Chapter 7 - The Voice Behind the Door
A six-year-old child had just broken Isabella’s story with one remembered word.
Bella.
Victor Hale had called her that at every family dinner Alessandro could remember.
Detective Grant asked Emma to repeat exactly what she heard.
Emma did, slowly. A man’s voice. Isabella whispering. The clink of a spoon against glass. Then the sentence: After tomorrow, Romano won’t be able to stop us.
“Did you see his face?”
“No. Just his coat and hand.”
Isabella stood. “This is absurd. She’s a child.”
Alessandro stepped between them. “You don’t get to use her age when her warning is the reason I’m still standing.”
Isabella’s anger broke through. “And you don’t get to turn one frightened little girl into a judge!”
Emma recoiled.
Alessandro pointed toward the door. “Out.”
Detective Grant took Isabella to the station for a formal interview.
That afternoon, Victor’s blood type came back from the car. The blood was his, but there was too little to suggest a fatal injury. Security cameras near the east gate showed a gray sedan leaving at 5:42 a.m. Its plates were hidden.
Marco recognized the model.
“Your father used to drive one.”
Alessandro gave him a tired look. “My father is still dead, Marco.”
“I know. But the car is registered to the Romano Historical Trust. It sits in the old carriage garage downtown.”
They drove there with Detective Grant.
The garage door had been forced.
Inside, the space smelled of dust and motor oil. One vehicle bay was empty.
On a workbench lay a velvet ring box.
Empty.
Then Marco found a fresh cigarette in an ashtray.
Enzo had quit smoking fifteen years ago. Victor did not smoke.
Alessandro knew one man in the family who still did.
“Where’s Carlo?” he asked.
Marco’s expression darkened.
Carlo Romano was Alessandro’s cousin, Enzo’s only son, and the charming disaster the family had spent twenty years rescuing from consequences.
Marco called him.
No answer.
Then Alessandro’s phone rang from an unknown number.
He answered.
A man breathed once into the line.
May you like
“Tell the little girl she should have taken the money.”
The call ended.
