Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER IN SICILY
Vittorio Moretti had a brother.
That should not have surprised me.
Nothing about that family should have surprised me anymore.
It still did.
Dante stared at his father.
“Which brother?”
Vittorio’s face had become gray.
“Salvatore.”
Luca frowned.
“You told us Grandfather had one sister.”
“He did.”
“And a son named Salvatore.”
My stomach tightened.
“Your uncle.”
Dante looked at Vittorio.
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
The caller had said otherwise.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
Vittorio sat slowly.
For the first time, he looked seventy.
Maybe older.
“Salvatore was my younger brother. Twelve years younger.”
“Where was he?”
“Sicily.”
“Why didn’t he come to America?”
“He did.”
“When?”
“1989.”
Dante’s expression sharpened.
“I was a baby.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“He disappeared.”
“Convenient family habit.”
Luca looked at me.
“She’s not wrong.”
Vittorio ignored us.
Salvatore came to Chicago after discovering old letters between Maria Conti and Lucia Russo.
He wanted to reopen the history.
Why?
Because Salvatore’s father—Dante’s grandfather—had ordered Lucia’s father killed.
Salvatore believed the family owed restitution.
Vittorio believed exposing it would start a war with surviving Conti interests.
The brothers fought.
Then Salvatore vanished.
“Did you kill him?” Dante asked.
Vittorio looked at his son.
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“I believed so.”
“Believed.”
“Yes.”
“Did you investigate?”
“No.”
Silence.
Dante laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Vittorio’s jaw tightened.
“I was thirty. You were an infant. The family was unstable.”
“And that makes a brother easier to lose?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I was a coward.”
That stopped everyone.
Vittorio rarely seemed like a man who admitted flaws.
Maybe because fear had finally aged past pride.
He continued.
“I told myself Salvatore chose exile.”
“You knew better.”
“Yes.”
“What does he have to do with Isabella?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca looked at him.
“Do not lie again.”
Vittorio stared at his younger son.
Then nodded once.
“Isabella contacted him.”
Dante stopped breathing.
“When?”
“A year before she died.”
“How?”
“Old Conti priest in Palermo.”
“Why?”
“She was tracing Lucia.”
“So she found Salvatore too.”
“Yes.”
“Did he come here?”
Vittorio looked away.
“Once.”
Dante stood.
“You saw him.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“St. Gabriel’s.”
The same church named in the call.
I felt cold.
“Midnight.”
Vittorio nodded.
“Family chapel beneath the church.”
Of course mafia families had chapels beneath churches.
Normal life had left the building.
“Did Isabella meet him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Were you there?”
“For part.”
“What did he tell her?”
Vittorio looked at me.
“That Lucia’s letters proved our father ordered three killings tied to Conti succession.”
“One was Lucia’s father.”
“Yes.”
“Others?”
“Two witnesses.”
“Why did Isabella care thirty years later?”
“Because one witness’s son became a Kowalski.”
There.
The feud had not died.
It changed names.
The Kowalskis wanted the letters not only for leverage.
They wanted proof.
Maybe revenge.
“Who is Salvatore with now?” Dante asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Could he be working with Kowalski?”
“Yes.”
“Could he have killed Isabella?”
Vittorio flinched.
“I don’t know.”
Again.
Dante turned away.
I watched him fight anger.
Not suppress emotion.
Choose what to do with it.
That difference mattered.
Luca’s phone rang.
Task force.
Bridgeport location raided.
Three men arrested.
Toby found.
Alive.
I grabbed the back of a chair.
“Arthur?”
Luca listened.
His face tightened.
“Not there.”
“Blood?”
“Some.”
“Whose?”
“Unknown.”
Toby was being transported to a hospital.
I looked at Dante.
“I’m going.”
“Yes.”
No argument.
Good.
Then he said:
“I’ll come.”
I almost refused.
Stopped.
“Why?”
“To hear Toby’s version.”
“At the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“And because?”
He looked at me.
“Because Kowalski knows you now.”
“That sounds like control.”
“Yes.”
I appreciated the answer.
Then he corrected.
“Do you want me there?”
I considered.
The safest answer emotionally would be no.
The safest answer physically was yes.
I was learning those could coexist.
“Yes.”
Vittorio said:
“Midnight.”
Dante looked at him.
“We have hours.”
“You’re actually going?”
“Yes.”
“With her?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
I answered.
“If I choose.”
Vittorio looked at me as if no one had spoken to him that way in decades.
Excellent.
Toby’s hospital room had two police officers outside.
He was bruised.
Two cracked ribs.
No broken fingers.
I wanted to hug him and slap him.
I chose hug.
Then slapped his shoulder lightly.
He winced.
“Ribs.”
“Good.”
He laughed and cried.
“Emmy.”
“What did you do?”
“I found Grandma’s journals.”
“I know.”
“Arthur found me first.”
That surprised me.
“What?”
Toby told us Arthur had contacted him after the storage unit payment.
Not Kowalski.
Arthur had been watching the auction listing because Isabella told him Lucia’s descendants might eventually return for it.
