Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER NOBODY WAS ALLOWED TO REMEMBER
“Who was Vittorio's other son?”
Dante stared at the newspaper spread across Nora's kitchen table.
He had arrived twenty minutes earlier, alone except for a driver waiting outside.
Nora had almost refused to let him in.
Then she remembered the two children in the photograph.
“Your father told you Enzo was an only child?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
Dante looked up.
“I grew up with him, Nora.”
“That wasn't my question.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I never heard anyone mention another child.”
Nora placed the photograph beside the newspaper.
“One boy is wearing Enzo's bracelet. Another is hidden behind Pietro. Your father identified a woman who supposedly died before the picture was taken.”
Dante examined the photograph.
Then he looked at her.
“Do you have a magnifying glass?”
She brought him an old one from Pietro's sewing box.
He studied the image for several minutes.
Finally, he pointed to the window of the farmhouse.
“There's a reflection.”
Nora leaned over.
In the glass stood a small figure.
A little girl.
Not a boy.
She wore a light dress and held something against her chest.
“What is that?” Nora whispered.
Dante adjusted the magnifying glass.
“A doll, maybe.”
Nora shook her head.
“A book.”
The child was holding a small rectangular object.
On the cover was a white cross.
A prayer book.
Dante sat back.
“That means there were three children there.”
“Two boys and a girl.”
Neither spoke.
Then Dante said, “There's something else.”
He pointed to Pietro.
“Your grandfather is standing between them and the scratched-out man.”
“As if he's protecting them.”
Dante nodded.
“And my father is looking away.”
Nora looked toward the old coat hanging beside her door.
It had become impossible to see it as ordinary clothing.
The coat had crossed an ocean.
It had survived poverty, illness, and forty years of silence.
And Pietro had carried it until he no longer could.
“What did your father really do?” she asked.
Dante didn't answer.
Instead, he took out his phone and called someone.
“Carla? It's Dante Gallo.”
Nora straightened.
“Why are you calling Carla?”
Dante raised a finger.
“Yes. I need to speak with you about Paul. Privately.”
He listened.
Then his face hardened.
“When?”
A pause.
“Stay where you are. I'll come to you.”
He ended the call.
Nora stepped forward.
“What happened?”
“Paul cleared out his office.”
“That's convenient.”
“He left before payroll opened.”
“What about Carla?”
“She found something.”
At La Cattedrale, Carla led them into Paul's office.
The desk drawers stood open.
His personal photographs were gone.
So was the expensive watch he had purchased the previous summer.
But Carla pointed toward the wall calendar.
“Look at Friday.”
Someone had circled eight fifteen.
Beneath it were three handwritten letters.
P.R.R.
Nora frowned.
“Pietro Rossi?”
Carla shook her head.
“Paul told me they were reservation initials.”
Dante inspected the calendar.
“Who made the reservation?”
“Your cousin's assistant.”
“Enzo?”
Carla nodded.
Nora felt cold.
“Then he arranged the dinner.”
“Possibly,” Dante said.
Carla opened a drawer.
“I found something else behind the lining.”
She produced a folded receipt.
It was from a private banking office.
The amount made Nora stare.
Forty thousand dollars.
Paul's largest debt had been paid two days before Salvatore's dinner.
The listed payer was a company called Bellwether Holdings.
Dante read the name twice.
Then his expression changed.
“I know this company.”
“Who owns it?” Nora asked.
“It was one of my uncle Vittorio's original American businesses.”
Carla looked between them.
“But Vittorio died forty years ago.”
“Yes,” Dante said.
“And Bellwether has been paying people ever since.”
Dante didn't let Nora return to work.
Instead, he took her to a small accounting office above one of the family's legitimate warehouses.
For three hours, they reviewed old corporate records.
Nora understood the numbers better than she understood the history.
She had worked in bookkeeping before taking the restaurant job, and Pietro had insisted she learn how to read financial statements.
“People can lie with words,” he'd said. “Numbers lie only when somebody teaches them.”
She found the first inconsistency after twenty minutes.
Bellwether had paid the same storage fee for nearly thirty years.
The amount never changed.
Neither did the beneficiary account.
“That doesn't make sense,” she said.
Dante looked over.
“What doesn't?”
“A storage contract should have been renewed. This one keeps paying the same recipient without updated paperwork.”
“Who receives it?”
Nora opened the scanned record.
A name appeared.
L. Rossi.
Dante went still.
“Your family?”
Nora shook her head.
“My grandfather's first name was Pietro.”
They searched the earliest surviving contract.
The recipient had originally been listed as Lucia Rossi.
Nora stared.
“Lucia wasn't a Rossi.”
“Not that we knew.”
Dante pulled the farmhouse photograph closer.
“What if she became one?”
Nora looked at him.
“You mean she married my grandfather?”
“Maybe.”
“But Salvatore said she was Vittorio's wife.”
“He said she gave Pietro the rosary. He didn't say what happened afterward.”
Nora felt an unfamiliar pressure behind her ribs.
Her grandfather had lived alone for as long as she remembered.
He rarely spoke about marriage.
When she asked whether he'd ever been in love, he always changed the subject.
Maybe she had mistaken grief for privacy.
Dante searched another record.
Then he stopped.
“Look.”
A payment authorization from 1994.
Signed by someone named Beatrice Rossi.
Nora leaned forward.
“My mother's name was Beatrice.”
Dante looked at her.
“You said she died when you were little.”
“She did.”
“How old were you?”
“Six.”
“Did Pietro ever tell you who her parents were?”
Nora shook her head.
“He said she was his daughter.”
Dante examined the paper.
“What if there was more to that?”
Nora felt anger rise.
“Don't.”
“Nora—”
“Don't turn my mother into another mystery.”
Dante lowered his voice.
“I'm trying to understand why her signature appears on a company connected to my uncle.”
Nora stood.
“I know what you're trying to do.”
“Then sit down.”
“No.”
He stood too.
But he didn't block her path.
“Nora, I'm not your enemy.”
She looked at him.
“Then stop talking about my family as if they're a puzzle you can solve.”
For a long moment, Dante said nothing.
Finally, he nodded.
“You're right.”
His simple agreement unsettled her more than an argument would have.
She picked up her coat.
But before she reached the door, Dante called her name.
“One thing.”
She turned.
He held up the 1994 authorization.
“Your mother's signature wasn't approving a payment.”
“What?”
“She was refusing one.”
Nora slowly returned.
Beside Beatrice's name was a handwritten sentence.
No money will buy my silence about the children.
Beneath it, in darker ink, someone had added:
If she refuses again, take the girl.
Nora felt the room tilt.
“The girl?”
Dante looked at her with an expression she couldn't bear.
For the first time, she understood why Pietro had kept her away from family photographs.
May you like
Someone had wanted a child taken away.
And that child might have been her.
