Chapter 37

Chapter 37

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Dante’s hand had closed into a fist at his side.

“She was breathing,” he said.

“She was breathing.”

“And you didn’t call for help.”

“I called for help,” Vittorio said. “Four minutes later. After I was sure the book was gone.” He smiled, and it was the worst thing Dante had ever seen. “That was the mistake. That four minutes. If I had called first, she might have lived, and I might have gone to prison, and neither of us would be standing here.”

The rain ran down Dante’s face.

Behind the mausoleum, Allesia stood with the satchel against her chest and did not move.

“I’m going to destroy you,” Dante said.

“No,” Vittorio said. “You’re going to burn the book, and you’re going to let me leave, and you’re going to keep your city and your company and your conscience, and you’re going to live the way I told you to live.”

“No.”

“Then you’re going to die the way your father did,” Vittorio said. “Slowly. In your own house. With everything you love in pieces around you.”

He turned toward his car.

And that was when Allesia stepped out from behind the mausoleum.

CHAPTER 14 — THE CLIMAX

She walked out into the open with the satchel in both hands, and Vittorio stopped.

He looked at her for a moment. Then he laughed.

“The maid,” he said.

“My name is Allesia Romano,” she said. “My father was Giovani Romano. He worked for your family for eleven years, and he kept your sister-in-law’s ledger in a storage locker under Union Station for twenty years, and he taught me to keep my head down, and he died on the Ryan when I was nineteen.” She stopped ten feet from him. “You told me in the boathouse that you didn’t kill him. I want you to say it again. To my face.”

Vittorio looked at her.

“I didn’t kill him,” he said.

“You threatened him.”

“I threatened him.”

“You took everything he had and made him spend two years being afraid.”

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“Yes.”

“And when he died anyway, you kept looking for the book. For twenty years. Because he’d beaten you.” Allesia’s voice was steady. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not the money. You’ve had the money for fourteen years. This is about the fact that a quiet accountant in a small apartment outsmarted you and you couldn’t find him.”

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