Chapter 3 - The Black CrossBreakfast at the Moretti estate began at seven thirty.
Apparently international criminal conspiracies did not interfere with breakfast schedules.
Anna sat at the end of a twelve-seat dining table wearing clothes Teresa had somehow obtained before sunrise.
Black trousers.
Cream sweater.
Her exact size.
She had stopped asking questions about how the Moretti organization acquired information.
Lorenzo entered carrying a leather folder.
He had changed into another dark suit.
No tie.
No visible evidence that he had slept.
Anna looked at him over her coffee.
“Do you own anything that isn’t black, gray, or designed for a funeral?”
“Yes.”
He sat opposite her.
“A navy suit.”
Anna stared.
Lorenzo reached for the espresso.
“That was a joke.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t laugh.”
“It wasn’t good.”
For several seconds they looked at each other.
Teresa placed a plate of eggs in front of Anna.
“You’ll get used to him.”
“I doubt it.”
“I was speaking to Lorenzo.”
Anna smiled.
Lorenzo looked betrayed.
Teresa walked away.
Anna pointed toward the leather folder.
“What’s that?”
“Your father.”
Her smile disappeared.
Lorenzo slid it across the table.
Anna did not touch it immediately.
“My father has been dead for ten years.”
“I know.”
“What could you possibly have?”
“More than your mother told you.”
Anna’s fingers tightened around her coffee cup.
“Careful.”
Lorenzo’s expression remained calm.
“That wasn’t an insult.”
“It sounded like one.”
“It was a fact.”
Anna opened the folder.
The first photograph showed her father at approximately forty years old.
Antonio Esposito.
Not Anthony Bennett.
Not the quiet accountant her mother later described when Anna asked questions.
Antonio Esposito stood outside a café in Naples beside Vincenzo Russo and six other men.
He was smiling.
Anna had almost forgotten his smile.
Her chest tightened.
She turned the page.
Bank records.
Shipping manifests.
Photographs.
Police reports.
A photocopy of a ledger.
The serpent-and-cross symbol appeared on several pages.
“What was the Black Cross?”
Lorenzo rested his forearms against the table.
“Not was.”
Anna looked up.
“Is.”
He took a sip of espresso.
“They’re older than my family’s operation in America. They began in southern Italy as a financial network connecting politicians, businessmen, smugglers, and organized crime.”
“So another mafia.”
“No.”
“Sounds like one.”
“The mafia wants territory.”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
“The Black Cross wants leverage.”
He pointed toward the folder.
“They collect secrets. Debt. Evidence. Anything that allows them to own people without appearing to.”
Anna looked at the documents.
“And my father worked for them?”
“We believe so.”
“We?”
“My father believed Antonio was moving money for someone outside the Russo organization.”
Anna turned another page.
A photograph showed Antonio entering a bank in Geneva.
Another showed him speaking to an unidentified man in Rome.
“He stole from Russo.”
“Yes.”
“Millions.”
“Twenty-eight million dollars.”
Anna looked up sharply.
“My mother said three.”
“Your mother lied.”
The words struck hard.
Lorenzo did not soften them.
Anna closed the folder.
“Why?”
“That is what we need to discover.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She pushed the folder away.
“You need to discover it.”
Lorenzo leaned back.
“Someone broke into your apartment and left the Black Cross symbol.”
“I noticed.”
“They believe you possess something.”
“I don’t.”
“They apparently disagree.”
Anna stood.
“I was twelve when my father died.”
“Fourteen.”
She froze.
Lorenzo watched her.
“You were fourteen when Antonio disappeared.”
“He died.”
“Did you see his body?”
Anna’s face drained.
“My mother told me—”
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Was there a funeral?”
“In Palermo.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
Anna’s breathing changed.
“She said it wasn’t safe.”
Lorenzo stood.
“Exactly.”
“Stop.”
“Anna—”
“I said stop.”
She turned away.
The room blurred slightly.
For ten years, her father had been dead.
Not missing.
Not uncertain.
Dead.
She had built an entire life around that fact.
Lorenzo approached slowly.
“I am not telling you he survived.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
“That your mother concealed information.”
Anna turned on him.
“You don’t know my mother.”
“No.”
His voice remained even.
“But I know fear.”
That silenced her.
Lorenzo looked at the folder.
“Fear makes people lie to protect the people they love.”
Anna remembered her mother packing their belongings in the middle of the night.
Never using credit cards.
Changing Anna’s surname.
Moving three times in four years.
Fear.
Yes.
Her mother had understood it.
“Where is she?”
Lorenzo asked.
