Chapter 8 - The Price of Loyalty|
The next morning, Enzo Barbieri arrived without warning.
He entered the mansion's main hall wearing a charcoal suit and carrying a silver-headed cane he rarely needed. His hair was white at the temples, his face lined but handsome, and his eyes retained the cold brightness that had made younger men nervous for decades.
Tomasso met him in the study.
Caterina remained upstairs, listening through the slightly open door.
"Congratulations on your marriage," Enzo said. "I would have attended the reception, but business kept me away."
"Strange. Everyone else managed to attend."
Enzo smiled.
"You've always had a talent for turning gratitude into suspicion."
Tomasso placed a copy of the notebook on the desk.
"Do you recognize this?"
Enzo glanced down.
For a fraction of a second, his expression changed.
Then it was gone.
"No."
"Look more carefully."
"I know my brother's handwriting. This isn't his."
"It's yours."
Enzo's smile disappeared.
Tomasso leaned back.
"Twenty-seven entries. Twenty-seven transactions. Several occurred before my father died. Your initials appear beside every payment."
"Initials prove nothing."
"Neither does family loyalty."
The older man's jaw tightened.
"Who gave you that notebook?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters if someone is using you to destroy this family."
"Someone already destroyed it."
Enzo stood.
"Your father was a difficult man. He trusted the wrong people. He believed criminals could become respectable simply by putting their names on buildings."
"He believed in cooperation with Matteo Moretti."
"Your father believed in many foolish things."
"Did you kill him?"
The question landed like a gunshot.
For several seconds, Enzo said nothing.
Then he walked toward the window.
"If I had wanted you dead, Tomasso, you would never have survived your twenty-fifth birthday."
"That isn't an answer."
"It's the only one you'll get."
Enzo turned back.
"Your bride has been feeding you stories. She has always been dangerous. Lorenzo hid her because he understood what she was."
"Then why did he give her to me?"
"Because he knew you'd be distracted by her face."
Tomasso's expression hardened.
"Leave."
Enzo stared at him.
"You would throw away eleven years of loyalty for a woman you met yesterday?"
"No. I'm questioning eleven years of loyalty because the evidence tells me I should."
Enzo picked up his cane.
"Be careful. A man who doubts everyone eventually stands alone."
When the door closed, Caterina entered the study.
"You heard," Tomasso said.
"Every word."
"He knew the notebook."
"Yes."
"Do you think he killed my father?"
"I think he knows who did."
Tomasso rubbed his forehead.
"There are moments when I wish you were the monster everyone described. It would make this simpler."
Caterina walked to the desk.
"Would you prefer a helpless woman who cried when people insulted her?"
"No."
"Then stop wishing for simple things."
She took the notebook and examined the dates.
One entry had been underlined twice.
The transaction had occurred the night Vittorio died. The money was transferred to a company registered in Delaware, then withdrawn through a bank in Switzerland.
Beside the amount was a small symbol: a circle crossed by a vertical line.
Caterina went still.
"What is it?" Tomasso asked.
"My father used that mark on letters he never wanted anyone to read."
"Can you decode it?"
"Maybe."
She turned to the window, thinking.
Then she remembered a nursery rhyme her mother had repeated when she was little. Four lines about a blackbird, a silver key, a sleeping king, and a door that opened only when the moon disappeared.
Caterina had believed it was a silly childhood song.
Now she wondered whether her mother had been teaching her a code.
She wrote the first letters of each line on a sheet of paper.
They formed a bank reference.
Tomasso read it twice.
"That's not a company."
"No," Caterina whispered. "It's an account number."
He reached for the telephone.
"Marco. Find the account."
Caterina stopped him.
"Not yet. If Enzo knows we're looking, he'll move the money."
"Then what do you suggest?"
She folded the paper and placed it inside her dress.
"We let him believe I still know nothing."
A slow smile crossed Tomasso's face.
May you like
For the first time, they were thinking like partners.
And somewhere in Chicago, a man who had controlled both families for eleven years had just lost the advantage of being the only one who knew the truth.
