Chapter 5 - THE OLD VASSALLO BAKERY
The old Vassallo bakery had been closed for twenty-eight years.
You could tell.
The painted letters above the storefront had faded until only VASS remained clearly visible. Brown paper covered the windows. A metal gate hung crooked across the front entrance, and the alley beside the building smelled like wet brick and old grease.
At eleven forty-five, rain still fell.
Not hard anymore.
Just enough to make the city shine.
Dante parked half a block away.
“No guns,” I said.
He looked at me.
“I read the message.”
“That was not confirmation.”
He opened his coat.
No shoulder holster.
No gun at his back.
I blinked.
“You actually listened.”
“Do not get used to it.”
Arthur remained in the car with two security men parked farther down.
Dante had agreed to the meeting only after surrounding the neighborhood without technically violating the instruction.
Crime bosses apparently understood loopholes better than lawyers.
We walked toward the bakery.
My phone vibrated.
Toby.
I ignored it.
Then it rang again.
I answered.
“What?”
“Wow. Warm.”
“You are supposed to be driving to Wisconsin.”
“I’m at a gas station in Kenosha.”
“Keep going.”
“I just wanted to know if Mom’s okay.”
“I’ll call you when I know.”
“You sound scared.”
“I’m meeting a woman who may be our eighty-year-old criminal relative inside an abandoned bakery at midnight.”
“Okay, but aside from that?”
I almost laughed.
Dante glanced at me.
“Go to Aunt June’s,” I told Toby. “Stay there. Do not answer calls from anyone you don’t know.”
“What if it’s you from a different number?”
“I will insult you in a way no stranger could.”
“That feels secure.”
I hung up.
The bakery door opened before we knocked.
My mother stood there.
Relief hit so fast I nearly shouted.
“Mom.”
I grabbed her.
She hugged me tightly.
She smelled like Ivory soap and the peppermint gum she chewed when nervous.
“You are alive.”
“I told you I was safe.”
“You turned your phone off.”
“Because you would track me.”
“I do not know how to track phones.”
She glanced at Dante.
“He does.”
Fair.
I pulled back.
“What are you doing here?”
My mother’s eyes moved to Dante.
For a second, she looked almost afraid.
Then angry.
“You look like your father.”
Dante went still.
“You knew him?”
“No.”
She stepped aside.
“But she did.”
The elderly woman from the photograph sat at a round table beneath a single hanging light.
White hair.
Thin hands.
Red-bird necklace.
Caterina Vassallo.
Alive.
She looked at me first.
Then Dante.
Her expression changed when she saw him.
“Vittorio’s boy.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“My name is Dante.”
“So was his mouth when he was angry.”
“That does not make sense.”
“It does in Italian.”
I looked at my mother.
“You came here willingly?”
“Yes.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Because Caterina asked for one hour before the Morettis knew she was alive.”
Dante stared at the old woman.
“You had almost four decades.”
Caterina smiled faintly.
“And yet here you are exactly on time.”
The bakery interior had barely changed since closing.
Old display cases.
Dusty shelves.
A coffee machine that looked older than I was.
Someone had cleaned the table and placed four chairs around it.
Dante remained standing.
Caterina looked at the empty chair.
“Sit.”
“No.”
“Your father used to do that too.”
Dante sat.
I almost admired her.
My mother squeezed my hand.
“Listen before you get angry.”
“That instruction has never improved anyone’s mood.”
Caterina smiled.
“Rosa used to say that.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew Grandma recently?”
“Until she died.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
The answer confirmed what I remembered.
Grandma Rosa had died one year before Isabella.
“Did Isabella know her?”
Caterina looked at Dante.
“Yes.”
His face hardened.
“You said no one outside Isabella’s family knew the lullaby.”
“She did not consider Rosa outside.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because you were Moretti.”
He leaned forward.
“She married me.”
“She loved you.”
Caterina’s voice was gentle.
