Chapter 4 - PINO’S HIDING PLACE
Lucia believed Pino knew where the ledger was because she had seen him carrying “blue paper” through the garden two days earlier.
That sounded impossible.
Then she explained:
“Renata threw it.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
“Why?”
“She was mad.”
We checked cameras.
The rear service courtyard had one exterior angle.
At 6:12 the previous evening—before the clock accusation—Renata exited carrying a dark folder.
She tore something.
Placed several pieces into a trash bag.
Then left it beside garden waste.
At 6:27 Pino appeared.
He pulled the bag open.
Typical.
Then carried something blue toward the hedge.
The grounds crew had not yet collected the waste.
We searched.
Not with Pino like some movie bloodhound.
With staff wearing gloves.
Under a hedge, damp but readable, we found seventeen torn ledger pages.
Enough.
Not complete.
Enough.
The entries spanned nearly twelve years.
Codes.
Names.
Cash disbursements.
Contractors.
Dockworkers.
Local officials.
Union intermediaries.
Some payments might have been legitimate reimbursements hidden under terrible bookkeeping.
Others clearly were not.
My father had supposedly ended direct criminal operations years before his death.
The ledger suggested the transition had been slower than he admitted.
Then we found Mateo.
M. Alvarez - 65 - Bay 9 / witness
Witness.
Not accident payment.
Witness.
Another line three days later:
J. Caruso - 40 / relocation
And:
Equipment disposal expedited.
I stared.
Sofia sat opposite me.
Her face had gone completely still.
“Mateo witnessed something.”
“Maybe.”
She looked angry.
“Don’t give me maybe.”
I understood.
But I refused to lie for comfort.
“The ledger suggests that.”
“What was at Bay 9?”
Elise turned several pages.
There.
Moretti cargo - unmanifested - night transfer
The name made my stomach drop.
Moretti.
The family whose daughter was currently waiting in my east wing for an arranged marriage discussion.
Suddenly the meeting I had walked away from no longer felt unrelated.
The old ledger connected my father’s organization to the Moretti family through unmanifested freight moving out of Newark.
Not drugs according to the entries.
Cash-intensive luxury goods.
Untaxed imports.
Smuggling.
Still serious.
Mateo may have witnessed the transfer.
Then died two nights later.
Did my father order his death?
The ledger did not say that.
Did someone deliberately cause the forklift accident?
Not yet proven.
But Joseph Caruso had been paid and relocated.
That demanded explanation.
My attorney contacted outside investigators.
Not family security.
Outside.
Because if the Duca organization had covered Mateo’s death, my own people could be compromised.
Then another page changed everything.
R. Bellini - house placement / 12
Renata.
Her employment in my family household began eleven years ago.
One year after Mateo’s death.
A payment apparently associated with her placement.
By whom?
The entry immediately above it:
V. Moretti
Vittorio Moretti.
Bianca’s father.
I sat back.
Renata had not merely been a longtime loyal house manager.
She may have entered my house as someone else’s eyes.
And the marriage discussion happening that afternoon?
Maybe it wasn’t simply old families trying to consolidate influence.
May you like
Maybe someone had spent more than a decade positioning pieces around me.
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