Chapter 9 - DANTE'S BROTHER
"Who is your brother?"
The rain hit Dante's shoulders as he stood ten feet from me.
He did not ask where I got the photograph.
He did not pretend not to understand.
"His name was Matteo."
Was.
The past tense sharpened everything.
"Was he at Lake Street the night my father died?"
"Yes."
"Did he tell Anthony Mercer my father had the evidence?"
Dante's jaw tightened.
"I don't know."
"That's a lie."
"It's the truth."
"My father wrote that you knew who opened the door."
I held up the photograph.
"Catherine Mercer told me to ask about your brother."
Dante's expression changed at Catherine's name.
"She approached you?"
"Don't change the subject."
"Claire, Catherine Mercer has been hiding from her son for five years."
"She risked coming here for a reason."
"Then tell me why Matteo matters."
Dante looked toward my father's grave.
Rain ran down his face.
He seemed older again.
"Matteo was my younger brother."
"By six years."
"He was brilliant, reckless, and convinced loyalty could repair almost anything."
"Could it?"
"No."
Dante looked at me.
"He was also addicted to gambling."
I said nothing.
"Anthony Mercer learned about the debt."
"He paid it."
"Then he owned Matteo's silence."
My stomach sank.
"Did Matteo tell him about my father?"
"Matteo knew Michael had copied the records."
"Did he tell Anthony?"
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
"I believe he did."
The cemetery felt suddenly too quiet.
"You believe?"
"Matteo denied it until the day he died."
"How did he die?"
Dante's gaze hardened.
"He killed himself three months after Michael."
The anger inside me faltered.
Not forgiveness.
Something sadder.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I cannot prove what he did."
"You could have told me the possibility."
"Yes."
"Instead you let me think Anthony Mercer somehow learned about my father from an unnamed person in your office."
"Yes."
"You protected your brother."
Dante did not answer.
"Even dead."
"Yes."
I laughed bitterly.
"So much for no more half-truths."
Dante stepped closer.
"I was wrong."
"That is getting cheap."
He stopped.
The words landed.
Good.
I wanted them to.
"My father died because powerful men kept deciding what truth was useful and when."
"You were one of them."
"You still are."
Dante looked at the grave.
"I know."
"Then change."
His eyes returned to mine.
"How?"
The question surprised me.
I had expected defense.
Not a request.
"Start by telling me what happened at Lake Street."
He nodded.
"All of it."
Before we got into the SUV, Dante stood in front of Michael Sullivan's grave without speaking.
He removed his gloves.
Then he placed one hand against the wet stone.
The gesture was so private I almost looked away.
"Did you come here after he died?"
Dante kept his eyes on the name.
"Once."
"When?"
"The night Anthony Mercer died."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain.
"Did you kill Anthony?"
Dante did not answer for several seconds.
"I ordered the men who found him."
That was not the same answer.
It was close enough.
"Did my father want that?"
"No."
Dante's voice roughened.
"Michael wanted courtrooms, records, names, and consequences nobody could pretend were accidents."
"I wanted Anthony to stop breathing."
I stared at him.
"So you did the thing my father would have hated."
"Yes."
"And then came here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Dante finally looked at me.
"Because revenge felt exactly as empty as he told me it would."
The answer unsettled me.
Nolan believed pain proved power.
Dante had spent years learning pain could also prove nothing.
I did not forgive him for Michael.
But for the first time, I understood why guilt had made him quieter instead of kinder.
We sat in the SUV because the rain had become too heavy.
Dante told the driver to step outside.
No guards.
No Sofia.
Just the two of us and the truth I had been asking for.
"Lake Street Imports was a front."
"For smuggling?"
"Mostly stolen luxury goods and untaxed imports."
"Mostly?"
"Cash moved through it too."
"Bellini cash?"
"Moretti cash."
I looked at him.
"Yours."
"Mine."
He did not look away.
"Your father traced payments from Lake Street to city inspectors and police officers."
"Pike?"
"Pike was one."
"Anthony Mercer managed the payments for me."
"Then he started duplicating the network for Bellini."
"Stealing from you."
"Yes."
"My father found it."
"Yes."
"Matteo knew."
"Yes."
The pattern was brutal in its simplicity.