“That is not the same as trusting the house around you.”
Dante stopped.
The sentence hit because it matched Isabella’s video.
I don’t know who I can trust inside the house.
Caterina touched the red bird at her throat.
“Rosa and I were sisters. We stopped speaking for many years because I made choices she could not forgive.”
“You joined Michele Kowalski,” I said.
Her mouth tightened.
“I married him.”
My mother looked surprised too.
“You never told me that.”
“There are marriages no woman enjoys remembering.”
Dante folded his arms.
“What did my father do to you?”
Caterina looked at him for a long time.
“Vittorio Moretti and Michele began as partners.”
“In what?”
“Trucking. Gambling. Protection. Whatever men called theft when they wore good suits.”
“Moretti and Kowalski were allies?”
“Yes.”
Nobody in Chicago believed that now.
The two organizations had hated each other for as long as I had heard their names.
“How did it end?” I asked.
“With Sofia.”
Caterina’s granddaughter.
Isabella’s mother.
Dante went rigid.
“What happened?”
“My daughter wanted nothing to do with either family. She met a man named Paul DeMarco and tried to leave Chicago.”
I knew that name from Dante.
Isabella had been Isabella DeMarco before marriage.
“Michele refused,” Caterina continued. “Vittorio offered to help.”
Dante frowned.
“My father helped Sofia leave?”
“No.”
Caterina’s gaze hardened.
“He offered because he wanted something in exchange.”
“What?”
“Routes. Accounts. Names. Everything Michele had hidden behind the bakery.”
I looked around.
“This bakery?”
“Yes.”
My grandmother’s sister had married into the Kowalski organization, and the old family bakery had become financial cover.
“Rosa found out,” Caterina said. “She threatened to go to police.”
My mother whispered, “Grandma?”
“She was always braver than me.”
Caterina looked at Nora—at me.
“She took Ava and disappeared into the Bennett name. I stayed because I thought protecting Sofia required staying close to Michele.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
One word.
A lifetime.
“Michele and Vittorio turned on each other. Sofia escaped anyway. She raised Isabella under the DeMarco name and told her almost nothing.”
“Until when?” Dante asked.
“Until Isabella became pregnant.”
His face changed.
Caterina nodded.
“Your wife wanted to know what kind of family she was bringing children into. Sofia told her some of it.”
“And Isabella found Rosa.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Church records.”
Dante looked at me.
“Your grandmother knew who Isabella was.”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell her?”
Caterina looked at me.
“Everything she was afraid to tell you.”
I sat back.
“Why me?”
“Because Rosa believed blood should not be a sentence.”
“Cryptic. Runs in the family.”
My mother almost smiled.
Caterina opened a leather handbag.
Dante’s body tightened.
She removed a small cassette recorder.
Old.
Gray plastic.
“She gave this to me two months before she died.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Grandma?”
“Yes.”
“Why keep it?”
“She told me to wait until either Isabella came to me or a girl named Nora entered the Moretti house.”
I stared.
“What?”
Dante turned toward me.
“I swear I did not know.”
Caterina slid the recorder across the table.
A piece of masking tape on the cassette read:
FOR NORA.
My fingers trembled as I pressed play.
Static.
Then my grandmother’s voice.
“Picciridda.”
Little girl.
I stopped breathing.
“Nora, if you are hearing me, then you are probably angry.”
My mother laughed through sudden tears.
Grandma continued.
“Good. Anger means you still believe the truth matters.”
I covered my mouth.
“I did not tell you about Caterina because I wanted you to inherit recipes, not enemies. I did not tell Ava who her biological father was because Michele Kowalski believed children belonged to fathers like property. He was wrong.”
Dante’s eyes moved toward me.
“The Morettis were no better. Vittorio believed family secrets were money. He collected them.”
Caterina looked away.
Grandma’s voice crackled.
“Isabella came to me five years ago. She was pregnant with twins and terrified. She had found evidence someone inside the Moretti organization was paying doctors, guards, and accountants through old companies connected to Vittorio.”
