Chapter 5 - MY MOTHER'S SECRET
The doctors refused to let me leave the hospital.
I refused to let Dominic go to Saint Agnes without me.
We compromised badly.
He went.
I threatened everyone.
My mother took Dominic's side, which I considered betrayal.
“You have seven bullet wounds,” she reminded me.
“Four bullets.”
“Seven wounds.”
“Technicality.”
“You cannot walk to the bathroom without a nurse.”
“Unrelated.”
Isabella sat beside the window knitting something that looked too small to be useful.
“You are exactly like Daniel,” she said.
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“No.”
She smiled faintly.
“It explains why my son looks terrified.”
Dominic did not look terrified.
He looked annoyed.
I was beginning to understand those were closely related emotions for him.
He left before dawn with Enzo and six men.
I hated that I knew the number.
I hated even more that I cared whether he returned.
At eight twelve, my phone rang.
Dominic.
I answered immediately.
“Well?”
“We're inside.”
“Did the key work?”
“Not on the doors.”
“Then what?”
“We found a cabinet behind the old sacristy wall.”
My heart raced.
“The key fits.”
“Open it.”
Silence.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“There's nothing inside.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Victor Costa had beaten us.
Then Dominic added, “Except an envelope.”
“For who?”
“You.”
I sat up too quickly.
Pain exploded through my ribs.
My mother yelled at me.
I ignored her.
“What does it say?”
“I'm bringing it back.”
“Dominic.”
“I am not reading your father's letter to you over the phone.”
“You married me unconscious but suddenly believe in boundaries?”
Silence.
Isabella burst out laughing.
Even my mother smiled.
Dominic hung up.
He returned forty minutes later.
There was blood on his cuff.
I noticed immediately.
“Whose?”
“Not mine.”
I looked at Enzo.
He shook his head slightly.
Not now.
Fine.
Dominic placed a yellowed envelope on my blanket.
My name was written across it.
MARA.
My father's handwriting.
I knew it instantly from birthday cards my mother had saved.
My hands started shaking.
For fifteen years, I had spoken to him in my head.
Now he was answering.
I opened the envelope carefully.
Mouse,
If your mother ever gives you this, then I failed to get us out clean.
I stopped.
My vision blurred.
My mother sat beside me, crying before I even continued.
The letter was four pages.
My father explained only enough to make me understand he had been afraid.
He said he discovered people stealing through port contracts and paying officials to hide it.
He copied the ledger because he thought truth would protect us.
Then he realized truth can become another weapon when powerful men want it.
He wrote:
The book is not at the church. The church is only where I hid the map.
I looked up.
“Map?”
Dominic's expression sharpened.
I kept reading.
Inside the envelope was a child’s drawing.
Mine.
A house.
A yellow sun.
Three stick people holding hands.
And a crooked blue lake.
I remembered drawing it in first grade.
On the back, my father had written numbers.
Not coordinates exactly.
Parcel numbers.
Isabella recognized the first one.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
She looked at Dominic.
“Lake Bell.”
Dominic swore under his breath.
I knew the name.
The Rossi family owned a cabin near Lake Bell in upstate New York.
My father had taken us there once when I was little.
I barely remembered it.
A dock.
Pine trees.
My mother making pancakes.
Dominic spoke quietly.
“Antonio used that cabin for private meetings.”
“Then my father hid the ledger there.”
“Maybe.”
I continued reading.
If Antonio keeps his word, no one will ever need the book. If he cannot, the blue place holds what men like Costa fear most.
At the bottom, my father had written one more sentence.
Trust Ellen with your heart. Trust Isabella with your life. Trust no Rossi man until he proves he deserves it.
The room went silent.
I slowly looked at Dominic.
Isabella laughed first.
“Oh, Daniel.”
Dominic rubbed a hand over his face.
I folded the letter.
“My father had excellent judgment.”
“So I've been told.”
My mother was staring at the drawing.
“Mara.”
Her voice changed.
“What?”
“I know where at the lake.”
Every head turned toward her.
She pointed to the stick-figure house.
“Daniel made you draw this over and over after that trip.”
“I was six.”
“You always put the chimney on the wrong side.”
“So?”
She tapped the paper.
“This time you didn't.”
I looked closer.
The chimney was on the left.
My mother whispered, “Because Daniel stood behind you and told you exactly where to draw it.”
Dominic took the picture.
“The chimney.”
“What's under it?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“At that cabin?”
“Yes.”
He paused.
“An old stone fireplace.”
The answer seemed too obvious.
Which probably meant it was right.
Then Enzo's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
“What?” Dominic asked.
Enzo lowered the phone.
“Costa's men just left Saint Agnes.”
“So?”
“They took Father Michael.”
Isabella stood.
“The priest?”
Enzo nodded.
“He's eighty-two.”
My mother crossed herself.
Dominic’s face became frighteningly calm.
Then Enzo added the part that made my blood turn cold.
“They left a message.”
“What message?” I asked.
Enzo looked at me.
“Costa says he wants the ledger by midnight.”
“And if he doesn't get it?”
“He kills the priest.”
A pause.
“Then he starts with Ellen.”
My mother reached for me before anyone else could speak. Her fingers were cold. “He won’t get near me,” she said, which was exactly the kind of sentence mothers use when they are trying to comfort their children and themselves at the same time.
Dominic turned to Enzo. “Double Ellen’s detail. No routines. No repeated routes.”
I opened my mouth. He caught himself before I could say anything.
He looked at my mother instead. “Mrs. Bennett, may I increase your security?”
The whole room went quiet.
My mother blinked. Then a slow smile appeared. “You can learn.”
“Occasionally.”
“Yes,” she said. “Increase it.”
I leaned back against the pillows, strangely moved by something so ordinary: a question asked before action.
Father Michael’s life hung in the balance. Costa was still free. The ledger might be hidden behind an old fireplace two hours away. Nothing was safe.
But safety, my father would later remind me, was never the same thing as control.
“Midnight,” I said.
Dominic looked at me.
“We have less than fourteen hours.”
His face hardened into focus. “Then we stop arguing about whether this is happening.”
“And start arguing about how.”
May you like
That almost earned another smile.
Almost.
