Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Knew My Mother's Voice“Get down!”
I threw Elena and Nora behind the sofa as the first gunshot echoed through the stairwell.
Enzo burst through the doorway with his pistol drawn.
“East entrance compromised!”
“How many?”
“Unknown. Cameras went dark thirty seconds ago.”
“Lock the building.”
“Already done.”
Another shot sounded below us, followed by the crash of breaking glass.
Nora began to sob.
I pulled her against my chest and pressed her face into my coat.
“Listen to me,” I whispered. “You're going to stay very quiet. Can you do that?”
She nodded against me.
Elena reached for her daughter, but I held up a hand.
“Stay here.”
“You can't leave us!”
“If I stay here, whoever came through the entrance gets to choose where this ends.”
I handed Nora to Elena and followed Enzo into the corridor.
Two guards lay near the stairwell. One was unconscious, blood spreading across the shoulder of his uniform. The other had taken cover behind a marble pillar, returning fire toward the ground floor.
A shadow moved behind the frosted glass of the entrance.
I fired twice.
The figure vanished.
“Back exit?” I asked.
“Clear as of a minute ago.”
“Then we're leaving.”
Enzo glanced toward the staircase.
“We can't abandon the building.”
“We're not abandoning it. We're refusing to die inside it.”
We moved back into the sitting room.
Elena had wrapped Nora in the blanket and was holding her so tightly that the child's face had disappeared against her shoulder.
I led them through a concealed door into the service corridor. A narrow staircase descended to the garage, where two armored vehicles waited.
As we reached the bottom, a man stepped out from behind a concrete pillar.
For one terrible moment, I recognized the suit before the face.
Salvatore Moretti.
My uncle stood with his hands raised, his silver hair immaculate despite the gunfire above.
“Lorenzo.”
I aimed directly at his chest.
“Why are you here?”
“To help you.”
“You have an interesting way of showing it.”
His gaze moved to Elena, then to the little girl in her arms.
Something flickered across his face.
Recognition.
Not surprise.
“You found her,” he murmured.
I tightened my grip on the pistol.
“Found whom?”
Salvatore looked at Nora.
“Isabella's little miracle.”
Elena made a strangled sound.
Nora lifted her head.
“You know Grandma?”
Salvatore stared at her.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
The words emerged so gently that, for an instant, I remembered him holding my mother's hand at the funeral.
Then he looked back at me.
“We don't have time for this. The people attacking your safe house were sent by Sokov. He knows you've recovered the letter.”
“How do you know about the letter?”
He spread his hands.
“Because your mother told me about it.”
My heart hammered once, hard.
“She wrote that you betrayed her.”
Salvatore's expression barely changed.
“Your mother was frightened in her final weeks. She began seeing conspiracies everywhere.”
“Did you know she was murdered?”
“Of course.”
“Who killed her?”
“I don't know.”
I took a step closer.
“Four years, Uncle. Four years of searching. Four years of following every account, every driver, every mechanic, every man who spoke to her. You sat beside me while I buried her. You told me we'd find the killer.”
“And we will.”
“Then tell me why her letter says you're a traitor.”
Salvatore's eyes hardened.
“Because someone wants to turn you against your own family.”
He reached slowly inside his coat.
I raised the gun.
“Don't.”
He froze.
Then he withdrew a photograph.
It showed a woman standing outside Nana's Soup, her face partially obscured by a scarf.
The woman had dark hair, a slim figure, and the same slight tilt of the head my mother had when she was listening to someone.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Three weeks earlier.
“That's impossible,” I said.
“Look at the face.”
“I've seen my mother's photographs.”
“Then explain this.”
He held the picture toward me.
I didn't take it.
“Who gave you this?”
“A man who claims he saw Isabella alive.”
“Where?”
“An abandoned clinic in Revere. He says she was living under another name.”
I stared at him.
My mother had been declared dead after her car went off a bridge. Her body had been recovered. I'd identified her at the funeral home.
I remembered her face beneath the white sheet.
I'd kissed her forehead before the lid was closed.
Unless...
No.
I'd seen the body.
But it hadn't been the kind of examination that could prove every detail beyond doubt. My mother had suffered terrible injuries.
For four years, I'd trusted the police report.
I'd trusted my uncle.
And now I was holding a photograph that threatened to dismantle everything.
Salvatore lowered his voice.
“Lorenzo, whatever you believe, we need to get away from this building. If Sokov has recovered the ledger, none of us are safe.”
“Why would he need the ledger if my mother is dead?”
“Because the ledger contains names. Judges. Police commissioners. Politicians. Men who would kill to keep their secrets buried.”
“And your name?”
Salvatore said nothing.
That silence was answer enough.
A vehicle engine roared behind us.
Enzo turned, raising his pistol.
“Boss, we have company!”
Two black SUVs surged through the garage entrance.
My men scattered for cover.
I grabbed Elena's arm and pushed her toward the nearest armored car.
“Get in!”
Salvatore shouted something, but the sound was swallowed by gunfire.
The first SUV struck a parked sedan and swung sideways. Its rear door opened, and two men emerged carrying rifles.
I fired through the windshield.
The glass shattered.
Enzo returned fire from behind a concrete pillar.
Elena shoved Nora into the vehicle and climbed after her.
I was two steps behind them when a bullet struck the concrete beside my head.
Then someone seized my coat from behind.
I spun, ready to fire.
The person gripping me was an old woman wearing a dark blue scarf.
Her face was lined, her eyes pale and steady.
For a fraction of a second, I couldn't breathe.
She had my mother's eyes.
Not similar eyes.
The exact same eyes.
“Lorenzo,” she whispered.
The world disappeared.
I lowered my gun by an inch.
“Who are you?”
She touched my cheek with trembling fingers.
“You've grown old, my boy.”
I stumbled backward as if she'd struck me.
“No.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I'm sorry.”
I raised the gun again.
“Who are you?”
A bullet shattered the glass behind her.
She flinched but didn't run.
Then she leaned close enough that only I could hear her.
“Ask Salvatore why he buried an empty coffin.”
My blood turned to ice.
Behind me, my uncle shouted my name.
The old woman pressed something small and metallic into my palm.
A key.
Then she stepped toward the chaos, disappearing behind a column as a smoke grenade filled the garage.
By the time the smoke cleared, she was gone.
I looked down at the key.
A tiny brass plate was attached to it.
NANA'S SOUP. CELLAR 3.
I closed my fist around it.
My mother might be alive.
May you like
Or someone had learned how to weaponize the most painful memory I owned.
Either way, the next person who lied to me would discover what Boston's Silence sounded like when it finally spoke.
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