Chapter 3 - What Was Hidden Below Romano’s
“Grace.”
The voice came from behind the bar.
Soft.
Female.
Terrified.
Grace froze.
Dominic’s hand closed around her wrist for less than a second before he seemed to remember her warning about being controlled.
He released her.
“Stay here.”
“Not happening.”
Emergency lights flickered on.
Red illumination washed across Romano’s.
Rafael moved toward the electrical panel.
Dominic rounded the bar.
Grace followed two steps behind.
“Grace.”
Again.
This time the voice came from beneath them.
Grace looked down.
A service hatch was built into the floor behind the bar.
She had not noticed it before.
Dominic had.
His face darkened.
“That hasn’t opened in twenty years.”
Grace crouched.
A faint light glimmered through the seam.
Then a phone began ringing beneath the hatch.
Not a landline.
A cell phone.
Dominic pulled the hatch open.
A narrow ladder disappeared into darkness.
Grace looked at him.
“How many secret entrances does your restaurant have?”
“I’m beginning to wonder.”
They descended.
The ladder opened into another portion of the old basement.
This room was smaller.
Cleaner.
And recently occupied.
A smartphone sat on a wooden crate.
Its screen displayed an incoming call.
UNKNOWN.
Grace reached for it.
Dominic stopped her.
She gave him a look.
He removed his hand.
Grace answered.
“Hello?”
Static.
Then breathing.
“Grace?”
The same woman’s voice.
“Yes.”
“Don’t trust the ledger.”
Grace looked at Dominic.
“Who are you?”
Silence.
“Are you Elena?”
The breathing stopped.
Then:
“Yes.”
Grace’s knees almost weakened.
Dominic snatched his gaze toward the phone.
“Elena Marsh?”
“Dominic?”
His name sounded almost like relief.
Dominic leaned closer.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Are you being held somewhere?”
“No.”
Grace frowned.
“Then why did everyone think you disappeared?”
A long silence.
“Because I needed them to.”
The line went dead.
Grace stared at the phone.
Dominic took it from her and immediately tried calling back.
No connection.
Rafael descended moments later.
“Power’s restored.”
Then he noticed their expressions.
“What?”
“Elena’s alive,” Grace said.
His mouth opened.
Dominic was already examining the phone.
Cheap prepaid device.
No contacts.
No messages.
Only one call.
Rafael shook his head.
“How did it get down here?”
“That,” Grace said, “is becoming the theme of my employment.”
They searched the room.
Inside a metal cabinet they found copies of payroll records stretching back twenty years.
Supplier invoices.
Bank statements.
Property documents.
And photographs of Dominic’s father, Anthony Romano, with politicians, contractors, restaurant owners, and union officials.
Grace pulled out a binder.
A label read:
ROMANO DEVELOPMENT — 2008.
“What was Romano Development?” she asked.
Dominic looked over.
“My father’s property company.”
“What happened to it?”
“Closed after he died.”
Grace opened the binder.
Dozens of real-estate purchases.
Small buildings.
Restaurants.
Vacant lots.
Several had been transferred between companies with nearly identical names.
One appeared repeatedly.
Vittorio Holdings.
“Who’s Vittorio?”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“My uncle.”
Grace looked up.
“You have an uncle?”
“Unfortunately.”
“What’s his name?”
“Carlo Romano.”
Rafael muttered something under his breath.
Grace looked between them.
“I take it we don’t invite Uncle Carlo to Thanksgiving.”
Dominic took the binder.
“Carlo and my father built the business together. They stopped speaking five years before my father died.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
“That simple?”
“It never is.”
Grace examined another folder.
Inside was a printed photograph.
Elena stood beside an older woman outside a suburban house.
On the back:
Mom + me, June.
Grace felt uncomfortable seeing something so personal.
“Why is this here?”
Dominic looked.
His expression changed.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Under the photograph lay a newspaper clipping.
LOCAL BOOKKEEPER DIES IN SINGLE-CAR ACCIDENT.
The woman in the photograph.
Elena’s mother.
Grace read the date.
Nine years earlier.
“What did her mother have to do with Romano’s?”
Dominic said nothing.
Grace looked at him.
“You know.”
“My father employed her.”
“As what?”
“Accountant.”
Grace stared at the folders.
The answer arrived slowly.
“Elena didn’t come here for a waitress job.”
“No.”
“She came because of her mother.”
Dominic nodded.
“I suspected that much.”
“And you hired her anyway?”
“I wanted to know what she was looking for.”
Grace folded her arms.
“So you were watching her.”
“Yes.”
“Which explains the photographs?”
“No.”
He answered too quickly to be lying.
Grace believed him.
That frightened her more.
They carried the documents upstairs.
By midnight the restaurant was closed.
Rafael had checked every employee exit.
Nobody had taken responsibility for the stolen red ledger.
Grace sat at Table 14 with coffee she had forgotten to drink.
Dominic sat opposite.
In daylight—or ordinary circumstances—Grace imagined the arrangement might have felt strange.
A waitress in her first week having coffee after midnight with the most intimidating man she had ever met.
Instead, it felt like they were two people sitting inside the center of a puzzle.
“You should sleep,” Dominic said.
“You first.”
“I sleep.”
“You look like someone who schedules it quarterly.”
He leaned back.
That almost-smile appeared.
Grace liked it more than she wanted to.
She immediately looked at the papers.
“Why does everyone think you’re dangerous?”
“Everyone?”
“Half the room stops breathing when you stand up.”
