Chapter 13 - SOPHIA KNEW
Sophia dropped a teacup when Roman said Halsted Freight.
It shattered across her kitchen floor.
Nobody moved.
Roman stared at her.
“Sophia?”
“I’m old.”
“That doesn’t cause selective gravity.”
She glared at him.
Then looked at me.
I understood immediately.
“You knew.”
Sophia sat down.
She suddenly looked every one of her seventy years.
“I knew there was a fire.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” Roman said.
Sophia closed her eyes.
“Your mother went there.”
Roman froze.
“My mother?”
“Two days after.”
Roman’s mother, Isabella Vascari, had died when he was nineteen.
Car accident.
Rain.
A truck crossing lanes.
That was the story.
“What was she doing there?”
Sophia looked toward me.
“Trying to find out why six women had become widows.”
Roman sat opposite her.
“You worked for my mother.”
“I loved your mother.”
Something passed through Sophia’s face.
Not employee loyalty.
Grief.
“She hated your father’s businesses,” Sophia said. “Not all of them. The legitimate companies made money. But she knew Carlo was using warehouses and trucking contracts for things she didn’t want near you.”
“Did my father know?”
“Your father knew Carlo was dirty.”
Roman almost smiled.
“Everyone knew Carlo was dirty.”
“No.”
Sophia shook her head.
“Your father knew Carlo stole. He did not know how much Martin Devereux was helping him.”
The name landed again.
I leaned forward.
“What did Isabella find?”
Sophia looked at Roman.
“She found a second accounting system.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Books?”
“Not money.”
“What?”
“People.”
That was worse.
Sophia explained.
Workers.
Inspectors.
Union officials.
Judges.
Police officers.
Families who had been paid.
Families who had refused payment.
People who could be pressured.
People who could be bought.
People who had already been compromised.
A map of leverage.
Roman said nothing.
“Your mother called it the Book of Debts.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman stood.
“Sophia.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re holding something back.”
“Yes.”
At least she admitted it.
Sophia walked into her bedroom.
She returned carrying a small brass key.
Roman stared.
“What is that?”
“Your mother gave it to me six days before she died.”
His face changed.
“She told me that if you ever became like your father, I should destroy it.”
“And if I didn’t?”
Sophia looked at him.
“She said I would know when you became the kind of man who could survive the truth.”
Roman almost laughed.
“She made you my moral executioner?”
“She was Italian.”
Sophia shrugged.
“Drama was inevitable.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Roman did not.
“What does the key open?”
Sophia looked at him for a long time.
“Something inside the old estate.”
The estate we had sold.
Roman whispered:
“Where?”
May you like
“The wine cellar.”
And suddenly the house we had spent years escaping was pulling us back again.
