Chapter 10 - Marco Finally Opened the Ledger Salvatore Told Him to Hide

I met Marco in the basement of a closed restaurant we both owned and neither of us trusted.

No phones.

No guards inside.

He brought a black leather ledger wrapped in plastic.

For thirty years, men had died because of the pages between those covers.

It looked disappointingly ordinary.

“You had it the entire time,” I said.

“Since Mia accessed the archive.”

“And you let me walk into the warehouse without it.”

“I followed Salvatore’s instruction.”

“Salvatore is dead.”

Marco’s expression tightened.

“He was still our father.”

“Yours.”

The word came out sharper than I intended.

Marco absorbed it.

“Yes,” he said. “Mine by blood. Yours by choice.”

I hated him a little for making that distinction sound painful.

He pushed the ledger toward me.

“Read.”

Jonah Mercer’s handwriting filled the early pages. Company names. Amounts. Dates. Initials. Later entries were written in Anton Dorne’s tighter script.

Some lines were marked with the diagonal square Mia recognized.

Copies.

Others carried a small letter C.

Crane.

Silas.

The night of the fire appeared across four pages.

Jonah had scheduled a meeting with Salvatore.

Anton had withdrawn money to pay for transport.

Enzo Vale had sent men without Salvatore’s approval.

And Silas Crane had received an emergency payment eighteen hours later.

Not Anton.

The single page left in the warehouse had been altered.

Someone had replaced the letter C with a payment line pointing to A. Dorne.

“Rafael was framed,” I said.

“Partly.”

Marco turned several pages.

Years later, Rafael had joined Salvatore’s legitimate companies. The ledger showed unauthorized transfers from old Mercer shells into accounts Rafael controlled.

“He stole from us,” Marco said.

“After Salvatore killed his father.”

“That explains it. It doesn’t excuse it.”

I almost laughed.

We were two criminals debating accounting ethics over a book documenting three decades of crimes.

Then I reached a page with my mother’s name.

Lillian Mercer.

Beneath it Salvatore had written by hand:

Safe house expenses. Medical. Do not disclose location to E.

My stomach turned.

“He knew she was alive.”

Marco nodded.

“You knew?”

“Not until after he died.”

I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.

“You knew six years ago?”

“Yes.”

“And you never told me.”

“He left me a letter.”

“I don’t care.”

“You would have burned everything down.”

“I deserved to know.”

“Yes.”

The simple agreement stopped me.

Marco looked older than forty-two.

“I was a coward,” he said. “I told myself I was protecting you. Really, I was protecting the only version of my father I could still love.”

That was the most honest thing either of us had said.

“Why did Salvatore choose me?”

Marco looked at the ledger.

“Because he was afraid I wanted the chair too much.”

“And I didn’t?”

“You wanted his approval. Different addiction.”

That hurt because it was true.

He continued.

“After the fire, he watched you grow up in a house built on his guilt. By the time he died, he believed giving you control was some kind of repayment.”

“Repayment?”

“I said he believed it. I didn’t say it made sense.”

I turned to the final pages.

Several had been cut out.

“Who removed these?”

“Salvatore.”

“When?”

“Before he died.”

“Where are they?”

“No idea.”

“Second copy,” I said.

Marco’s eyes narrowed.

I told him what the intruder had said to Mia.

He went still.

“My father kept saying there was a duplicate he could never find.”

“Sofia.”

“Or Lillian.”

I showed him the image of the supposedly dead Father Thomas leaving Grant’s house.

Marco stared.

“That isn’t Thomas Bell.”

“Mia recognized him from the funeral.”

“She recognized the limp.”

He zoomed in.

Then his face lost color.

“I know that coat.”

“What?”

“Salvatore gave it to Silas when we were young. Cashmere. Custom buttons.”

“That was decades ago.”

“Silas keeps trophies.”

I looked again at the man’s posture.

“Why pretend to be a dead priest?”

“Because Father Thomas was one of the people who moved your mother between safe houses.”

Everything aligned.

Silas knew Sofia.

Silas knew Grant.

Silas knew the archive protocols.

Silas knew the security habits Salvatore taught us.

And he knew enough to frame Marco and Rafael against each other.

Marco closed the ledger.

“He is not doing this just to hide the fire.”

“No.”

“He wants the missing pages.”

“Because?”

Marco looked at me.

“Because the pages Salvatore removed were the only record of what Silas did after the fire.”

Before I could ask, a door slammed upstairs.

Then came a burst of automatic gunfire.

Marco pulled his weapon.

The lights went out.

In the darkness, his voice was almost calm.

“Looks like he finally found the ledger.”

Marco reached for the duplicate ledger.

I stopped him.

“From now on, neither of us keeps the whole truth alone.”

He studied me, then nodded.

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It was not forgiveness.

But for brothers raised by a man who weaponized secrets, sharing evidence was as close to trust as either of us knew how to get.