Chapter 3 - THE SON MATTEO WARNED ME ABOUT
Gabriel read the note twice.
He did not defend himself.
That frightened me.
Salvatore did.
“This could mean anyone.”
“At dinner?”
Gabriel looked at his father.
“I was sitting to your right.”
Salvatore snapped:
“Matteo hadn't seen you since you were a child.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“You don't know that.”
Silence.
Salvatore stared at him.
“What?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“When did Matteo die?”
“January seventeenth.”
His jaw tightened.
“I saw him January third.”
My grip tightened around the notebook.
“What?”
Salvatore stood.
“You knew where he was?”
“For twenty minutes.”
His father's face filled with something close to betrayal.
“You knew.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he made me promise.”
Salvatore slammed his hand on the table.
“You had no right!”
Gabriel didn't move.
“Interesting.”
The word landed.
Father and son stared at each other.
Gabriel continued:
“You spent thirty years deciding what other people had a right to know.”
Salvatore looked as if he'd been struck.
Gabriel turned toward me.
“Matteo contacted me.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to know whether I planned to take over the family.”
“And?”
“I told him no.”
That surprised me.
Everyone assumed Gabriel Rossi was the future.
“He didn't believe you?”
“He did.”
“Then why warn me about you?”
Gabriel looked at the notebook.
“Because he didn't trust what I was going to do next.”
Salvatore's voice hardened.
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel ignored him.
He looked at me.
“For three years, I've been separating legitimate companies from everything else.”
I understood.
“You're dismantling the organization.”
Salvatore looked furious.
“I am sitting here.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Do not discuss family business with a waitress.”
I stared at him.
“I'm taking your notebook home.”
Salvatore immediately softened.
“Please continue.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
He explained carefully.
No operational details.
Nothing that could drag me deeper.
The Rossi holdings included restaurants, freight companies, property, construction, and investments.
Some legitimate.
Some historically tied to criminal activity.
Gabriel wanted a line.
Clean books.
Clean ownership.
Businesses that could survive sunlight.
Salvatore thought he was erasing the family's strength.
Gabriel thought he was preventing its funeral.
“Where does Matteo fit?”
Gabriel looked at the coded pages.
“He believed someone was moving old money through the legitimate companies.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Salvatore said:
“Enzo is dead.”
Gabriel answered:
“His son isn't.”
Silence.
Luca Rossi.
Gabriel's cousin.
Forty.
Chief financial officer of Rossi Holdings.
Publicly charming.
Privately rumored to be everything Gabriel was not.
“Matteo thought Luca was stealing?”
“Matteo thought someone was rebuilding Enzo's network.”
“And you?”
“I think he was right.”
Salvatore sat slowly.
His anger had changed direction.
I looked at Matteo's warning again.
“Then why tell me not to trust you?”
Gabriel took a breath.
“Because I asked Matteo for the notebook.”
My eyebrows rose.
“He refused.”
“Why?”
“He said I was becoming too much like my father.”
Salvatore muttered something Sicilian that was definitely not a compliment.
Gabriel continued.
“I told him if he gave me the records, I could handle it quietly.”
There.
Quietly.
Control.
Exactly the kind of thing old men distrust in younger powerful men.
“What did he say?”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“He called me a beautifully dressed idiot.”
I laughed.
That sounded exactly like Matteo.
“He told me truth kept in a family room becomes another family lie.”
Salvatore looked down.
Matteo had been speaking about him too.
“So he wanted it public?”
“Eventually.”
Gabriel looked at the notebook.
“But first he wanted someone outside the family to understand it.”
Me.
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
“No.”
I pushed the notebook away.
“I carry plates for a living.”
“You also speak a dialect half my family barely understands.”
“That's not accounting.”
Salvatore studied me.
“Matteo chose you.”
“He also complained that my tomato sauce lacked courage.”
“Correctly?”
“Get out.”
Salvatore laughed.
Then coughed.
Hard.
Gabriel immediately moved toward him.
Salvatore waved him away.
The cough lasted too long.
When it stopped, he looked exhausted.
I remembered the rumors.
Dying.
Maybe that one wasn't fiction.
Gabriel brought water.
His father accepted it this time.
Then Salvatore looked at me.
“Your medical bills.”
I froze.
“What?”
Gabriel's head snapped toward him.
“How do you know?”
Salvatore shrugged.
“I am old, not incompetent.”
I felt anger instantly.
“You investigated me.”
“You came to my house carrying Matteo Cosenza's notebook.”
“I came because you ordered me here.”
“Invited.”
“Threateningly invited.”
Salvatore ignored that.
“Eighteen thousand.”
My face burned.
“None of your business.”
“I can pay it.”
“No.”
“Twenty thousand.”
“Did you hear the first no?”
His eyebrows rose.
Gabriel looked away, hiding a smile.
Salvatore frowned.
“You need money.”
“Yes.”
“I have money.”
“Congratulations.”
“Then this is simple.”
“No.”
His irritation grew.
“Why?”
“Because then I owe you.”
“You would be helping me.”
“Exactly.”
I pointed at the notebook.
“If you want my help, hire me.”
Both men stared.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“Contract.”
I folded my arms.
“Temporary archival and language consultant.”
Salvatore looked delighted.
Gabriel looked impressed.
“Hourly rate,” I continued.
“Defined scope.”
“No hidden surveillance.”
Salvatore coughed something that sounded like laughter.
“No threatening my manager.”
“Pity.”
“No threatening anyone.”
He frowned.
“We negotiate.”
“Then I'm leaving.”
Gabriel said:
“Agreed.”
His father turned.
“You don't negotiate like that.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“I think she does.”
For the first time in my life, I left a mafia meeting with a legitimate employment contract being drafted.
And for the first time in months, I thought I might actually pay my medical bills.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, as I reached the sidewalk, a black car across the street pulled away.
Someone had been watching the house.
That evening, when I returned to Ilvento, Richard met me in the staff hallway.
“You've got a visitor.”
“Who?”
May you like
His face had gone pale.
“Luca Rossi.”
