise, Daniel disappeared from the hospital.
A nurse had been bribed.
Security footage showed him entering a waiting vehicle.
The driver was Salvatore Rizzo.
But the most frightening discovery came one hour later.
Rizzo sent Alejandro a photograph.
Daniel bound to a chair.
Behind him stood Dominic.
Underneath, four words:
TRAITORS ANSWER TO FAMILY.
Three enemies had become two.
Then one.
May you like
Rizzo had apparently decided he alone represented the old Moretti order.
And according to the ledger, the next name Rizzo intended to punish was not Alejandro's—it was Isabella's.
