Chapter 4 - The Secret Beneath Santa Lucia
The bell rang a fourth time.
Then stopped.
Gabriel drew his gun again.
Salvatore looked toward the narrow staircase beside the sacristy.
“There's a room beneath the altar.”
Tessa turned on him.
“You knew?”
“I knew there had been one.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Every sentence you say has a trapdoor under it.”
Salvatore ignored him.
He walked toward the altar.
Eleanor followed.
Tessa did not want to leave while her mother might be bleeding somewhere.
But Richard's call had been untraceable so far, and Maria herself had directed Tessa here.
Whatever Angelo had hidden beneath Santa Lucia mattered.
They moved the altar rug.
Beneath it was a brass ring set into the floor.
Gabriel pulled.
Nothing.
Eleanor knelt.
“Wrong lock.”
She reached beneath the lip of the wood and pressed a recessed latch.
The panel opened.
Cold air rose from darkness.
Stone steps descended beneath the church.
At the bottom was a chamber no larger than Tessa's apartment bedroom.
A table.
Two metal boxes.
An old reel-to-reel recorder.
And a photograph pinned to the wall.
Tessa walked toward it.
Angelo was younger.
Maybe forty.
Beside him stood Maria.
Her mother.
Pregnant.
Salvatore stood on Angelo's other side.
All three were smiling.
Tessa turned.
“You knew my mother before I was born.”
Salvatore didn't deny it.
“How long?”
“A year.”
“And you told me Angelo knew her better than you did like you barely knew her.”
“I was trying to tell you the truth without giving you all of it.”
“That's called lying.”
Gabriel looked at his father.
“She has a point.”
Tessa pulled the photograph from the wall.
On the back, Angelo had written:
FAMILY IS THE PERSON WHO STAYS WHEN THE TRUTH BECOMES EXPENSIVE.
Her eyes burned.
The first metal box contained documents.
Not criminal ledgers.
Letters.
Dozens of them.
All addressed to Theresa.
Tessa sat down.
The first was dated April 12, 2008.
Her tenth birthday.
Theresa,
Today you are ten years old. I saw you from across the street carrying a ridiculous purple umbrella even though it wasn't raining. Your mother says you refuse to throw it away because you think it makes people smile.
I wanted to tell you who I was.
I did not.
That makes me either a coward or a father trying to keep his daughter alive.
Perhaps both.
Tessa stopped reading.
Her hand covered her mouth.
Angelo had been watching long before he moved across the hall.
Every birthday.
Every school graduation.
Every major moment.
Letters he never sent.
Gabriel quietly moved away to give her space.
Salvatore stood frozen near the stairs.
Tessa opened another.
Age eighteen.
Theresa,
You look like Maria when you're angry and like my mother when you pretend not to be afraid.
If I ever earn the right to tell you the truth, the first thing I will say is that I did not leave because I did not love you.
I left because Paul Mercer told me exactly how easily a twenty-year-old woman and her infant daughter could disappear in New York.
Tessa closed her eyes.
There it was.
The name again.
Paul Mercer.
She kept reading.
The letter described Angelo's attempt to expose St. Agnes.
Paul had discovered that Angelo had copied transfer ledgers.
He threatened Maria.
Angelo responded by publicly disappearing from the Rossi family.
Angelo Rossi became Angelo Cosenza.
Tessa became merely Maria Reed's daughter.
Salvatore agreed to let the world believe the brothers had become enemies.
“Why didn't you kill Paul?” Gabriel asked.
Salvatore's expression turned dark.
“I tried.”
Eleanor looked up sharply.
“You never told me that.”
“In 2002.”
“What happened?”
“Wrong car exploded.”
Tessa stared at him.
The casual brutality should have shocked her.
Instead the only thing she could think was that Paul had remained alive afterward.
“Did Angelo know?”
“Yes.”
“And that's when he refused to come back.”
Salvatore nodded.
“He said my methods were creating more graves.”
That sounded like the man Tessa had known.
The second metal box contained cassette tapes, photocopies of banking records, and one sealed envelope.
Gabriel opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Paul Mercer.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Standing beside Richard.
The photograph was dated eleven months ago.
Richard knew.
Or at least he had been near his father.
Gabriel turned it over.
A note was written on the back.
RICHARD DOESN'T KNOW WHY HE WAS KEPT CLOSE.
“Kept close to what?” Tessa asked.
Gabriel looked at Salvatore.
