Chapter 4 - The Ledger of the Dead
The office on Hanover Street was located above an upscale tailor shop that had been in the Moretti family for three generations.
It was a world away from the greasy kitchen and noisy dining room of Bellafiore’s. The office featured tall mahogany bookcases, deep leather armchairs, and leaded-glass windows overlooking the historic cobblestone streets of the North End.
For two weeks, Mia worked in quiet luxury.
Her duties were simple: digitizing old paper ledgers, managing vendor receipts for the family’s legitimate shipping businesses, and organizing property deeds. It was quiet, peaceful work, and for the first time in four years, Mia felt her body relaxing. Her morning sickness began to subside, her energy returned, and the small bump beneath her clothes became a source of quiet joy rather than constant dread.
Dante was rarely there during the day. He arrived late in the afternoon, surrounded by his inner circle—men like his chief lieutenant, Marco, a scarred veteran with cold eyes, and his younger lawyer, Julian.
Yet, despite his busy schedule, Dante’s presence was everywhere.
Every morning, a fresh cup of decaf chamomile tea and warm biscotti were placed on her desk before she arrived. Her chair had been replaced with an ergonomic leather seat imported from Italy. And whenever Dante walked through the main office, his hazel eyes would linger on her for a fraction of a second—a quiet, heavy gaze that sent a strange warmth through her chest.
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, while Dante was away at a meeting with the port authority, Mia was filing old tax documents in the deep archive closet behind his primary desk.
She was pulling down a heavy leather box labeled 1998–2002 Estate Records when her elbow knocked over a stack of old mahogany filing trays.
Papers spilled across the carpeted floor.
“Damn it,” Mia muttered, dropping to her knees to gather the scattered documents.
As she picked up a fan of yellowed receipts, a thick Manila envelope slipped out from behind a secret panel in the back of the bottom tray. It had no label, only a red wax seal that had been broken long ago.
Mia picked it up. Inside was a single, official document stamped with the blue seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
It was a Certificate of Death.
Mia glanced at it casually, intending to put it back, but her eyes locked onto the name printed in crisp black type across the top:
NAME OF DECEASED: LEO FRANCIS BELL
Mia’s heart stopped.
Her hands began to shake uncontrollably. The air left her lungs as if she had been plunged into icy water.
Leo.
Why did Dante Moretti have her late husband’s death certificate hidden in a private, sealed envelope behind his desk?
Mia scrambled backward, leaning her spine against the mahogany desk as she read the document line by line.
The date of death was correct: October 14th, four years ago. The location was correct: Route 1 North, Saugus.
But as her eyes drifted to the bottom of the page—to the section reserved for medical examiners, investigating officers, and authorized witnesses—the blood drained completely from her face.
stamped beneath the official state seal, in bold, black ink, was a signature she had come to recognize over the past two weeks from hundreds of property deeds and shipping manifests.
A bold, sweeping signature with a sharp flourish at the end:
Dante A. Moretti
Authorized Signatory, Commonwealth District Maritime Commission.
Mia stared at the black ink.
Her mind reeled, tumbling through a terrifying vortex of confusion and panic. Dante hadn't just known about Leo’s death. He had signed off on the official clearance that closed the investigation. He had personally authorized the release of her husband’s body.
Before she could process the horrific reality, the heavy double doors of the private office swung open.
Dante stepped into the room, shaking rainwater from his umbrella.
“Mia?” Dante called out, tossing his coat over the stand. “Marco said you were still here—”
He stopped dead in his tracks as he stepped into the archway of the archive closet.
Mia sat on the floor among the scattered papers, her face white as chalk, holding the death certificate in her trembling hands.
Dante’s hazel eyes dropped to the paper, then locked onto her face.
May you like
The warmth that had built between them over the past two weeks vanished in a single, terrifying instant.
“Mia,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a register that made the floorboards vibrate. “Put that down.”