“That might say more about them.”
“Dominic.”
He looked at her.
Grace realized she had used his name naturally.
No Mr. Romano.
No boss.
Just Dominic.
She lowered her voice.
“If I’m going to stay here, I need to know what kind of man I’m standing beside.”
His expression became unreadable.
“My family was involved in things I’m not proud of.”
“That’s vague.”
“It’s intentionally vague.”
“Were you?”
Another silence.
“When I was younger, yes.”
Grace’s stomach tightened.
He continued.
“I spent years separating the legitimate businesses from everything else. Romano’s remained because it belonged to my mother before she died. This restaurant is clean.”
“Except for the secret rooms.”
“Apparently.”
“And surveillance photographs.”
“Apparently.”
“And missing employees.”
“Elena isn’t missing.”
“She pretended to be.”
“Which is somehow not making this better.”
Dominic looked toward the bar.
“My father believed fear was useful. Carlo worshipped it. I eventually learned fear creates loyalty only until someone offers people a safer place to run.”
Grace studied him.
“Why did you leave that world?”
His jaw tightened.
“My mother asked me to.”
“Before she died?”
“Yes.”
That single word carried more emotion than everything Dominic had said that night.
Grace did not push.
Instead she asked, “What do you think Elena found?”
“Evidence.”
“Of?”
“My father and Carlo moving money through property companies.”
“That was years ago.”
“Yes.”
“So why would anyone care now?”
“Because buried money rarely stays buried.”
Rafael returned carrying the flash drive from Table 14.
“I got it open.”
They moved into Dominic’s office.
The drive contained spreadsheets.
Hundreds.
Transactions dated from eighteen years earlier through the month before Anthony Romano’s death.
Most were ordinary.
Some were not.
Amounts moved between Romano Development and Vittorio Holdings.
Payments to consulting companies.
Cash withdrawals.
Property acquisitions far below market value.
Then Grace saw one entry.
$240,000.
Recipient:
MARSH CONSULTING.
Date:
two weeks before Elena’s mother died.
Grace felt cold.
“Dominic.”
He saw it.
His face changed.
Rafael cursed quietly.
Grace opened another document.
A scanned handwritten memo.
Anthony—
I will not sign another false statement. Carlo knows I kept copies. If anything happens to me, Elena receives everything.
—Rebecca Marsh.
Elena’s mother.
Grace stared at Dominic.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“And she threatened to expose them.”
“Yes.”
“Then she died.”
Dominic said nothing.
Grace heard the implication anyway.
She looked at him carefully.
“Did your father—”
“I don’t know.”
It was the hardest version of those words she had heard him speak.
Grace realized Dominic was afraid of the answer.
Not for himself.
For what it would mean about the father he had already buried.
Rafael opened another file.
A video.
Security footage.
Date: eight months ago.
Elena entered the basement carrying the red ledger.
Grace leaned closer.
Someone followed her.
The image distorted.
A man appeared only for a second.
Tall.
Gray jacket.
Silver hair.
Then the video cut.
“Can you enhance it?” Dominic asked.
“I’ll try.”
Grace looked at the frozen frame.
Something bothered her.
She had seen that posture.
Maybe tonight.
Maybe the previous night.
Then she noticed the hand.
Gold watch.
Grace’s breath caught.
“The man who broke the glass.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“The customer on my first night.”
She pointed.
“The watch.”
Rafael enlarged the frame.
Gold casing.
Dark green face.
Distinctive.
Dominic stood immediately.
“Vincent Hale.”
“Who is he?” Grace asked.
“My father’s attorney.”
Grace stared.
“The same attorney from back then?”
“Yes.”
“And he still comes here?”
“Every Thursday.”
“Why?”
Dominic looked at the clock.
Thursday.
Grace turned toward the dining room.
Table 8 sat empty.
Vincent had left two hours earlier.
Rafael grabbed his phone.
“I’ll check cameras.”
Grace returned to the flash drive.
There was one final folder.
GRACE.
Her heart stopped.
“That wasn’t here before,” Rafael said.
Grace opened it.
One document.
A photograph appeared.
Grace at seventeen.
Standing beside her mother outside a high-school graduation ceremony.
Grace’s throat closed.
“How does someone have this?”
Dominic looked genuinely alarmed.
Grace scrolled.
Another image.
Her mother at twenty-five.
Standing beside Rebecca Marsh.
Elena’s mother.
Grace whispered, “No.”
Below the photograph was a scanned letter.
Rebecca—
If Carlo finds out what we copied, neither of our girls will be safe.
Take Grace and leave Chicago.
I’ll send Elena when I can.
—M.
Grace read the signature three times.
“M?”
Dominic stared at the letter.
His face drained of color.
Grace looked at him.
“What?”
He sat slowly.
“That handwriting belongs to my mother.”
Grace could barely hear herself.
“Your mother knew my mother?”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
A sound came from the dining room.
The front door opening.
Rafael reached beneath his jacket, then stopped himself and moved toward the hall.
Dominic stood.
Grace followed.
A woman was standing in Romano’s.
Dark hair.
Pale face.
Rain-soaked coat.
Grace recognized her from the missing-person photograph.
Elena Marsh.
She looked older now.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
Alive.
Dominic stepped forward.
“Elena.”
She looked past him.
Directly at Grace.
Then she said the sentence that changed everything.
“Your mother didn’t abandon you, Grace.”
Grace stopped breathing.
May you like
Elena’s eyes filled.
“She disappeared for the same reason I did.”
