Chapter 5 - The Rooftop Where My Father Hid the Truth

I didn’t answer Domenico.

I hung up.

Mateo took the phone from my hand and powered it off.

“Who does he think he has?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Mother?”

“Dead.”

“Siblings?”

“None.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Dead.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Then either he’s bluffing or your father isn’t.”

The room tilted.

“No.”

“Tessa.”

“My father died twelve years ago.”

“You have a newspaper clipping saying his car burned.”

“No body was found.”

I hated Mateo for saying it.

Because I had spent twelve years learning how to survive one certainty.

My father was gone.

Hope was more dangerous than grief.

“Where did he teach you to count stars?” Mateo asked.

I looked at the ceiling.

“Our old building in Bridgeport.”

We arrived forty minutes later.

The building had been converted into expensive apartments, but the fire stairs were still where I remembered them.

Mateo bribed no one.

Threatened no one.

He simply told the night concierge that I had grown up there and needed five minutes on the roof.

Maybe it was the suit.

Maybe it was his face.

Maybe some people could recognize trouble even when it spoke politely.

The roof had changed.

New vents.

New railings.

A garden where rusted lawn chairs used to sit.

But the brick chimney remained.

My father had painted tiny white stars along the bottom when I was eight.

I knelt.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Behind the fifth star, the mortar looked different.

Mateo used a pocketknife to loosen a narrow brick.

Inside the cavity was a waterproof pouch.

My hands shook as I opened it.

A small flash drive.

A brass medallion.

And a folded letter.

The letter was dated eleven years ago.

One year after my father vanished.

Tessa,

If Lucia has brought you here, then she finally decided the truth is safer than silence.

I am alive.

I stopped reading.

The rooftop disappeared.

The city disappeared.

All I saw were those three words.

I am alive.

Mateo crouched beside me.

He didn’t touch me.

I was grateful.

I kept reading.

My father wrote that after Sofia Vitiello died, he took copies of her evidence to federal investigators.

Domenico discovered it.

Daniel’s car was burned to create the appearance of his death before agents moved him into protective custody.

He had wanted to take me.

Lucia refused.

“She believed Domenico had contacts inside law enforcement,” I whispered.

Mateo read silently over my shoulder.

The letter explained that contact with me would expose my location.

So Daniel disappeared.

Not because he stopped loving me.

Because he believed staying dead would keep me alive.

I laughed once.

It sounded broken.

“Twelve years.”

Mateo’s voice was quiet.

“He may have had no choice.”

“Everyone has choices.”

He looked at me.

There was something in his expression I couldn’t name.

Maybe because he had grown up in a family where choices came with graves attached.

The flash drive contained scanned bank records.

Names.

Dates.

Payments.

And photographs.

One showed Domenico meeting Arturo Bellini two days before Sofia’s crash.

Another showed my father entering a federal building months after he supposedly died.

Alive.

Older.

Terrified.

Alive.

I pressed my fingers against my mouth.

Mateo turned away.

He gave me privacy even though we were standing six inches apart.

That was when the stairwell door opened.

Both of us spun.

A teenage boy stepped onto the roof carrying a grocery bag.

He froze.

We froze.

Then he muttered, “Sorry,” and backed away.

My knees nearly collapsed from relief.

Mateo exhaled.

“Your life is exhausting.”

I stared at him.

“Mine?”

He almost smiled.

Then his phone vibrated.

A message.

His face hardened.

“What?”

He showed me the screen.

A photograph of Salvatore sitting alone at Bellori.

Taken through the restaurant window.

Beneath it were six words.

THE OLD MAN PAYS FOR ROSALIA.

I felt cold.

“Domenico?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Domenico doesn’t threaten my father.”

He enlarged the image.

In the reflection of the window was a man holding the camera.

Young.

Dark hair.

A scar across his left eyebrow.

Mateo went still.

“That’s Luca Russo.”

“Domenico’s son?”

His voice lowered.

“Domenico has no son named Luca.”

He zoomed farther.

The man wore a chain around his neck.

At the end was a medallion shaped like a silver falcon.

The same symbol as Paolo’s ring.

Mateo looked at the brass medallion from the rooftop pouch.

They matched.

I turned mine over.

Three initials were engraved on the back.

A.B.R.

Mateo stared at them.

“Arturo Bellini Russo.”

I looked at him.

“The mechanic?”

He nodded slowly.

“Domenico didn’t hire Sofia’s mechanic.”

The truth arrived piece by piece.

“He was family.”

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Mateo’s expression became lethal.

“And someone has spent twelve years making sure we never knew it.”