Chapter 3
By midnight, the Bellandi estate was sealed.
Federal agents filled the house.
They opened safes.
Pulled paintings from walls.
Carried out boxes of files Victor had hidden behind wine cellars, prayer rooms, and the nursery where Nolan’s baby pictures still hung in silver frames.
I stood in the garden with the capos.
The folding chairs were still scattered across the lawn.
No one had touched them.
They looked like metal bones under the floodlights.
Santo stood beside me.
“You should go inside.”
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to pretend with us.”
I looked at him.
That almost broke me.
Because all my life had been pretending.
Pretending my mother was only a seamstress.
Pretending my father was only a bad memory.
Pretending I liked ledgers because I was harmless.
Pretending I did not know the men who smiled at me had once hunted my family.
Pretending I was not afraid every time Victor said my name.
Now the pretending was over, and my body did not know what to do with freedom.
Rafael brought me a coat.
I took it.
“Thank you.”
Old Pietro cleared his throat.
“Your father would have been proud.”
I looked away.
“Don’t.”
He went silent.
Regret touched his face.
Good.
They all had regrets now.
Men always found sorrow easier when consequences arrived.
When I was a child, no capo came to save my mother from eviction.
No capo stood between us and the men who followed us home.
No capo told Victor the truth when he called Alessandro a thief.
They bowed today because I had evidence.
Not because they suddenly had courage.
I wanted to trust them.
I did not.
That was wisdom, not bitterness.
An agent named Clara Reyes approached.
She was the only federal officer I had trusted with the full ledger.
She held a folder against her chest.
“Serafina.”
“Agent Reyes.”
“Victor is requesting to speak with you.”
Santo made a low sound.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“He doesn’t decide.”
Santo lowered his head.
“Of course.”
That was new too.
Men adjusting to my voice.
I turned back to Reyes.
“Why?”
“He says he knows where Alessandro is buried.”
The world fell away.
For years, I had not known if my father was dead.
My mother believed he was.
She lit candles on his birthday and whispered prayers she never explained.
But there had been no body.
No grave.
No goodbye.
My hand tightened around the ledger.
“He’s lying.”
“Maybe,” Reyes said. “But he gave a location marker.”
My knees almost folded.
Santo reached out, then stopped himself.
I was grateful.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Dining room.”
Victor sat at the long table with his wrists cuffed in front of him.
His jacket was gone.
His hair was no longer perfect.
Without power arranged around him, he looked older.
Smaller.
Still dangerous.
I entered alone.
Agent Reyes stayed by the door.
Victor looked up.
“You came.”
“You mentioned my father.”
He smiled faintly.
“You always had Lucia’s impatience.”
“If you say my mother’s name again, this conversation ends.”
His smile died.
Good.
I sat across from him.
“You have one minute.”
He leaned back.
“Your father was not the saint she made him.”
“I know.”
That surprised him.
I kept my voice steady.
“He was stubborn. Proud. Too trusting. He thought men like you could be reasoned with.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“He betrayed the old ways.”
“He wanted out of them.”
“He wanted to take the family legitimate and leave men like me with nothing.”
“No. He wanted men like you to learn honest work.”
Victor laughed.
It sounded bitter.
Then he looked down at his cuffed hands.
“He refused to run. That was his mistake.”
My heart stopped.
“You saw him?”
Victor lifted his eyes.
“The night he disappeared.”
I could barely breathe.
“What did you do?”
“I offered him exile.”
I knew that tone.
The polished lie.
I said nothing.
Victor sighed.
“He refused. Said he would come back with federal indictments. Said Lucia and the baby would be protected.”
The baby.
Me.
My throat closed.
“He thought law would save him.”
“Where is he?”
Victor gave the address.
An abandoned chapel outside Newark.
My mother had once taken me there.
I remembered broken windows.
Candle wax.
Her crying in the front pew.
She had known.
Or guessed.
My voice shook.
“Why tell me now?”
Victor looked at me for a long time.
“Because Nolan doesn’t know anything real.”
That was not remorse.
It was fear for his son.
Too late.
Always too late.
I stood.
“You should have told him the truth.”
Victor’s eyes flickered.
“I gave him power.”
“No,” I said. “You gave him a throne built over a grave.”
I left before he could answer.
Outside, dawn was beginning to gray the sky.
Agent Reyes received approval to search the chapel.
I went with them.
I had to.
When they found the burial site beneath the cracked stone floor, I did not cry at first.
I knelt.
Touched the dust.
May you like
And whispered the words my mother never got to say aloud.
“Papa, I found you.”