"The night before Michael died, he met me at Lake Street."
Dante continued.
"He brought copies of the ledgers."
"He wanted me to go with him to federal agents the next morning."
"And you asked for forty-eight hours."
"Yes."
"Where was Matteo?"
"In the office upstairs."
"Listening?"
"I didn't know he was there."
"But he heard."
"I found his cigarette in the stairwell afterward."
I stared at Dante.
"You knew."
"I knew he had been close enough to hear."
"Not that he told Anthony."
"Correct."
"What did Matteo say?"
"That he left before Michael arrived."
"You believed him?"
Dante's face twisted with something close to disgust.
"I wanted to."
That was more honest than anything else he could have said.
"What does my father's note mean?"
"Dante knows who opened the door."
He looked at the photograph.
"There was a locked office inside Lake Street."
"Only three people had keys."
"Me."
"Anthony."
"Matteo."
"Your father saw someone enter that office during our meeting."
"Who?"
"He thought it was Matteo."
"Why?"
"Because Anthony was standing beside us."
My pulse accelerated.
"Then Matteo lied."
"Probably."
"And what was in the office?"
"The master ledger."
"The one showing all the bribes."
"Yes."
"Was it stolen?"
"One page was removed."
"Which page?"
Dante's voice lowered.
"The page listing everyone paid inside law enforcement."
"Including Pike."
"Yes."
I sat back.
"That page is still missing."
"Yes."
"And Nolan wants my father's ledger because he thinks it contains a copy."
"Exactly."
The entire story clicked into place.
Nolan had spent six years near me because Victor Bellini still did not know whether my father copied that page.
The four point eight million was not only a financial crime.
It was leverage.
If they could not find my father's evidence, they could destroy the person most likely to reveal it.
Me.
"Does the ledger we found contain the page?"
"I haven't seen it."
"Federal agents have it."
"Sofia requested a scanned copy."
"When will we know?"
Dante's phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
"Now."
It was Sofia.
He answered on speaker.
"The ledger is incomplete."
My stomach dropped.
"Which section?"
Dante asked.
"Law enforcement payments."
Of course.
"Michael removed those pages before he put the ledger in the box."
"Any clue where?"
"One."
We waited.
"There is an index entry marked A.L., page ninety-seven."
I frowned.
"A.L.?"
Dante's face went still.
"Autumn Leaves."
My mother's song.
Sofia continued.
"Page ninety-seven is not in the ledger."
"It was cut out cleanly."
My father's legal pad had said MOTHER'S SONG.
We had assumed it referred to the key.
Maybe it referred to something else.
"My mother had sheet music."
I looked at Dante.
"Boxes of it."
"Where?"
"The old house."
"After my father died, my aunt sold it."
"Do you know who bought it?"
"No."
Sofia was already searching.
"I can find out."
I looked through the rain at the cemetery.
My father had not hidden one trail.
He had hidden several.
Because he expected one to be found.
Because he expected betrayal.
"Dante."
"Yes?"
"Who bought Lake Street after you shut it down?"
His expression sharpened.
"Nobody."
"You still own it."
"Yes."
"And you said Nolan took Voss there."
"That's the lead."
"Then if Nolan knows the old law-enforcement page is missing, what is he doing at Lake Street?"
Dante went very still.
He understood before I did.
"He's not looking for the page."
"Then what?"
Dante grabbed his phone.
"He's destroying the place where the original ledger was kept."
"Why now?"
He looked at me.
"Because there may still be physical evidence proving Anthony Mercer opened that office."
Dante called his security team.
No one answered.
He called again.
Nothing.
His face changed.
"My men are already at the warehouse."
"How many?"
"Four."
Another call.
No answer.
Then Dante's phone received a video.
He opened it.
The screen showed Lake Street Imports burning.
Flames poured through the windows.
A man stood in the foreground with his back to the camera.
Nolan.
He turned slowly.
Then he lifted the missing law-enforcement page toward the lens.
Even through the phone screen, I could see rows of names.
Nolan smiled.
"Looking for this?"
The video ended.
Dante stared at the black screen.
I stared at him.
Nolan had the page.
May you like
Which meant he had not spent six years trying to find it.
He had possessed it all along.
