Chapter 26
Chapter 26
THEME: FONT SIZE: 18px“Bellini,” Dante said. “We need Bellini.”
CHAPTER 10 — THE HOSPITAL ROOM
St. Vincent’s had a private wing on the fourth floor, and by the time Dante arrived it had two of his men outside the door and a nurse who had been paid to say nothing.
Lorenzo Bellini was in bed nine.
He had been beaten. That was the first thing Dante saw — the swelling around the left eye, the split lip, the hand resting on the blanket with three fingers in a splint. Someone had worked him over carefully, in the way of men who wanted information rather than pain.
He was awake.
He looked at Dante for a long moment and then at Allesia, who had come in behind him, and something crossed his ruined face that was not surprise.
“You brought her,” he said.
“She brought me,” Dante said.
Bellini laughed, and it cost him. He winced and put his good hand to his ribs.
“Sit down,” he said. “Or don’t. I don’t know how long I’ve got.”
Dante sat.
Allesia stayed by the door.
“Vittorio,” Dante said.
Bellini’s eyes closed.
“Yes.”
“Alive.”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since always.” Bellini opened his eyes. “Since the funeral, which was a funeral for a body that was never in the box. He had a man in the coroner’s office. He had a man everywhere.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted out of the family without leaving it.” Bellini shifted against the pillow. “Your father was the face. Vittorio was the hands. When your father started asking questions about where the money was going, Vittorio decided it would be simpler to be dead. So he died, and he kept taking, and no one ever looked for a dead man.”
“He killed my mother.”
Bellini was quiet.
May you like
“Say it,” Dante said.
“I don’t know that he killed her.” Bellini’s voice was rough. “I know she was afraid of him. I know she found the accounts. I know she told me once that if anything happened to her, I should keep my mouth shut and my eyes open, and that I should stay close to the family, and that I should never trust a Moretti.” He laughed again, bitterly. “She meant him. She meant Vittorio. And I did it. Twelve years, I stayed close, and I kept my mouth shut, and I kept my eyes open, and I found out everything too late.”
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