“When he saw Grandma’s name, he traced me.”
“So the forty thousand?”
Toby looked ashamed.
“Kowalski offered it.”
“For what?”
“The journals.”
“You sold them?”
“No.”
Relief.
“I took the money and gave them copies with pages missing.”
I stared.
“You stole forty thousand from a syndicate.”
“When you say it like that—”
“There is no better way.”
Dante almost smiled.
Toby continued.
“Kowalski realized. They called it debt.”
“Where are originals?”
His eyes moved toward me.
“Mom’s grave.”
I closed my eyes.
“Of course.”
I was beginning to resent cemeteries as storage facilities.
“What do the journals say?”
“Grandma knew Isabella.”
I looked at Dante.
“Directly?”
Toby nodded.
“They met twice.”
“When?”
“Five years ago. Right before Grandma died.”
My heart tightened.
“Isabella came to Milwaukee?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Blue box.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Lucia gave it to her.”
Toby nodded.
“So Isabella had both,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Did Grandma tell her about me?”
“Yes.”
I breathed.
Toby looked guilty.
“I knew.”
“What?”
“I knew Isabella came looking for you.”
“When did you know?”
“After Mom died. I read the journal.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
He closed his eyes.
“I thought she was dead. I thought telling you would only drag you into whatever killed her.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone loves me so much they keep me ignorant.”
Toby flinched.
I regretted it.
Not because it was false.
Because he was my brother, not a villain.
“Sorry.”
“No. Fair.”
Dante watched us.
Maybe learning.
“What does Lucia say about the lullaby?” he asked.
Toby looked at him.
“That it is the key.”
“To decode what?”
“Letters. box compartments. one ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“Conti-Moretti accounts.”
Vittorio had not mentioned that.
Of course.
“What accounts?” Dante asked.
Toby shrugged.
“I never saw it.”
“What did Arthur want?”
“The blue box before Moretti found it.”
“Which Moretti?”
Toby looked at him.
“He kept saying your father.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“Why?”
“Because Isabella told Arthur Vittorio was protecting someone.”
Silence.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Arthur know?”
“He said he suspected.”
“Name?”
Toby hesitated.
Then:
“Luca.”
The room stopped.
Dante looked at his brother.
Luca had come with us.
His face emptied.
“What?”
Toby looked afraid now.
“Arthur said Isabella thought Luca had been meeting Kowalski.”
Luca laughed once.
“That's insane.”
Dante did not laugh.
“Were you?”
Luca looked at him.
“Yes.”
Silence.
My pulse jumped.
Dante whispered:
“Why?”
“To negotiate peace.”
“Without me.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Two years before Isabella died.”
Dante’s face changed.
“You met them before the bombing.”
“Yes.”
“Did Isabella know?”
“She found out.”
“And?”
“She was furious.”
“Did you threaten her?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Father?”
“No.”
“Who did you meet?”
“Piotr Kowalski.”
“What did he want?”
“Old Conti records.”
The boxes.
“What did you offer?”
“Money.”
“Did he accept?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Luca looked at me.
“He said blood remembers longer than money.”
My skin prickled.
Toby whispered:
“That line is in Grandma’s journal.”
We all turned.
“What?”
Toby continued.
“Lucia wrote that Salvatore Moretti said it when they met.”
The room went silent.
So Salvatore had been in contact with Lucia.
Maybe long before Isabella.
Maybe he was the bridge between families.
Dante looked at Luca.
“Did Kowalski mention Salvatore?”
Luca went pale.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He said Salvatore still had one Moretti son worth saving.”
Silence.
Dante stared.
“One son.”
Luca looked away.
Not both.
My stomach turned.
Maybe Kowalski believed Luca was the better heir.
Or the more useful one.
Dante’s phone buzzed.
Unknown.
Text.
A photograph.
Arthur tied to a chair now.
Behind him:
Stained glass.
Stone wall.
St. Gabriel’s.
Timestamp current.
Message:
MIDNIGHT.
LUCIA’S GRANDDAUGHTER.
DANTE.
AND LUCA.
NO VITTORIO.
I stared.
Then a second message appeared.
BRING THE GIRLS’ RED TRAIN.
Dante frowned.
“What red train?”
My skin went cold.
Bella had thrown a red wooden train before I arrived?
No.
That was another story in another world.
Here, I remembered the nursery.
Shattered dolls.
Feathers.
A red wooden music pull-toy near the crib.
I had stepped over it.
Mia had kicked it away when I began humming.
“Not a train,” I said.
Dante looked at me.
“What?”
“The red toy in the nursery.”
“What about it?”
“It had wheels.”
Luca frowned.
“Isabella brought it from Sicily.”
Dante went still.
“What is it?”
“A music carriage.”
My pulse jumped.
“Does it play the lullaby?”
Luca nodded.
“It used to.”
Dante looked at me.
The girls.
The blue box.
The lullaby.
A red carriage nobody had thought important.
May you like
I whispered:
“The box is inside the toy.”
