Chapter 3 - THE SECRET FRANKIE'S FATHER TOOK TO HIS GRAVE
Frankie read the sentence three times.
If Gabriel comes, tell him everything.
The words didn’t change.
Neither did the handwriting.
She would have recognized her father’s uneven capital G anywhere. He had written thousands of repair estimates by hand because he distrusted computers and claimed keyboards encouraged dishonesty.
Frankie looked at Gabriel.
“What does this mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Your father has apparently been leaving me messages from beyond the grave. I assure you, this evening stopped being convenient some time ago.”
Leo sat against the wall, pressing a clean shop towel to his injured arm.
“Dad knew his father?”
Frankie looked at the photograph again.
Gabriel’s father, Antonio Costa, had died twelve years earlier.
She knew that because everyone in the city knew when Antonio Costa died. His funeral had filled six blocks with black cars, politicians, businessmen, priests, and people smart enough not to ask how one man had acquired so many loyal mourners.
Her own father, Salvatore Moretti, had never once mentioned him.
“Why would Dad know these people?” Leo asked.
Gabriel took the photograph.
“The same reason many men knew my father.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Frankie said.
“It is the answer I have.”
Matteo examined the brass key.
“No marking.”
Frankie held out her hand.
He looked toward Gabriel.
Her patience snapped.
“It came out of my father’s wall.”
Gabriel nodded.
Matteo gave it to her.
Frankie turned the key between her fingers.
Small.
Old.
Not for a modern door.
Maybe a safe deposit box.
Maybe a lockbox.
Maybe something buried in another wall.
“We should leave,” Gabriel said.
Frankie looked at him.
“This is my garage.”
“It’s compromised.”
“It has a broken window.”
“It has men willing to break your brother’s arm searching for something your father hid.”
Leo muttered, “They didn’t break it.”
Frankie pointed at him without looking.
“You’re not helping.”
Gabriel took out his phone.
“You and Leo will stay somewhere secure tonight.”
Frankie laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“I am not staying in your house.”
“My building.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You prefer waiting here for another visit?”
“I prefer not being kidnapped politely.”
His eyes narrowed.
“If I were kidnapping you, Francesca, you would not be confused about it.”
Matteo coughed again.
Frankie glared at him.
“Does he always talk like a movie villain?”
Matteo considered his options carefully.
“Yes.”
Gabriel turned his head.
Matteo became fascinated with the ceiling.
For one absurd second, Frankie nearly laughed.
Then headlights swept across the broken front window.
Every Costa man reached beneath his jacket.
Gabriel moved in front of Frankie automatically.
She noticed.
She wished she hadn’t.
A white sedan stopped outside.
Police lights flashed behind it.
Detective Elena Ward entered through the damaged doorway with two uniformed officers.
Frankie knew her.
Ward had handled the accident that killed Salvatore Moretti four years earlier.
“Francesca?”
The detective looked around.
Then saw Gabriel.
Her face changed.
“Mr. Costa.”
“Detective.”
Ward’s gaze moved between them.
“This is an interesting room.”
“Get used to it,” Frankie muttered.
For the next twenty minutes, Frankie explained the attack without mentioning the hidden compartment.
Gabriel said little.
Leo said even less.
When Ward finished, she pulled Frankie aside near the office.
“You need to be careful.”
“I noticed.”
“I mean with him.”
Frankie glanced toward Gabriel.
He was speaking quietly to Matteo.
“You think Costa did this?”
Ward hesitated.
“No.”
That surprised her.
“Then what?”
The detective lowered her voice.
“Your father’s accident.”
Frankie’s entire body went cold.
“What about it?”
Ward looked toward Gabriel again.
“There were things I didn’t like.”
Frankie stared at her.
“You told me a delivery truck lost control.”
“That’s what the evidence supported.”
“That isn’t what you just said.”
“Francesca—”
“You came to my house. You sat at my kitchen table. You told me Dad died because some exhausted truck driver missed a light.”
“I know.”
“Was that a lie?”
Ward’s jaw tightened.
“No. But it wasn’t the whole story.”
Frankie felt something inside her crack open.
Four years.
Four years of grieving.
Four years of passing the intersection and looking away.
“What story?”
Ward reached into her pocket, then stopped.
Not here.
Frankie understood.
“Tomorrow morning,” Ward said. “Nine o’clock. Call me from a phone that isn’t yours.”
“Why?”
“Because if what happened here is connected, I don’t trust your phone.”
She walked away before Frankie could ask more.
Gabriel appeared beside her.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re bad at lying.”
“You’re an expert?”
“Yes.”
Frankie folded her arms.
“That’s not reassuring.”
Gabriel’s phone vibrated.
He checked it.
The subtle change in his expression told her everything.
“Russo?” she asked.
His eyes lifted.
“Someone entered my uncle’s private office tonight.”
“And?”
“According to building security, nobody entered.”
Frankie frowned.
“Then how do you know someone did?”
“Because my people installed security that reports what his people think they disabled.”
She stared.
“Your family sounds exhausting.”
“You have no idea.”
“What was taken?”
Gabriel put the phone away.
“A file marked Moretti.”
Frankie’s anger returned in a wave.
“You knew he had a file on us?”
“I knew thirty seconds before you did.”
“Then call him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if Vittorio knows we found something, he’ll move faster.”
“My brother was bleeding on the floor.”
“And I intend to learn who put him there.”
“Your uncle.”
“Possibly.”
“You keep saying possibly like you need a signed confession.”
