Chapter 5 - Saint Michael's Ledger)
Saint Michael's cemetery lay beneath the flight path to LaGuardia, a city of stone pressed against the dark edge of Queens. Daniel arrived at four thirty in the morning with Maria in the passenger seat and twelve men hidden two blocks away.
He had promised to come alone. Daniel had survived forty years by treating promises to enemies as temporary things.
Maria checked the pistol beneath her coat. Sofia remained at the mansion with Mrs. Bell and two guards Daniel trusted from childhood.
"If this goes wrong," Daniel said, "you return to the car."
"If this goes wrong, the car will be the first place they shoot."
"Matteo liked arguing too."
"That is not the compliment you think it is."
They found Rocco beside Matteo's mausoleum.
He sat against the stone with one hand pressed to his stomach. Blood soaked his coat. His other hand held a revolver pointed at the ground.
Daniel approached from the front. Maria circled behind a marble angel.
"Drop the gun, Rocco."
Rocco looked up. His face had aged ten years since the previous afternoon. "You brought her. Matteo always said you couldn't follow simple instructions."
"Matteo said many things to people he never mentioned to me."
The wounded man pushed the revolver away. "I did terrible work for your father, Daniel. Then worse work for you. But I did not kill your brother."
"You received money the day he died."
"To deliver the car. I thought we were staging his escape."
Maria stepped from behind the angel. "Who was in the car?"
Rocco's eyes filled with shame. "A dead man from the river. Same height. Same dental work after they changed two teeth. The ring was a copy. Matteo was supposed to cross into Canada before the fire made the news."
Daniel crouched in front of him. "Supposed to?"
"The driver changed. The route changed. I realized too late the escape was an execution."
"Did you see him die?"
"No. I saw the car that took him enter Pier Nineteen. It came out empty."
Hope was a crueler weapon than grief. Daniel felt it enter him anyway.
Maria leaned against the mausoleum. "Why did you come to my apartment?"
"To warn you. The other man came to kill you. I stopped him in the stairwell. You had already gone."
"You wore the pin."
"I thought it would make you trust me."
"It made me run for five years."
"Running kept you alive."
Rocco coughed and looked toward the bronze door of the mausoleum. Saint Michael was engraved above it, sword raised over a fallen serpent.
"The ledger is under his feet."
Maria inserted the brass key into a nearly invisible opening in the bronze frame. A section of stone beneath the engraving released. Inside was a waterproof case.
Daniel removed a black ledger, a flash drive, and a second envelope addressed to Maria.
Footsteps scraped on gravel beyond the mausoleum.
Daniel signaled his hidden men. No answer came through his earpiece.
Rocco gave a tired smile. "They found me first."
Gunfire shattered the quiet.
Daniel dragged Rocco behind the stone wall as bullets struck marble. Maria dropped beside him and fired twice toward the cemetery gate. A man fell between the graves. Three more advanced from the eastern path wearing police tactical gear without insignia.
"The back wall," Daniel said.
"Rocco cannot climb."
"Rocco is coming with us."
They moved between monuments. Daniel fired with controlled precision, forcing the attackers down. Maria held the case beneath her coat while supporting Rocco's weight. A plane descended overhead, its engines swallowing the sound of shots.
At the back wall, Daniel's driver crashed an armored sedan through the maintenance gate. Vincent stepped from the rear door with a rifle and fired toward the attackers.
"Move!" he shouted.
Daniel pushed Maria and Rocco into the car, then climbed in after them. The sedan accelerated while bullets hammered its reinforced panels.
Vincent looked at Rocco's wound. "Who shot you?"
"One of yours," Rocco whispered.
Vincent's expression hardened. "Convenient answer."
Maria clutched the case. Daniel said nothing about the ledger. He wanted to see whether Vincent would ask.
He did not.
Rocco died before they crossed the bridge.
Back at the mansion, Daniel opened the waterproof case in the locked archive room. Vincent stood on one side of the table, Maria on the other. The ledger contained dates, container numbers, payments, and initials spanning seven years. The Crow's Crown symbol appeared on every fifth page.
One column listed M.M. as a liability. Another listed S.A. as insurance. Beside both was a single letter: V.
"Matteo Moretti and Sofia Alvarez," Maria said.
Vincent shook his head. "Or names designed to make you think that."
Daniel connected the flash drive to an isolated computer. It requested a twelve-character password.
Maria opened the envelope addressed to her. Inside was a page in Matteo's handwriting.
If Sofia has my eyes, she also has the answer. The first place we called home. The day we decided to leave. The word I was too afraid to say.
"A password," Daniel said.
Maria read the lines again. "Our apartment was on Astoria Boulevard. We decided to leave on October eighteenth. The word was family."
She typed ASTORIA1018FAMILY. Too many characters.
Daniel tried combinations. All failed. After the fifth attempt, the screen warned that one more error would erase the drive.
Vincent placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Stop. Give it to my technician."
Sofia's voice came from the doorway. "Mommy?"
Mrs. Bell stood behind her, apologetic. "She woke from a nightmare."
Sofia ran to Maria, saw the photograph from the mausoleum, and touched Matteo's face.
"That's the man from my dream."
Maria knelt. "What dream?"
"He said the lion sleeps under roses."
Daniel and Vincent looked at each other.
There was an old Moretti phrase, known only to sworn members: The lion sleeps beneath the red rose. It meant that a command remained hidden inside an ordinary message.
Daniel took the note and read the first letter of each sentence, then the last. I. T. W. The numbers in the ledger translated them through a code their father had used.
He entered the final password.
The drive opened.
On the screen appeared a live video feed.
It showed the room they were standing in.
The image came from a camera hidden above the door. Daniel, Maria, Sofia, and Vincent were all visible.
May you like
Across the bottom of the screen, a message began typing by itself.
WELCOME, DANIEL. ONE OF THE FOUR PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM WILL KILL YOU.
