Chapter 4 - The Secret Hidden Inside Her Father’s Debt
The attack changed everything.
The Moretti house locked down.
For the first time, Lena did not argue.
Someone had entered armed.
Someone knew about the notebook.
And someone wanted her.
Marco claimed the attackers belonged to an old criminal organization that had once worked with Vittorio Moretti.
Dominic did not believe him.
Neither did Lena.
Especially after discovering the missing pages.
The following morning, Dominic confronted Marco privately.
Lena listened from the pantry.
She knew it was wrong.
She did it anyway.
“You had the notebook,” Dominic said.
“I was protecting it.”
“From whom?”
“From her.”
Lena’s stomach tightened.
Marco continued.
“Sofia hid something inside it. Your father spent years looking.”
“What?”
“A list.”
“What list?”
“Names. Judges. businessmen. police officials. People Vittorio paid.”
Silence.
Then Dominic asked the question Lena feared.
“Why would Sofia have it?”
Marco answered.
“Because she kept your father's books.”
Lena covered her mouth.
Her mother had not simply known the Morettis.
She had worked for them.
That evening, Dominic found Lena sitting alone in the kitchen.
“You heard.”
“Yes.”
He did not ask how.
“My mother was involved.”
“She kept financial records. That doesn't mean she participated in everything.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
Lena appreciated that he did not lie.
“Why did she leave?”
Dominic sat opposite her.
“Maybe because she discovered something she couldn't live with.”
“And the $340,000?”
“Payment for silence.”
“To Marco’s father.”
“Yes.”
“Then why does my father owe it?”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“He doesn't.”
Lena looked up.
“What?”
“The debt is fake.”
Dominic placed documents on the counter.
“Marco created it.”
Her blood turned cold.
“He used old accounts, moved money through intermediaries and made it look as though your father borrowed it.”
“Why?”
“To bring you here.”
The room seemed suddenly smaller.
“Marco arranged my job?”
“Yes.”
“But my father—”
“Participated.”
That hurt worse.
Lena stood.
“I need to talk to him.”
“We haven't found him.”
“Then find him.”
“I am.”
“Find him faster.”
Dominic stood too.
She expected anger.
Instead he said, “I will.”
Two days later, they found Gianni.
He was hiding in a motel outside Philadelphia.
When Lena entered the room, her father looked twenty years older.
She slapped him.
Dominic remained outside.
Gianni touched his cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“You sold me.”
“No.”
“You sent me into that house knowing what Marco wanted.”
“I sent you to Dominic.”
“Why?”
“Because Dominic was the only person powerful enough to keep you alive.”
Lena stopped.
Gianni began crying.
He told her everything.
Sofia had discovered Vittorio Moretti’s private ledger.
But the ledger contained something worse than corruption.
Evidence that Marco Fieri Sr. had been secretly betraying the Moretti family and arranging murders blamed on rivals.
Sofia copied the evidence.
Marco Sr. discovered it.
The $340,000 had not bought Sofia’s silence.
It had bought Gianni’s.
After Sofia died, Gianni accepted the money to disappear with Lena.
But he never spent it.
He hid it.
Years later, Marco Jr. discovered the transaction.
He believed Gianni still possessed his mother's evidence.
“So he invented the debt,” Lena whispered.
Gianni nodded.
“To force me to bring you to New York.”
“Why me?”
“Because your mother didn't trust me with the evidence.”
Gianni looked ashamed.
“She trusted you.”
“I was a child.”
“She believed one day you'd understand.”
Lena thought about the notebook.
The recipes.
The missing pages.
“What did she leave me?”
Gianni whispered:
“Not a list.”
Lena leaned closer.
“What?”
“A recording.”
Silence.
“Where?”
Gianni looked at her.
“You've had it the entire time.”
And suddenly Lena remembered the one object she had carried from apartment to apartment for fourteen years.
May you like
Her mother's old kitchen timer.
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