“I need proof.”
“Why? So your mafia board can vote?”
His face went cold.
“Because accusing Vittorio without proof could start a war in which people you care about become leverage.”
Frankie stopped.
Gabriel continued quietly.
“You think this is a story about one dangerous man. It isn’t. It’s about money, loyalty, old agreements, and people who have been waiting years for someone to make the first mistake.”
She hated the logic.
“So what do we do?”
The word we slipped out.
Both noticed.
Gabriel answered anyway.
“We discover what your father hid before Vittorio does.”
Frankie agreed to leave only after Gabriel promised two things.
Leo would be taken to a private physician.
And no one would touch a single object in the garage without her permission.
She expected Gabriel to argue.
He simply said, “Done.”
An hour later, Frankie entered his penthouse again.
This time, it felt different.
Less like enemy territory.
More like the center of a storm.
Leo was asleep in a guest room after receiving twelve stitches.
Frankie stood at the kitchen island drinking coffee at one in the morning.
Gabriel entered without his suit jacket.
His white sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
Frankie disliked how much that changed his appearance.
He placed a box on the counter.
“What’s that?”
“Everything my father kept from 1998 through 2004 involving Salvatore Moretti.”
Frankie stared.
“You found that in an hour?”
“I employ people.”
“Normal people have Google.”
“I have both.”
They opened the box.
Inside were old shipping records, property maps, handwritten notes, and photographs.
Frankie sat opposite Gabriel.
For nearly two hours, they searched.
At 3:12 a.m., Frankie found the first useful item.
An invoice.
Moretti Auto Repair.
September 9, 2001.
Customer: Antonio Costa.
Work performed: replacement of rear differential, brake line repair.
At the bottom, her father had written:
AC paid cash. Refused receipt. Said V.R. cannot know.
Frankie slid it over.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“V.R.”
“Vittorio Russo.”
“Probably.”
“Stop saying probably.”
Gabriel ignored that.
He found a property survey.
The Moretti garage sat on Parcel 18C.
Beneath it ran an abandoned rail access tunnel connecting three blocks to the old waterfront freight depot.
Frankie leaned closer.
“That tunnel was sealed before I was born.”
“Officially.”
She looked at him.
“I hate when you say words like that.”
“Official records show it was filled with concrete in 1993.”
“And unofficially?”
Gabriel pointed at another map.
Someone had marked a line in red.
The tunnel remained open directly beneath the garage.
Frankie stared.
“Why would Dad hide this?”
“Maybe he didn’t.”
She looked up.
“Maybe he was hiding what happened inside it.”
They found the answer twenty minutes later.
A photograph slipped from between two documents.
Frankie picked it up.
Three cars were parked inside a concrete tunnel.
Men stood around wooden crates.
Antonio Costa was there.
So was Salvatore.
And Vittorio Russo.
Written on the back:
October 2002.
Frankie handed it to Gabriel.
“What were they doing?”
Gabriel’s face became unreadable.
“My father spent the last decade of his life trying to dismantle part of what he had built.”
She waited.
He continued.
“Vittorio opposed him.”
“So my father helped yours?”
“Maybe.”
“Gabriel.”
“I genuinely don’t know.”
For once, she believed him.
He looked tired.
Not physically.
Older than that.
“What happened between your father and your uncle?” she asked.
“Antonio wanted legitimate businesses to become the future of the family. Vittorio believed fear was the family.”
“And you?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“I spent twelve years trying to make sure Vittorio never became right.”
Frankie studied him.
Maybe that was the first honest thing he had given her that night.
A sound came from the hallway.
They both turned.
Leo stood barefoot near the doorway.
His face was pale.
“Frankie.”
She stood.
“What?”
“I remembered something.”
He held the doorframe.
“The guy who gave me the gambling money.”
Gabriel’s chair moved back.
“What about him?”
“He asked about Dad before I ever owed anything.”
Frankie froze.
“How long ago?”
“Six months.”
Gabriel’s expression sharpened.
“Your debt was engineered.”
Leo nodded weakly.
“He kept raising my limit. Every time I lost, he said not to worry.”
Frankie’s anger exploded.
“You thought a stranger giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars was normal?”
“I know!”
“No, Leo, apparently you don’t!”
“I know I screwed up!”
His voice broke.
That stopped her.
Leo wiped his face.
“He said something else.”
Gabriel approached.
“What?”
“The first night.”
Leo closed his eyes, searching his memory.
“He asked whether Dad ever gave Frankie a key.”
Frankie slowly opened her hand.
The brass key rested in her palm.
Nobody spoke.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
He answered.
Matteo’s voice was loud enough for Frankie to hear.
“Boss. We found what the key opens.”
Gabriel put the call on speaker.
Matteo continued.
“First Sicilian Mutual Bank. Box 317. Registered to Salvatore Moretti.”
Frankie looked at Gabriel.
“When can we open it?”
Matteo hesitated.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“Someone already tried.”
Frankie’s pulse accelerated.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
Gabriel went completely still.
“Who?”
“The bank flagged the authorization because the signature didn’t match.”
A pause.
Then Matteo said the words that changed everything.
“The woman attempting access used Francesca Moretti’s identification.”
Frankie stared at the phone.
“That’s impossible.”
Matteo’s voice came back.
“Security caught her face.”
Gabriel looked at Frankie.
“Who was it?”
Another pause.
May you like
When Matteo answered, Frankie felt the floor disappear beneath her.
“She looks exactly like your mother.”