Salvatore shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Eleanor picked up another folder.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She opened it.
DNA PRELIMINARY — 1999.
Gabriel moved beside her.
There were three names.
ANGELO ROSSI.
THERESA REED.
99.97% probability of paternity.
Tessa's knees weakened even though she already knew.
Seeing science made it real in a new way.
Angelo had been her father.
The next page contained:
SALVATORE ROSSI.
INFANT MALE — GABRIEL.
RESULT: INCONCLUSIVE. SAMPLE CONTAMINATED.
Gabriel stared at it.
“So he tested me.”
Tessa looked at Salvatore.
“You said you were afraid to know.”
Salvatore's face hardened with shame.
“I began the test.”
“And?”
“I destroyed the second sample before the laboratory could confirm it.”
Gabriel looked almost amused.
“You couldn't even finish being honest in private.”
Before Salvatore could respond, Tessa's phone vibrated.
A text message.
From her mother's number.
A photograph appeared.
Maria sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Richard stood behind her.
Blood covered one side of his face.
A third man stood in the background.
Only half his body visible.
Older.
Gray suit.
Silver watch.
Below the photograph:
BRING ANGELO'S ORIGINAL TRANSFER RECORD TO TABLE 14.
4:00 A.M.
COME WITH GABRIEL.
NO SALVATORE.
Tessa showed the others.
Salvatore swore.
“It's Paul.”
Gabriel zoomed in.
“Il Vento.”
Table 14.
The receipt from twenty-seven years ago.
Rossi / Cosenza / Mercer.
Tessa looked at the clock.
They had twenty-three minutes.
“We go.”
Salvatore shook his head.
“No.”
Tessa stared at him.
“My mother is there.”
“That's exactly why you don't go.”
“You don't get to make that decision.”
“Paul wants you and Gabriel together.”
“Why?”
Salvatore didn't answer.
Again.
Gabriel noticed.
“You know.”
“I suspect.”
“Then speak.”
Salvatore looked toward the old photograph of Angelo.
“When Sofia lost the baby, Paul told me he could obtain another child without questions.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“You said that already.”
“He also told Angelo something.”
Tessa's stomach tightened.
“What?”
“That if Angelo surrendered his daughter to the Rossi household, Paul could guarantee Maria's safety.”
Tessa stared.
“Angelo refused.”
“Yes.”
“So Paul found Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“From where?”
Salvatore looked at him.
“I didn't know.”
“Didn't?”
The change in tense was tiny.
But Tessa heard it.
So did Gabriel.
Salvatore looked toward the floor.
“I learned something twelve years ago.”
Gabriel's voice dropped.
“What did you learn?”
Before Salvatore answered, the church door upstairs slammed open.
Footsteps crossed the sanctuary.
Not one person.
Several.
Gabriel turned off the basement light.
They waited.
A voice called from above.
“Mr. Rossi?”
Gabriel recognized it.
His security chief.
“Down here.”
Four armed men entered.
One whispered something into Gabriel's ear.
Gabriel's eyes changed.
“What?”
Tessa stood.
“What happened?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“The photo Paul sent wasn't taken tonight.”
“How do you know?”
“My team pulled traffic cameras from the restaurant.”
He held out his phone.
At 2:51 a.m., Maria Reed was carried through Il Vento's service entrance.
At 2:53, Richard Mercer followed.
At 2:55, another man entered.
The camera caught his face clearly.
Paul Mercer.
Alive.
Tessa stared at him.
Then Gabriel swiped to the next image.
Her stomach dropped.
A fourth person entered the restaurant at 3:02.
Someone wearing a dark coat.
Walking with a cane.
Salvatore.
Everyone turned.
The old Mafia boss stood perfectly still.
Gabriel spoke quietly.
“You've been with us since two-ten.”
Salvatore stared at the photograph.
“I have.”
Tessa felt her skin crawl.
“Then who is that?”
Eleanor stepped closer to the screen.
She went pale.
“Oh, God.”
“What?”
She looked at Salvatore.
“That isn't you.”
“I know.”
Eleanor's voice trembled.
“No. You don't understand.”
She pointed at the man in the photograph.
“I buried him in Sicily thirty-one years ago.”
Salvatore's cane nearly slipped from his hand.
Gabriel whispered:
“Who?”
Eleanor looked at Tessa.
May you like
Then at Salvatore.
“Your oldest brother.”
