Chapter 5 - THE SINS OF THE MOTHER
“Where did you get this?” I demanded, holding the ledger up like a weapon. My voice echoed off the sterile white tiles of the underground clinic.
Antonio turned, his eyes dropping to the book in my hand. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked caught off guard. He stepped forward to take it, but I snatched it back, pressing it to my chest.
“I said, where did you get this? This is my grandmother’s handwriting! Why is she keeping a ledger of mafia payouts in your basement?”
“Sophie, lower your voice. My mother is resting.”
“Don’t tell me to lower my voice!” Tears of betrayal pricked my eyes. “You told me you brought me here to protect me from Marco. But my grandmother is working for you? Is that why she’s in debt? Because of you?”
“She isn’t working for me,” Antonio said, his voice a low, heavy rumble. He ran a hand through his dark hair, looking suddenly incredibly tired. “She was working for the Moretti family. For Marco’s boss.”
I stepped back, shaking my head. “No. No, she’s a sweet old woman. She plays bingo. She doesn’t launder mob money.”
Antonio walked toward me, not stopping until he was inches away. He didn't touch me, but his presence was overwhelming.
“Twenty years ago, your mother was diagnosed with acute leukemia,” he said softly.
The mention of my mother made me freeze. “Yes.”
“The treatments were experimental. They weren’t covered by insurance. Your grandmother was desperate. She went to a loan shark named Carlo Moretti. He gave her the money. But the interest was impossible. When she couldn't pay, he forced her to use her job as a bank teller to wash his money. This ledger—” he pointed to the book “—is her insurance policy. She kept a record of every dirty dime she washed for them.”
I felt dizzy. The room tilted. Everything I knew about my family, about my grandmother's "gambling debt," was a lie. She had sacrificed her soul to try and save my mother.
“How do you know all this?” I whispered. “And how did you get the ledger?”
“Because,” Antonio said, his eyes darkening with an emotion I couldn't place. “I was a foot soldier for the Morettis back then. I was the one they sent to collect from her.”
I gasped, stumbling backward. “You… you threatened my grandmother?”
“I was a different man,” he said fiercely, finally reaching out and grabbing my shoulders. His grip was tight, desperate. “I hated who I was. I hated what the Morettis made me do. And then… I met your mother.”
The photograph in the locket flashed in my mind.
“You loved her,” I realized, the truth hitting me like a physical blow.
“I loved her,” Antonio confessed, his voice breaking. “I tried to pay off her debt myself. But she was too sick. When she died, I swore I would protect you and your grandmother. I stole that ledger from the Morettis so they couldn't use it against her anymore. I built my own empire to crush theirs. I watched over you, Sophie. From a distance.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. My entire life had been manipulated by this man. But before I could scream at him, the heavy steel door to the clinic buzzed.
Antonio’s radio on his belt crackled to life. Enzo’s frantic voice filled the room.
“Boss. We have a breach. The security gate is down. It’s Marco. He’s got men.”
Antonio’s face went rigid. The vulnerability vanished, replaced by the ruthless Don I had seen at the restaurant. He pulled a heavy black handgun from his shoulder holster.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “Lock the steel door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”
“Antonio, wait!”
He didn't look back. He sprinted out, the heavy door slamming shut behind him, the electronic lock engaging with a loud thud.
I was trapped underground with a sleeping, recovering woman. I paced the floor, my mind racing. Marco was here. The man who had terrorized my grandmother, the man who had planted the money clip.
Wait. The money clip.
I pulled it out of my pocket, examining it under the harsh fluorescent lights. I had assumed Marco dropped it by accident when he was outside Leo’s room. But Marco was a professional thug. He wouldn't drop a gold clip. He left it there on purpose.
He wanted Antonio to lock down the house.
My blood turned to ice. If Marco wanted the house locked down, it meant he already had someone inside. The inside job. The person who swapped the pills.
I looked up at the security monitors on the wall. They showed the camera feeds of the mansion. I saw Antonio and Enzo moving through the first floor, guns drawn.
Then my eyes flicked to the camera in the second-floor hallway.
Outside Leo’s room.
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A figure was walking toward the nursery door. It wasn't a heavily armed thug. It was one of the estate’s maids, Elena. The woman who brought Maria her tea every morning.
And she was holding a syringe.