Anna immediately stiffened.
“No.”
“If they’re looking for you—”
“You stay away from her.”
“Anna.”
“I mean it.”
She stepped toward him.
“My mother escaped this world. She built a life away from it. You do not drag her back.”
Lorenzo studied her.
“Where does she live?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“I already know.”
Anna nearly threw the coffee at him.
“You arrogant—”
“Ohio.”
He continued.
“Outside Cleveland. She remarried six years ago. Her husband teaches history at a community college.”
Anna stared at him in disbelief.
“You investigated my family?”
“Before breakfast.”
“You had no right.”
“I have enemies who entered your apartment three hours after you became associated with me.”
His voice hardened.
“Rights are not currently my priority.”
“They are mine.”
“Then hate me later.”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“Right now I am keeping your mother alive.”
Anna wanted to argue.
She could not.
Because beneath the arrogance was a brutal truth.
Someone knew who she was.
Someone knew where she lived.
And if they knew those things, they might know about her mother.
“What did you do?”
“I sent four people to Ohio.”
Her eyes widened.
“Four armed people?”
“Very.”
“My mother is going to have a heart attack.”
“They won’t approach unless necessary.”
Anna exhaled.
“Call them off.”
“No.”
“Lorenzo.”
“No.”
They stared at each other.
Anna finally realized he was not going to yield.
“Fine.”
She sat again.
“I hate you.”
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“I want it officially entered into my employment contract.”
“I’ll have legal add a clause.”
Despite everything, the corner of her mouth twitched.
Lorenzo saw it.
Again.
That irritating satisfaction appeared in his eyes.
Anna reopened the folder.
“Show me everything.”
For the next three hours, Lorenzo did.
Antonio Esposito had joined the Russo organization at twenty-two.
By thirty, he controlled substantial portions of its legitimate finances.
Restaurants.
Construction companies.
Import businesses.
Shipping.
But sometime around Anna’s sixth birthday, the records changed.
Money began disappearing.
Not into Antonio’s accounts.
Into shell corporations.
Then offshore trusts.
Then nowhere.
Twenty-eight million dollars vanished over eight years.
Vincenzo believed Antonio had stolen it.
Lorenzo’s father believed something else.
“He thought your father was building an escape fund for the Black Cross.”
“Why?”
“Because the same accounts were connected to payments made before my father was assassinated.”
Anna stopped turning pages.
“When did he die?”
“October 18, nineteen years ago.”
“You were?”
“Seventeen.”
She looked at him.
Something in Lorenzo’s face closed.
Anna understood instinctively that she had reached a door he rarely opened.
“What happened?”
He stared at the table.
“My father left a restaurant in Brooklyn.”
His voice was flat.
“A car bomb detonated.”
Anna said nothing.
“My mother was with him.”
Her breath caught.
Lorenzo looked toward the window.
“She survived for six hours.”
The controlled man disappeared for only a fraction of a second.
Then returned.
Anna lowered her voice.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t require sympathy.”
“Good, because I wasn’t offering sympathy.”
His eyes moved back to hers.
“I was acknowledging that you lost your parents.”
A pause.
“I know something about that.”
For once, Lorenzo had no answer.
The silence between them changed.
Not softer exactly.
But less hostile.
Leo entered.
He carried a laptop.
“We found the SUV.”
Lorenzo immediately stood.
“Where?”
“Abandoned in Brooklyn.”
“Prints?”
“Clean.”
“Cameras?”
“Vehicle entered a warehouse district at four twelve.”
Leo placed the laptop on the table.
“There’s more.”
Security footage appeared.
A man stepped from the SUV.
His face was hidden beneath a cap.
He walked away.
Another figure emerged from the passenger side.
A woman.
Older.
Gray coat.
Dark hair.
Anna stopped breathing.
“No.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
She moved closer to the screen.
The footage was grainy.
The woman’s face appeared for barely two seconds.
But Anna knew that walk.
She knew the slight angle of the shoulders.
The way the woman touched her hair with her left hand.
She had watched that gesture every day of her childhood.
“Anna?”
Lorenzo’s voice came from far away.
She pointed at the screen.
“That’s my mother.”
Leo’s expression changed.
Lorenzo went completely still.
Anna grabbed her phone.
She called.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
No answer.
She called her stepfather.
Voicemail.
Her hands began shaking.
“Call your people in Ohio.”
Lorenzo already had his phone out.
Leo was speaking into an earpiece.
Thirty seconds felt like thirty minutes.
Then Leo looked at Lorenzo.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The house is empty.”
Anna’s knees weakened.
