Chapter 4 - THE FIRE
Matteo crossed the room in three steps.
He grabbed Vincent by the front of his coat.
“You set the fire?”
Vincent didn’t resist.
“No.”
“Thomas said it was deliberate.”
“It was.”
“Who set it?”
Vincent looked at Luca.
Then Daisy.
Finally Matteo.
“Your father.”
Matteo released him as if burned.
“No.”
Vincent gave a tired laugh.
“There’s the Romano family loyalty. We believe monsters exist, provided they aren’t our fathers.”
Daisy picked up the cassette.
“Thomas recorded this. Let it play.”
She pressed the button.
Her father’s voice returned.
“Carlo believed the Callowhill restaurant manager was stealing from him. He ordered a small fire in the storage room to destroy records before police could seize them.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“The flames reached the apartment faster than expected.”
Daisy looked at him.
Thomas continued.
“Vincent went upstairs. He found Matteo unconscious and carried him out.”
Matteo sat down.
For years, Vincent had been the villain in every family story.
Now the man had saved his life.
Answer one.
Open two.
Thomas’s voice crackled.
“That night changed Carlo. He wanted out of the old business. Vincent didn’t. That is where the war between them truly began.”
Vincent looked almost sad.
“My brother decided one frightened seven-year-old boy meant we should erase everything we’d built.”
“You mean everything you stole,” Matteo said.
“I mean everything we survived.”
The cassette continued.
“Years later, I discovered Vincent was moving money without Carlo’s knowledge. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Police evidence was being sold back to criminals. Cases were disappearing. Harrison Miller’s father handled the police side.”
Daisy glanced at Luca.
“So Harrison inherited the business.”
Vincent answered.
“He inherited the fear.”
“What fear?”
“That the ledger would put his father’s name in every newspaper in Pennsylvania.”
For the first time, Daisy understood Miller as something other than a corrupt detective who enjoyed frightening people.
It didn’t excuse him.
But corruption had been his inheritance, too.
Matteo looked at Vincent.
“If you saved me, why destroy me now?”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“Because I watched Carlo turn you into him.”
“I’m nothing like my father.”
“You run the same companies.”
“I cleaned them.”
“You think changing accountants changes blood?”
Matteo stepped closer.
“No. Choices do.”
Vincent’s expression flickered.
That landed.
The cassette clicked.
Then Thomas’s voice returned more softly.
“There is another reason Vincent cannot allow the ledger to surface.”
Vincent lunged.
One of Matteo’s men restrained him.
“Turn it off!”
Daisy stared.
Until now, Vincent had remained controlled.
This frightened him.
She increased the volume.
“The missing money did not go to Vincent.”
Silence.
Even Vincent stopped struggling.
“It went through Vincent.”
Matteo frowned.
Thomas continued.
“Someone above him controlled the accounts.”
Daisy looked at Vincent.
“Who?”
Vincent closed his eyes.
The tape answered.
“Carlo Romano.”
Matteo went completely still.
His father.
Again.
But Thomas wasn’t finished.
“Carlo wasn’t stealing for himself. He was paying families.”
Daisy frowned.
“What families?”
“People hurt by us,” Vincent said quietly.
Matteo looked at him.
Vincent’s shoulders lowered.
“The widow of a dockworker killed in a warehouse fight. A driver permanently injured moving illegal freight. Restaurant employees who lost jobs when Carlo burned Callowhill.”
Daisy thought about her own life.
Bills.
Rent.
Leo’s therapy.
People at the bottom always paying for decisions made by people above them.
“Carlo called it restitution,” Vincent said. “I called it weakness.”
Matteo’s voice was low.
“And Thomas?”
“Helped him hide the payments.”
That was why the ledger mattered.
It wasn’t merely a record of crimes.
It was a record of people the Romano family owed.
Hundreds of them.
Matteo took the black notebook.
“How much?”
Vincent laughed without humor.
“Enough to dismantle half your legitimate companies if every promise is honored.”
Luca stared.
“That’s why you wanted it destroyed.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t protecting yourself.”
“I was protecting what was left.”
Daisy shook her head.
“No. You were protecting control.”
Vincent met her eyes.
Maybe for the first time, he respected her.
“Yes.”
The cassette reached its end.
Then another voice appeared.
Carlo Romano.
Matteo stood.
His father had apparently recorded over the final minute.
“Thomas, if you hear this before I do, listen carefully.”
Matteo moved closer to the player.
“If Vincent finds out where the final ledger is, he’ll convince himself destroying it saves the family.”
Vincent looked away.
Carlo continued.
“The black notebook is not the ledger.”
Daisy’s pulse quickened.
Of course it wasn’t.
It was a map.
“The real record is somewhere Vincent cannot touch without exposing himself.”
Matteo looked at his uncle.
Vincent’s face told Daisy something.
He knew.
Carlo’s voice continued.
“Thomas has the key. His daughter has the proof.”
Daisy touched the medal.
But they had already opened it.
Only coordinates had been inside.
“What proof?” she whispered.
Then the tape ended.
Luca picked up the child’s red mitten from the deposit box.
“Whose is this?”
Daisy stared at it.
Small.
Faded.
A stitched letter D inside the cuff.
Her mother used to sew initials into everything.
“That was mine.”
She took it.
Something crackled inside the lining.
Daisy slipped two fingers beneath a loose seam.
She pulled out a photograph.
Twenty-four years old.
Her father stood beside Carlo Romano outside a hospital nursery.
Carlo held a newborn baby.
Daisy.
On the back, Thomas had written:
HE KEPT HIS FIRST PROMISE. MAKE HIM KEEP THE REST.
Below it was an address.
Matteo recognized it.
“My father’s old house.”
Vincent suddenly stood.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
His face had drained of color.
Matteo saw it.
“What’s at the house?”
Vincent said nothing.
Daisy stepped closer.
“What did my father hide there?”
Vincent stared at the photograph.
Then at her.
“Not what.”
May you like
His voice had changed.
“Who.”
