Chapter 6 - THE SECRET SIGNATURE IN THE LEDGER
I glanced at Alessandro.
His face had gone pale.
“Who is Elias Bell?” I asked.
He did not answer immediately.
Dante entered the chapel, his expression tense.
“Alessandro.”
“What is it?”
“We found a vehicle parked behind the community center. The plates were removed, but the engine is still warm.”
Marie stood abruptly.
“He found me.”
Dante raised a hand. “We don’t know that.”
Alessandro looked at me. “We’re leaving.”
I folded the letter and slipped it into my coat.
Marie gripped my arm.
“Take me with you.”
I hesitated.
She looked frightened, but not helpless. For the first time, she seemed to understand that whatever happened next, she would have to face it alongside me rather than decide for me.
Alessandro said nothing.
The choice was mine.
I thought of the empty rooms after my father died. The years of working until my body ached. The secrets Marie had kept and the truths she had finally brought me.
“I’m not taking you back to the estate,” I said.
Her face fell.
“I’m taking you somewhere safe,” I continued. “But you will tell me everything you remember. No more deciding what I can handle.”
Marie nodded quickly.
“Yes.”
“And if you lie to me again, I leave.”
“I understand.”
Alessandro looked toward the corridor.
“Dante, arrange the safe apartment.”
Marie flinched at the word.
I noticed.
“Not one of your men’s apartments,” I said. “Somewhere neutral.”
“I know a place,” Sister Beatrice said.
We all turned toward her.
She held a small ring of keys in one hand.
“My sister runs a guesthouse outside the city. It is quiet, private, and not connected to the Caruso family.”
Alessandro considered her.
“Can she protect herself if someone comes looking?”
“She has protected half this city from winter,” Sister Beatrice replied. “I suspect she can manage a single unwanted visitor.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Alessandro inclined his head. “Then we’ll use the guesthouse.”
A sudden sound came from outside.
Not a gunshot.
A car door closing.
Dante moved to the window and looked through the narrow gap in the curtain.
“Someone is leaving the rear lot.”
“Can you identify them?” Alessandro asked.
“No.”
“Then we move now.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur of careful movement. Sister Beatrice led us through a side exit into a covered passage that connected to the community kitchen. Dante’s men checked the road before we crossed.
Marie walked beside me, clutching her coat closed.
At the car, she stopped.
“Your father loved you,” she said.
I looked at her.
“I know.”
“I should have told you more.”
“Yes.”
“I was not brave enough.”
“No,” I said. “You weren’t.”
She absorbed the words.
Then I opened the door for her.
“Try to be brave now.”
She nodded and climbed inside.
Alessandro waited until I was seated before closing the door.
The ride to the guesthouse was longer than the drive to St. Agnes. Marie sat opposite us, silent, her hands folded over the letter she had written years ago.
The ledger remained in my lap.
At last, I opened it.
The pages were filled with dates, company names, account numbers, and initials. Some entries were written in my father’s hand. Others had been added in a different ink.
I recognized the names of several shipping companies connected to the port.
One appeared repeatedly.
Bellhaven Maritime Holdings.
Another name was written beside it in the margin.
E.B.
I looked at Alessandro.
“Elias Bell,” I said.
He nodded.
“Who is he?”
“Chairman of Bellhaven Maritime.”
“Was he connected to your father?”
“He was my father’s closest business partner.”
Marie made a small, frightened sound.
I turned toward her.
“What?”
She stared at the ledger.
“Elias Bell came to our house the day before Daniel died.”
“Why?”
“He said he had come to warn your father.”
“Warn him about what?”
Marie shook her head.
“I don’t know. But he was carrying a black folder.”
I looked down at the entries.
A black folder.
The same kind my father had mentioned in the letter?
Alessandro reached for the ledger, but before he could touch it, a loose page slipped from the binding and fell onto the floor.
I picked it up.
At the top was a list of names.
Most were followed by amounts and dates.
At the bottom, beneath a line drawn heavily in blue ink, was a final entry.
S. Chen — protection transfer — paid to M. Chen.
My vision blurred.
I read it again.
Then again.
Marie saw the page.
Her face drained of color.
“I didn’t know what that was,” she whispered.
“What did you think it was?”
“Money for keeping you hidden.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know.”
The page trembled in my hand.
Alessandro took it carefully.
His eyes moved over the words.
“Protection transfer,” he murmured.
“What does that mean?”
He looked at Marie.
“Who paid you?”
She shook her head, bewildered.
“I thought it was from Vale.”
“But the initials beside the account aren’t his,” Alessandro said.
He turned the page over.
There, stamped faintly in black ink, was a symbol I had seen once before.
A stylized silver bird enclosed in a circle.
Alessandro’s expression changed.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Alessandro.”
He looked at me, and for the first time since I had met him again, I saw genuine fear.
“That seal belonged to my father’s private accounts,” he said.
The car continued toward the guesthouse, the ledger open between us.
“Then your father paid my aunt to hide me?”
“No.”
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Vittorio died six months before Daniel.”
I stared at the silver bird.
“Then who was using his account?”
Alessandro turned the page back toward the light.
Beneath the faded stamp, almost invisible beneath the ink, was a handwritten authorization.
The signature looked familiar.
It was not Vittorio’s.
May you like
It was the signature looked familiar.
It was mine.