Lorenzo caught her arm.
Leo continued.
“No sign of forced entry.”
“When were they last seen?”
“Neighbor saw them leave yesterday afternoon.”
Anna stared at the frozen image of her mother.
Yesterday.
Before Anna ever met Lorenzo.
Before Russo died.
Before the Black Cross appeared on her apartment wall.
Her mother had been coming to New York before any of it happened.
“She knew.”
Anna whispered.
Lorenzo looked at her.
“She knew something was going to happen.”
Another thought struck.
Anna returned to the folder.
She searched through photographs.
Bank statements.
Letters.
Then stopped.
One page showed a photocopy of her father’s handwriting.
Numbers filled most of it.
In the bottom corner was the serpent and cross.
Beneath it were four words.
L'uccello torna al nido.
The bird returns to the nest.
Anna’s skin prickled.
Little bird.
Lorenzo had called her that because of Russo.
Because of the dialect.
Or so she had assumed.
She looked at Lorenzo.
“Why do you call me little bird?”
He frowned.
“It was an expression.”
“Was it?”
She pushed the document toward him.
He read the words.
His face changed.
“I’ve never seen this page.”
“You gave me the file.”
“It came from my father’s private archive.”
Anna looked at the sentence again.
The bird returns to the nest.
“What nest?”
Neither man answered.
Anna examined the numbers above it.
Something about them bothered her.
Not because they looked familiar.
Because they did not look like financial records.
She had spent years managing hotel reservations.
Room numbers.
Dates.
Guest codes.
Patterns.
She tilted the page.
“These aren’t bank transactions.”
Lorenzo moved beside her.
“What are they?”
“I don’t know.”
She pointed.
“But look.”
Repeated sequences.
“These are too short.”
Leo leaned over.
“Phone codes?”
“No.”
Anna shook her head.
Then she saw it.
A memory from childhood.
Her father taking her through Napoli Centrale.
Teaching her to read train schedules.
Numbers.
Platforms.
Lockers.
Her breath caught.
“They’re storage numbers.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Where?”
Anna stared at the final sequence.
GCT-317.
She knew those initials.
Everyone in New York did.
“Grand Central Terminal.”
Thirty minutes later, they were in the Maybach.
Anna sat beside Lorenzo.
Leo occupied the front.
“You have people who can do this.”
Anna said.
“Yes.”
“Then why are we going?”
“Because the note refers to you.”
“It says bird.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Little bird.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Do not enjoy this.”
“I’m enjoying it enormously.”
Grand Central was beginning to fill with commuters when they arrived.
Lorenzo’s security dispersed through the terminal.
Anna wore a dark coat and baseball cap.
Lorenzo had refused the cap Leo offered him.
Apparently anonymity offended him personally.
They found the old luggage locker section near a service corridor no longer used by the public.
Locker 317 existed.
It had no visible lock.
Only a small brass keyhole.
Anna stared at it.
“I don’t have a key.”
Lorenzo looked toward Leo.
Leo produced a lock-picking kit.
Anna blinked.
“Of course.”
Thirty seconds later, the door opened.
Inside was a single wooden box.
No larger than a hardcover book.
Anna reached toward it.
Lorenzo caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
He examined the interior.
Then removed the box himself.
“No wires.”
“Comforting.”
They carried it to an unused office secured by Moretti’s men.
Anna opened it.
Inside lay three objects.
A brass key.
A photograph.
And an old cassette tape.
Anna picked up the photograph.
Her father stood beside Lorenzo’s father.
Both men were younger.
Both were smiling.
Behind them stood a third person.
Anna’s mother.
On the back, written in Antonio’s handwriting, were six words.
Trust the Moretti when the cross returns.
Anna slowly raised her eyes.
Lorenzo was staring at the photograph.
His face had lost all color.
“You knew my father.”
Anna whispered.
“No.”
“But he knew yours.”
Lorenzo took the photograph.
He turned it over.
Read the sentence.
Once.
Twice.
Then Leo spoke from the doorway.
“Boss.”
Lorenzo looked up.
“We have company.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Many of them.
Anna’s pulse accelerated.
Lorenzo drew his pistol.
He looked at her.
“Behind me.”
This time, Anna did not argue.
Because somewhere beyond the door, a man began whistling.
A slow melody.
Anna recognized it instantly.
Her father used to whistle the same tune every night while washing dishes.
She stared toward the corridor.
Then a voice spoke in Neapolitan.
A voice she had not heard in ten years.
“Come out, Anna.”
May you like
Her entire body went numb.
“Papà is waiting.”
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