Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to DieProvidence looked smaller than Isabela remembered.
Perhaps power did that.
Or perhaps returning in a convoy of armored vehicles changed perspective.
She had refused the convoy.
Damiano had ignored that refusal.
Compromise resulted in two vehicles instead of six.
“You realize this is still ridiculous,” she said.
They sat in the back of a black SUV approaching the neighborhood where Carmela had lived.
“Ridiculous is surviving long enough to complain about security.”
“That sentence sounds rehearsed.”
“I’ve had many difficult women in my life.”
She turned.
“Many?”
His mouth curved.
“One.”
“Good answer.”
“Accurate answer.”
She looked out the window before he could see her smile.
Rain darkened Providence streets.
She remembered bus rides.
Grocery bags.
Her mother counting cash at kitchen tables.
Carmela making enough pasta to feed twelve people even when only four were coming.
Those memories felt impossible beside what she knew now.
Carmela Vitale.
Survivor.
Fugitive.
Keeper of evidence.
And apparently twin sister to a woman named Sofia.
The storage facility stood behind a hardware store.
Enzo had secured the building before they arrived.
Rafael stayed in Sicily under Rosa’s supervision and complained by video call every three hours.
Isabela unlocked unit 314 herself.
The door rolled upward.
Her old life waited inside.
Plastic bins.
Furniture.
Christmas decorations.
A broken lamp.
Rafael’s childhood bicycle.
Boxes labeled in her mother’s handwriting.
She stood motionless.
Damiano remained behind her.
He understood enough not to touch her.
“Strange,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I spent years thinking everything important in my life could fit in this room.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m wondering how much of my life was hidden inside it.”
They searched for forty minutes.
Then Isabela found the book.
Brown leather.
Grease stains.
Loose pages.
Carmela’s handwriting.
She sat on the floor.
Damiano crouched beside her.
Recipes filled the first pages.
Tomato sauce.
Arancini.
Bread.
Cannoli.
Measurements that changed randomly because Carmela believed measuring cups were evidence of moral weakness.
Then the handwriting changed.
Shorter lines.
Names.
Dates.
Numbers.
“Code,” Damiano said.
Isabela turned pages.
One contained only ingredients.
Two lemons.
One cup sugar.
Seven almonds.
Four leaves basil.
Nine olives.
Damiano looked closer.
“Two-one-seven-four-nine.”
“A number.”
“Possibly.”
Another page.
Different ingredients.
Different numbers.
Coordinates?
Bank accounts?
Dates?
Then a photograph slipped out.
Carmela.
Sofia.
And a man neither recognized.
On the back:
Three sisters. One survived.
Isabela froze.
“Three?”
Damiano took the photograph.
“There are only two women.”
“Exactly.”
Someone had been cut out.
The photograph had been physically trimmed.
A third person removed.
They continued searching.
At the back of the recipe book, hidden beneath leather lining, Isabela found a folded letter.
It was addressed to her mother.
Renata.
Her hands shook.
“My mother never saw this.”
“How do you know?”
“The seal.”
It remained intact.
She opened it.
The letter was written in English.
My daughter, if you are reading this, then I failed to keep the past buried.
Isabela swallowed.
There are truths I wanted you never to carry. Domenico believed knowledge would protect you. I believed ignorance might save you.
We were both wrong.
The night our family died, the attack was not about territory.
Isabela stopped.
Damiano read beside her.
It was about a child.
A noise came from outside.
Damiano stood instantly.
Gunfire shattered the silence.
“Down.”
He pulled Isabela behind stacked furniture.
Enzo shouted from the corridor.
Someone had breached the facility.
Damiano drew his weapon.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Isabela.”
“Not this argument again.”
“This time I’m armed.”
“So am I.”
She opened her handbag and removed the compact pistol Enzo had trained her to use.
Damiano stared.
“When did you start carrying that?”
“After someone shot at our engagement party.”
“Reasonable.”
The attackers moved through the corridor.
Three men.
Maybe four.
Damiano positioned himself beside the door.
The first attacker entered.
Everything happened violently fast.
Damiano disarmed him.
Isabela heard two shots.
Enzo’s men responded.
Another attacker appeared behind Damiano.
Isabela saw him first.
She raised the pistol.
Her hands trembled.
Training was clean.
Targets didn’t breathe.
Targets didn’t have faces.
The man raised his weapon.
She fired.
He fell.
Silence came afterward in pieces.
Her ears rang.
Damiano turned.
His face changed when he saw her.
“Isabela.”
She stared at the man on the floor.
“I shot him.”
“Yes.”
“I…”
Damiano crossed the room and took the weapon gently from her hand.
“Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
He touched her face.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“He was going to kill you.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t think.”
“That’s why you survived.”
She looked down again.
Damiano moved so his body blocked her view.
“No.”
“I killed someone.”
“You stopped someone who was trying to murder us.”
“That doesn’t make it nothing.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“It never should.”
That was one reason she loved him.
He did not tell her violence was easy.
He did not romanticize it.
He simply stood beside her while reality settled.
Enzo entered.
“One alive.”
“Good,” Damiano said.
“Who sent them?”
“He isn’t talking.”
“He will.”
Isabela wiped her face.
“No torture.”
Damiano looked at her.
“Then how would you suggest obtaining information?”
“Fear works without cruelty.”
Cesare had taught her that during negotiations.
Damiano seemed almost amused.
“You’ve become frightening.”
“You’re the one who trained me.”
“No. I taught you rules.”
He looked toward the unconscious attacker.
“You learned power yourself.”
They returned to the letter.
Isabela read aloud.
The child was born in 1989.
Her existence threatened three families.
She was the daughter of Sofia Vitale and Lorenzo Conti.
Damiano went still.
Isabela stopped reading.
“Conti?”
His face had lost color.
“My uncle.”
“Your father’s brother?”
“Yes.”
She continued.
Lorenzo loved Sofia. Their marriage would have united the families in a way certain men feared. But their daughter represented something greater: a legal inheritance connecting Vitale property, Conti holdings, and a trust established generations earlier.
The child was named Lucia.
Damiano sat slowly.
“I had a cousin.”
“Apparently.”
“I was told Lorenzo died unmarried.”
The letter continued.
The attack was designed to kill Sofia and Lucia. Domenico discovered the plan too late. We attempted to move them before dinner.
Something went wrong.
The house burned.
Bodies could not be identified.
We believed Sofia and Lucia dead.
Then one final paragraph.
Years later, I learned that one of them may have survived.
Isabela looked up.
“Which one?”
Damiano turned the page.
Nothing.
The rest of the letter was missing.
Footsteps approached.
Enzo appeared again.
“The surviving attacker talked.”
“That was fast.”
“He recognized Mr. Conti.”
Damiano stood.
“Who hired him?”
Enzo hesitated.
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“He never met her directly. Orders came through intermediaries.”
“Name.”
Enzo looked at Isabela.
“She calls herself Lucia.”
The room went silent.
May you like
Thirty-seven years after a little girl was supposed to die in a burning Sicilian villa, Lucia Vitale Conti was apparently alive.
And she had just sent armed men to recover Carmela’s letter.
Related Stories
