Chapter 3 - The Woman Behind the Back Door
Enzo took Laney to the empty lot the next afternoon.
No bodyguards stood beside them, although Laney noticed a black sedan parked half a block away.
“Three broken bricks,” she said.
Enzo looked through the iron fence.
“Where?”
“There.”
Nothing remained of the restaurant.
Laney pointed.
“The back door was there.”
Enzo stared at the empty ground.
“My mother told me this place failed.”
“She fed dozens of kids here.”
“I was told she lost everything.”
Laney looked at him.
“Maybe she gave it away.”
That sentence stayed with him.
Micah arrived twenty minutes later carrying a folder.
“Boss.”
Enzo opened it.
“What did you find?”
“Your mother owned the building outright.”
Laney frowned.
“So why was it demolished?”
Micah looked at Enzo.
“It was sold six months after Rosa died.”
“To whom?”
“A company controlled by Gil Traver.”
Silence.
Enzo closed the folder.
Laney saw his jaw tighten.
“Enzo?”
It was the first time she had used his first name.
He looked at her.
“You should go.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“And I’m not one of your harbor employees.”
Micah looked away, suddenly fascinated by traffic.
Laney stepped closer.
“Your mother fed me when nobody else cared whether I ate. If somebody stole from her, I want to know.”
“This can become dangerous.”
“Then tell me what you need from me and let me decide.”
Enzo studied her.
“You’re either brave or terrible at recognizing danger.”
“I work for you. Obviously the second one.”
Micah coughed again.
Enzo almost smiled.
Then Laney remembered something.
“There was a tin.”
“What tin?”
“A blue recipe tin. Aunt Rosa kept papers inside.”
“Recipes?”
“Some. But sometimes men came through the front, and she’d put envelopes in it.”
“Where?”
“Under the floor.”
Enzo went still.
“Show me.”
The three returned after dark.
Laney counted from where the stove had once stood.
“Here.”
Construction debris covered the ground.
Micah found a loose section of old foundation.
Underneath was a rusted metal box.
Not blue anymore.
But unmistakable.
Enzo opened it.
Inside were recipes, photographs, handwritten names—and copies of financial ledgers.
Micah flipped through them.
“Boss…”
“What?”
“These aren’t restaurant accounts.”
Enzo took the pages.
Payments.
Properties.
Trust distributions.
Charitable funds.
Millions.
All bearing Rosa Castellan’s signature.
Then the signatures changed.
Same name.
Different handwriting.
Laney whispered:
“After she died?”
Micah nodded.
Enzo’s phone rang.
Gil.
He answered.
“Uncle.”
Gil’s voice remained pleasant.
“You’re spending a great deal of time around your mother’s old neighborhood.”
Enzo looked toward the sedan across the street.
“How would you know?”
A pause.
Then:
“Come home, Enzo.”
“Why?”
“Because grief makes men confuse old ghosts with evidence.”
Enzo’s eyes hardened.
“You sound nervous.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“You should worry about yourself.”
He ended the call.
Laney stared at him.
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“What happens now?”
Enzo placed the ledgers inside his coat.
May you like
“Now he makes a mistake.”
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