Chapter 4 - The Man Marco Tried to Reach
Carlo recognized one company immediately.
“Bellweather Consulting.”
Simone turned the page toward him.
“You know it?”
“Marco asked me about it.”
“When?”
“A week before he died.”
Dante looked up.
“You never told me.”
“I told Victor.”
The sentence landed heavily.
Carlo stared at the paperwork.
“He said he’d handle it. Then Marco was killed, and everybody thought the Russos had done it.”
“Everybody?”
Carlo met Dante’s eyes.
“You did.”
Dante remembered the ceasefire agreement.
The old grudges.
The satisfaction of having a direction for his grief, even without enough proof to retaliate.
He had been cautious about violence.
He had not been cautious about belief.
“What exactly did Marco ask?”
“Whether I could find an accountant named Paul Conti. He’d left the trust office suddenly.”
“Why?”
“Marco said the numbers were wrong.”
Simone began writing.
“Did you find him?”
“No. Victor said he had.”
“And?”
“That Conti was unreliable. Drinking. Stealing small amounts. Marco was getting himself tangled in someone else’s excuses.”
Dante leaned back.
He could hear Victor saying it.
The patient voice.
The weary affection.
A younger man’s concern reduced to immaturity.
“Do you believe that now?” he asked.
Carlo looked at him.
“No.”
Locating Conti took five days.
There was no secret code, no dramatic informant in a dark restaurant.
There were former employment records, an attorney forwarding a request, and a man in Pennsylvania who almost refused to answer.
Conti eventually agreed to meet Simone.
Not Dante.
That condition told Dante something about the family name he had spent his life defending.
He remained in New Jersey.
Simone returned with permission to share part of the interview.
Conti had identified false consulting expenses.
He had challenged Victor.
Soon afterward, his position disappeared, and someone left photographs of his children inside his mailbox.
He moved.
Before he left, he met Marco.
“I gave him copies,” Conti said in the recorded interview. “He said his brother would want to know.”
Dante stopped the recording.
He walked to the window.
Marco had believed that.
Of all the facts emerging, it was the one that hurt most.
His younger brother had walked toward danger carrying faith in him.
Behind him, Simone waited.
Eventually, Dante returned to the chair.
“Continue.”
Conti had kept records of the meeting, including messages from Marco’s private email and copies of the financial documents.
He had also received a final voicemail.
Marco’s voice filled the study.
Young.
Irritated.
Alive.
“Paul, I spoke to Victor. He says there’s an explanation. I’m meeting him tomorrow after dinner. Keep your copies somewhere outside the house. I’ll call you when I’ve spoken to Dante.”
The recording ended.
Carlo pressed a fist against his mouth.
Dante stared at nothing.
The day after the meeting was the day Marco died.
Simone spoke carefully.
“This establishes a reason to reopen questions. It is not, by itself, proof of who ordered his death.”
Dante nodded.
He wanted a verdict.
What he had was a path.
It would have to be enough.
That evening, Elena called from her sister’s kitchen.
Her own lawyer had advised her to write down what she remembered while it was fresh.
Not to question Sophia again.
Not to teach her a version of events.
Just to preserve the adult facts.
Dante listened as Elena described the evening, the timing, the necklace, the child returning without her toy.
Then she hesitated.
“There was something before that.”
“What?”
“Mr. Serno came through the kitchen that afternoon. He asked when the daycare usually closed.”
Dante’s fingers tightened.
“Did he often ask?”
“Never.”
“He may have known Sophia would be in the house.”
“Maybe.”
Elena’s voice shook.
“Please don’t tell me more. My lawyer said I don’t need to know the investigation. I only need to tell what happened.”
“You’re right.”
“Will you remember that?”
He understood the question beneath the question.
Would he use her fear to gather more?
Would he turn her daughter into an instrument?
“Yes,” he said.
After the call, he went to Marco’s old bedroom.
It had remained closed for seven years.
He opened the curtains.
Dust rose in the evening light.
On the bookshelf sat a photograph of the brothers in their mother’s garden, Carlo standing behind them with a watering can.
Victor had taken the picture.
Dante turned the frame facedown.
May you like
Then, after a moment, he turned it upright again.
He would not let one man take every good thing from the memory.
