Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN THEY CALLED A TRAITOR
By noon, an independent attorney named Rachel Monroe sat at my kitchen table.
Not Falcone counsel.
Not mafia anything.
Labor and civil litigation.
Expensive.
Roman offered to pay.
I refused.
Rachel suggested something smarter.
“If the Falcone family needs access to evidence you legally possess, we draft an evidence-sharing agreement. They can cover document preservation costs without becoming your personal counsel.”
Fine.
I liked her.
She did not seem impressed by Roman either.
Liked her more.
The documents were authenticated gradually.
Paper age.
Old corporate stamps.
Bank records still available through archived litigation.
Lucia’s handwriting compared with known letters.
Real.
Then came the difficult part.
Her death.
Official cause:
Cardiac arrhythmia.
No homicide investigation.
The family physician had reported Lucia suffered an unexpected medical event after dinner.
The Falcone brothers had been thirteen.
Their father kept them away from details.
But Mrs. Hess remembered.
“Lucia had been frightened for weeks.”
We sat in Falcone Manor’s small morning room.
“Of whom?” Roman asked.
“She never said.”
Mrs. Hess looked toward me.
“She started spending more time with Eleanor.”
Declan rubbed his face.
“We thought Mom liked her cooking.”
“She trusted her.”
Gabriel asked:
“What happened the night Mom died?”
Mrs. Hess closed her eyes.
“Dinner.”
“What did she eat?”
She almost laughed sadly.
“Not potatoes.”
Nobody smiled.
“Lucia barely touched dinner. She drank tea in the library afterward.”
“Who brought it?”
“I did.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“Who prepared it?”
Mrs. Hess became pale.
“Salvatore.”
Silence.
“He said Lucia asked for the herbal blend their mother used to make.”
Gabriel stood.
Declan cursed.
Roman remained seated.
Evidence first.
I could see him fighting himself.
“What happened afterward?”
“Twenty minutes later, she collapsed.”
“Eleanor?”
“Found her.”
Then something none of them knew.
“Eleanor tried CPR.”
Mrs. Hess started crying.
“Salvatore dragged her away because he said she was making it worse.”
My stomach twisted.
“And the next morning?”
“Her room was empty.”
Because Salvatore threatened me and Nora.
Mrs. Hess looked at me.
“I should have spoken.”
“You had three thirteen-year-old boys in a house run by the man you were afraid of.”
“That does not make silence right.”
No.
But explanations matter even when they do not erase.
Roman asked:
“What did our father do?”
Mrs. Hess looked at the floor.
“Nothing publicly.”
The brothers absorbed that.
Their father had spent years teaching them loyalty.
Yet when loyalty became inconvenient, he chose reputation.
Roman looked toward the windows.
Then said:
“We have inherited enough lies.”
Declan asked:
“What does that mean?”
“It means if Father covered this, we say so.”
Gabriel stared.
“Publicly?”
“Yes.”
May you like
The old Falcone family would have considered that betrayal.
Maybe that was the point.
