[COMPLETED] I Found the Mafia Boss Breathing in His Casket—Then He Refused to Let Me Leave His Funeral

I forwarded the messages to Detective Ortiz before I answered them.

That was a decision I made for myself. I did not call Marco, and I did not call Aleandro. A man could own half the restaurants in Chicago and still have no right to manage my safety.

Ortiz rang within minutes.

"Don't reply yet," she said. "We need to document the number and establish whether Felix sent those messages."

"He says he has evidence."

"Or someone wants you to believe he does."

Her caution embarrassed me because it was sensible. I had begun to treat the silver-haired stranger as my ally merely because he looked frightened. I had learned how appearances worked at the Belmont estate.

Ortiz arranged for an officer to examine the messages. A few hours later she called with another request. Would I identify Matteo's pin from several photographs?

I recognized it immediately. Gold, eight narrow points, a tiny dark center.

The same shape embossed on the missing envelope.

"It's a family crest?" I asked.

"An old emblem used on records from the Caruso holdings," she said. "We're checking why it appears on private correspondence."

That afternoon Aleandro's condition improved enough for Ortiz to take a formal statement. She asked if I would speak to him while she was present, because he might remember what he saw as he regained consciousness. I nearly refused.

But the image of his hand gripping my wrist had begun to compete with another memory: the look on his face when he realized he had been lying in a coffin.

I went to the hospital.

Aleandro sat upright against white pillows, an IV attached to his arm. Without the suit and the chandelier light, he looked exhausted. His near-black hair was untidy, and bruising marked the place where medical tape had been removed from his chest.

He nodded when I entered.

"You came."

"Detective Ortiz invited me."

"Then I owe her thanks."

I stood beside the window. Ortiz turned on a recorder after explaining the interview.

Aleandro remembered drinking coffee in the west office the evening before he collapsed. Matteo had asked for a private meeting about the shipping warehouses along the river. They had argued for nearly an hour.

"What about?" Ortiz asked.

"The redevelopment deal. Matteo wanted me to transfer controlling authority to a holding company. I refused. The proposal was structured to hide who would benefit."

"Then what?"

"My chest felt heavy. I was sweating. I remember trying to stand and falling. I heard someone call Dr. Bell. Then nothing clear until the funeral."

"Did you feel ill before the coffee?"

"No."

Ortiz asked whether he had signed documents giving Matteo temporary control of the company after his supposed death.

Aleandro looked at her sharply. "Why would I?"

"We have records of emergency resolutions filed while you were declared deceased."

His expression hardened. "Those require a verified death and the approval of trustees."

"We're reviewing both."

I thought of a small detail from the photograph. "Was the coffee brought in by someone from catering?"

Aleandro shook his head. "Matteo poured it himself."

Ortiz asked me to describe the envelope, and I explained the star emblem. Aleandro listened without interrupting.

"Those seals are on historical family documents," he said. "Felix maintains the archive. Matteo has access to its inventory, not the keys."

"The photograph suggests he removed one from the lilies," Ortiz said.

"Why would a document be buried with me?"

Nobody answered.

When Ortiz stepped out to take a call, Aleandro watched me fold my hands.

"I should have listened to you at the estate," he said.

"You did listen when I said you were alive. It was later that you decided I was a suspect."

"I had just woken in a coffin."

"That explains the fear. It doesn't excuse the threat."

He nodded, as though the difference mattered. "I understand."

It was the first apology from a powerful man I had ever heard that did not include a price or a condition.

Ortiz returned with news about Dr. Bell. The doctor had certified Aleandro's death using an examination record whose time stamp conflicted with the estate security log. He claimed to have completed the examination at 10:42 p.m. The electronic gate record showed him arriving nearly an hour later.

"Could the gate system be wrong?" Aleandro asked.

"Yes," Ortiz said. "That's why we're corroborating it."

A second physician at the hospital was reviewing Aleandro's laboratory findings, including whether a medication could have produced severe bradycardia and reduced responsiveness. The tests would not prove who administered anything, but they might establish why a living man had been declared dead.

"Do you remember anyone speaking while you couldn't move?" Ortiz asked.

Aleandro closed his eyes.

For a long moment there was only the soft hum of the air-conditioning.

"I remember a voice," he said. "Someone said, 'Don't wait until morning.' I thought I was dreaming."

"Male or female?"

"Male. Older, perhaps. I couldn't tell."

I pictured Felix and his silver hair. Then Dr. Bell with his careful words. Then Matteo's confident smile.

There were too many men. Too many reasons to misremember.

Ortiz ended the interview and asked me to step into the corridor. She showed me a scanned page from the estate's private medical file. The death certificate carried Dr. Bell's signature and a witness acknowledgment under it.

The witness signature read Felix Voss.

"He signed this?" I asked.

"According to the document."

I thought of Felix's gloved hands and the tears in his eyes.

"He was frightened," I said.

"Fear can make people do terrible things," Ortiz replied. "It can also make them help. We need to know which happened."

Before leaving I glanced through the hospital-room doorway. Aleandro was studying the skyline, his jaw tense, a paper cup of untouched coffee beside the bed.