Chapter 8 - The Black Crown
The photograph changed everything.
Federal investigators traced the package.
Nothing.
No fingerprints.
No usable camera footage.
The crown symbol appeared in fourteen companies that had never been connected to Salvatore.
Someone else had inherited—or created—the network.
I went back to the beginning.
My father’s ledger.
Numbers never lie.
People do.
One payment appeared every December.
$84,000.
Always to a different company.
Always ending at the same private foundation.
The Bellini Foundation.
Its chairman was Charles Bellini.
A respected developer.
Philanthropist.
And Lorenzo Moretti’s oldest friend.
Adrian stared at the name.
“Uncle Charlie.”
“Not actually your uncle?”
“No.”
“Those are usually the dangerous ones.”
We investigated quietly.
Bellini had attended my father’s funeral.
He had donated to my college scholarship fund.
That discovery made me nauseous.
Then my mother remembered him.
“Charles came to the house after your father died.”
“Why?”
“He offered money.”
“For what?”
“To help us move away.”
Bellini hadn’t been helping.
He had been trying to make sure we disappeared.
Adrian arranged a meeting.
Bellini greeted us warmly.
Too warmly.
“Elena Russo. You look like your father.”
“People keep telling me that.”
His eyes moved to the bracelet.
There.
Recognition.
He recovered quickly.
Not quickly enough.
We talked for twenty minutes.
Bellini denied everything.
Then I placed a single transaction on the table.
His smile vanished.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes.”
I leaned closer.
“His bookkeeping isn’t.”
Bellini’s lawyer ended the meeting.
But as we left, Bellini whispered:
“You should have taken your mother and left Chicago twelve years ago.”
Adrian heard him.
So did the microphone I was wearing.
That sentence became the crack.
Investigators opened Bellini’s records.
The empire began falling.
And Bellini made the same mistake powerful men always make when they believe themselves untouchable.
He tried to move the money.
Two hundred and sixteen million dollars.
All at once.
Banks flagged the transfers.
Accounts froze.
Partners panicked.
People started cooperating.
Within forty-eight hours, the Black Crown network began collapsing.
But Bellini disappeared.
And this time, he didn’t take money.
May you like
He took my mother.
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