Dante leaned toward the recorder.
“She asked me about the Vassallo bakery because one company used this address long after the bakery closed.”
Dante whispered, “Which company?”
The tape continued as if answering him.
“Red Bird Imports.”
Dante’s face drained.
I knew that reaction.
“What?”
He stood.
“Red Bird Imports was my father’s private holding company.”
Caterina nodded.
“After Vittorio died, Enzo controlled it.”
Silence.
Grandma’s voice continued.
“Isabella believed Enzo was using the company. She did not know why.”
Dante stared at the recorder.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Caterina answered for the dead woman.
“Maybe she tried.”
He looked at her.
“We did not keep secrets.”
The old woman’s expression softened.
“All marriages keep something. Sometimes only for an hour. Sometimes long enough to become a grave.”
That hurt him.
I could see it.
The cassette hissed.
Then Rosa said, “If Isabella is gone when you hear this, do not assume the first target was her.”
Every person at the table went still.
Dante’s face became stone.
The recording continued.
“Ask who was supposed to be in the car.”
Dante stood so abruptly the chair struck the floor.
I knew the public story.
Isabella died in a car bombing after leaving a charity dinner.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Dante.”
His eyes were distant.
“That was my car.”
My mother whispered, “Oh God.”
Dante looked at Caterina.
“I was supposed to leave first.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“The twins were sick. Isabella told me to go home to them. She stayed for the speeches.”
He swallowed.
“My driver was sent back for her.”
“So whoever planted the bomb—”
“Expected me.”
His voice had gone quiet.
Terrible.
“They expected me.”
The cassette ended.
For several seconds, only rain tapped against the bakery windows.
Then Caterina spoke.
“Isabella discovered the same thing.”
Dante turned.
“When?”
“Before she died.”
“You just said she did not know.”
“I said she did not know why Enzo used Red Bird Imports.”
Caterina’s eyes hardened.
“She did know someone was preparing to remove you.”
Dante’s hands curled into fists.
I noticed.
He did too.
Slowly, he opened them.
That frightened me more than rage.
Controlled men were always the dangerous ones in these stories.
I asked, “Why would Enzo want Dante dead?”
Caterina looked at him.
“Ask him who takes control if Dante dies.”
Dante’s answer came immediately.
“Enzo.”
My stomach dropped.
“Because the twins are children?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the dark bakery windows.
“As senior Moretti, he would hold everything in trust.”
Dante’s phone rang.
Arthur.
He answered.
“What?”
Whatever Arthur said changed his face.
“When?”
A pause.
“Lock the building.”
Another pause.
“No one leaves.”
Dante hung up.
“What happened?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“The nursery was entered.”
My chest tightened.
“The girls?”
“With Arthur’s wife in the downstairs playroom. Safe.”
“Then what was taken?”
Dante’s eyes went cold.
“Isabella’s tablet.”
Caterina stood with surprising speed.
“Who had access?”
Dante answered.
“Enzo.”
At that exact moment, every light in the bakery went out.
My mother gasped.
Glass shattered in the front.
Dante grabbed me and pulled me behind the counter.
A vehicle roared outside.
Then headlights swept across the paper-covered windows.
Someone shouted in the alley.
Arthur’s security team moved.
No gunfire.
Only tires.
Running feet.
Then silence.
My phone lit in the dark.
A message from an unknown number.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE SONG BURIED.
A second arrived.
THE GIRLS ARE NEXT.
Dante saw it over my shoulder.
He did not speak.
He simply took out his own phone and called Arthur.
“Move Mia and Bella to the safe room.”
A pause.
“And Arthur?”
His voice became colder than the rain.
“Find my uncle.”
Then the line ended.
May you like
For the first time since meeting Dante Moretti, I did not wonder whether I should fear him.
I wondered whether Enzo Moretti had any idea what he had just awakened.
