Chapter 7 - The Ledger on the Desk
The federal grand jury room on the fourth floor of the Dearborn Street Courthouse was silent except for the low, rhythmic hum of a green metal desk fan that sat near the wide, arched windows.
Outside, the rain had finally stopped, replaced by a pale, watery sunlight that turned the wet slate roofs of Chicago into silver mirrors.
I sat at a long, oak conference table that had been cleared of everything except three white paper cups of cold coffee, my father’s canvas tool bag, and the olive-drab steel box that Maso had carried out of the church four hours ago.
Sitting across from me was Special Agent Marcus Vance—a tall, thin man with graying hair, sharp blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a dark wool suit that looked as if it had been bought off the rack in Washington three years ago.
Alessandro sat two chairs to my left.
His arm had been bandaged by a federal physician down in the basement clinic—a neat white sleeve of gauze showing beneath his dark coat cuff. He hadn't spoken since we entered the building. He sat with his hands folded in his lap, his gray eyes fixed on the green metal fan as it turned slowly back and forth.
"Mrs. Romano," Agent Vance said, opening a thick Manila folder that sat beside the olive-drab box. "Or should I say, Miss Bellini?"
"Adriana is fine, Agent Vance," I said.
Vance nodded slowly, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table. "An hour ago, our forensic accounting team finished opening the secondary lock on the olive-drab container you brought out of Saint Jude’s."
He reached into the folder and pulled out a stack of high-resolution black-and-white photographs showing long columns of handwritten accounts, property deeds stamped with red municipal seals, and corporate registration certificates from nineteen-fifty-two to the present.
"These documents," Vance said, his voice dropping into a dry, precise tone, "don't just confirm the wire fraud charges against Ruggero Romano’s estate. They outline forty years of illegal land acquisitions across three states—including the primary titles for the dockyards, the grain terminals, and eighteen commercial buildings in Little Italy."
He looked at Alessandro, his blue eyes narrowing behind his spectacles.
"And according to the secondary trust agreement signed by Giovanni Bellini in nineteen-fifty-three," Vance continued, "in the event of the death or criminal conviction of the primary Romano trustees... the sole legal reversion rights for eleven of those eighteen commercial properties return directly to the heirs of Marco Bellini."
I didn't move. My hand rested on the oak table, my bare third finger cold against the polished wood.
"The shop on Mulberry Street," I said softly.
"The shop on Mulberry Street," Vance confirmed, "the three buildings surrounding it, and the old warehouse behind the icehouse. They belong to you, Miss Bellini. Unencumbered. Free of all debts, liens, and Romano claims."
He pushed a thin black pen and a single-page legal document across the table toward me.
"All you have to do," Vance said, "is sign this formal release authorizing the Department of Justice to retain the secondary evidence ledgers for use in the remaining grand jury indictments against the Cicero group."
I picked up the pen. It was a cheap plastic ballpoint, heavy with yellow ink, feeling strange and clumsy in fingers that were used to fine brass engravers and platinum wire.
I looked at Alessandro.
He turned his head slowly, his gray eyes meeting mine for the first time since we had entered the courthouse. There was no plea in his face—no silent request for mercy, no demand for loyalty. He looked at me as he had looked at me on the night of my birthday dinner—a man standing alone in a room he had built out of ice, waiting for the walls to drop.
"If I sign this paper," I asked Agent Vance, "what happens to Alessandro?"
Vance leaned back in his leather chair, lacing his long fingers together over his chest.
"Mr. Romano executed a formal cooperation agreement with the Office of the United States Attorney eighteen months ago," Vance said. "Under the terms of that agreement—and in consideration of his active role in delivering the primary ledgers from Saint Jude’s—all pending federal indictments against him regarding the Cicero operations will be dismissed with prejudice."
He paused, his eyes flicking toward the window.
"However," Vance added, "Mr. Romano has agreed to step down permanently from all executive positions within the Romano Trust, surrender his corporate holdings in the river terminals, and leave the state of Illinois within seventy-two hours."
"Seventy-two hours," I repeated.
"Seventy-two hours," Vance said. "He will be relocated under a secondary administrative identity to a town in northern Maine. No private security. No captains. No car."
The green fan turned again, its soft blade whirring against the quiet of the room.
I looked down at the paper.
I signed my name at the bottom—Adriana Bellini—my father’s name, written in clear, heavy black ink that took three seconds to dry against the white wood-pulp paper.
I pushed the document back across the table to Agent Vance, picked up my father’s canvas tool bag from the floor, and stood up from the oak chair.
"Thank you, Agent Vance," I said.
I turned and walked toward the heavy double doors of the grand jury room.
Alessandro didn't stand up immediately. He waited until my hand touched the brass door handle before he spoke—his voice low, rasping slightly, carrying across the quiet room like a soft whisper over dry leaves.
"Adriana," he said.
I stopped, my fingers resting on the cold brass latch, but I didn't turn around.
"Where will you go?" he asked.
May you like
I looked through the glass transom of the door, out into the marble corridor where Maso Greco and Caterina sat waiting on a oak bench under the high arched windows.
"I’m going back to Mulberry Street, Alessandro," I said. "The roof needs a new copper flashing before the winter rain sets in... and my father left a lot of broken spoons that need fixing."
