Chapter 6 - The Red Ledger
Matteo didn't call Gianni. He didn't call any of the guards standing outside in the wide, carpeted hallway.
He grabbed a heavy steel letter opener from the writing desk near the window, dragged the heavy mahogany nightstand four feet to the left, and dropped to his knees on the floor.
The floorboards were ancient, two-hundred-year-old heart pine planks held down by square iron nails. Matteo jammed the steel letter opener into the seam between the third and fourth planks from the baseboard and pried upward with all his weight.
The old wood let out a sharp, groaning screech—SCREEECH—that made the crystal drops on the chandelier ring softly above them.
The plank popped up two inches. Matteo jammed his fingers underneath the rough grain, hauled it backward, and set it on the rug.
Beneath the floor, tucked into a shallow alcove built between the floor joists, was a small object wrapped in dark oilcloth.
Matteo reached down and pulled it out.
The oilcloth was stiff with age and the smell of paraffin. He unwrapped it carefully, revealing a small, thick ledger bound in faded red calfskin. Its corners were worn down to the grey board, and a heavy brass clasp held the pages shut.
There was no key in the lock.
"The key..." Matteo murmured, turning the heavy book over in his hands. "Father, where is the key?"
Lorenzo didn't answer with words. He lifted his left hand, his index finger pointing straight at Clara’s neck.
Clara frowned, reaching up to touch her collarbone. "Me?"
"The... pin," Lorenzo rasped, his eyes fixed on her chest.
Clara looked down. Pinned to the front of her navy scrub top was her nursing credential badge, held in place by a simple, silver-plated safety pin she had used to fix a broken zipper three days ago.
She unpinned it and held it out to Matteo.
Matteo took the safety pin, his long fingers working quickly. He jammed the thin steel point into the tiny keyhole of the brass clasp, turned it forty-five degrees to the right, and felt a sharp click.
The brass clasp sprang open.
Matteo opened the red book.
The pages were thin, yellowed at the edges, filled with neat, dense lines of handwriting written in dark blue fountain pen ink. The handwriting was unmistakable—the tall, elegant, forward-slanted cursive that Lorenzo Moretti had used on every contract, deed, and check he had signed for fifty years.
Clara didn't step closer. She stayed near the window, giving the son his privacy with his father's secrets. But she could see the names written across the tops of the pages in thick capital letters:
PROVIDENCE CITY COUNCIL – 1994 STATE POLICE – DISTRICT 3 RHODE ISLAND MARITIME AUTHORITY JUDGE HAROLD VANE
Matteo flipped through thirty pages of names, dates, amounts, and bank account numbers registered in Grand Cayman, Zurich, and Dublin.
"This is..." Matteo whispered, his face going entirely white as his eyes scanned a page near the back of the book. "This is everything. The whole network. The names of every official who took money from us for thirty years."
He looked up at his father, his chest heaving under his unbuttoned shirt. "Why didn't you show me this three years ago?"
Lorenzo stared up at his son. A look of profound, ancient sadness settled into the lines around his dark eyes—a look that stripped away the crime boss, the lion, and the legend, leaving only an old father who knew his time was done.
"Because..." Lorenzo rasped, his voice breaking into a dry cough that made his small frame shake under the blanket. Clara stepped forward immediately, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him until the coughing passed.
Lorenzo took a slow, rattling breath, his eyes fixed on his son.
"Because... if I gave it to you..." Lorenzo whispered, "...you would have used it. And once you use it... you can never walk away."
Matteo stared at the red book in his lap.
For three years, he had been fighting a war on two fronts—fighting the federal prosecutors who were closing in with RICO indictments, and fighting the rival crews who wanted to slice up his family's shipping terminals. This book was the ultimate weapon. It held enough nuclear leverage to sink half the political establishment in New England, to force the federal prosecutors to drop every charge against the Moretti family, to make every rival captain kneel in the dirt.
It was absolute power.
And it was a death sentence for anyone who touched it.
"They're coming tonight, aren't they?" Clara asked softly from the side of the bed.
Matteo turned his head to look at her. "What?"
"The men outside," Clara said, gesturing toward the dark driveway visible through the window. "The extra guards in the hallway. The way that doctor was sweating. You didn't just bring me here to take care of his vitals, Mr. Moretti. You knew something was going to happen tonight."
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Matteo stood up slowly, closing the red ledger with a soft thud. He tucked the small book into his back pocket, adjusted his shirt cuffs, and looked at Clara with an expression that was entirely stripped of pretense.
"The federal judge signed the warrant two hours ago," Matteo said quietly. "They're serving it at midnight. State troopers, federal marshals, and a medical transport team. They're coming to take him."
