Chapter 2 - The People Who Killed Your Father
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The second bullet hit the side mirror and sent glass raining across my shoulder.
Alessandro kept his body over mine and did not flinch.
His hand stayed firm on the back of my head, pressing my face into his chest.
I could hear his heart pounding through his black suit.
Dante opened the rear door of the SUV and shouted for us to get in now.
Alessandro lifted me off the wet sidewalk as if I weighed nothing.
He pushed me into the back seat and climbed in after me, still shielding me with his own body.
Another shot cracked through the rainy air behind us.
Dante slammed the door, jumped into the front seat, and hit the accelerator before the door had fully closed.
The tires screamed against the wet pavement outside Moretti's Bakery.
I slid across the leather seat as we turned hard onto Harbor Avenue.
Alessandro caught me by the waist and held me steady.
"Stay low," he said.
I ducked as the shattered bakery window disappeared behind us.
Mrs. Moretti was still inside that bakery.
So were the women who worked the morning shift with me.
"Turn back," I said.
Alessandro looked at me like I had lost my mind.
"We cannot turn back."
"Those people in there did nothing wrong."
"Dante already called it in."
"My second car is two blocks behind us, and my men will secure the bakery before the police arrive."
"No one else will be hurt because of this."
I wanted to believe him, but my hands would not stop shaking.
The handkerchief around my palm was already soaked through with blood.
Every bump in the road sent a sharp pain up my arm.
Alessandro noticed before I said a single word.
He took my hand gently and held it above my heart.
"Keep it raised."
"It hurts."
"I know."
"You should have told me you were in Bellhaven."
His gray eyes met mine, and for a second the anger in them was not aimed at me.
"I tried to be careful."
"Careful would have been a phone call."
"Careful was keeping my distance until I knew who was watching you."
Dante glanced at us in the rearview mirror.
"We have a tail two cars back, boss."
Alessandro turned and looked through the rain-streaked rear window.
"Lose them at the freight yard."
Dante nodded once and took a sudden turn down a narrow service road.
Crates and shipping containers rose on both sides of us like wet steel walls.
The SUV bounced over broken pavement and puddles deep enough to splash the windows.
I grabbed the door handle with my good hand.
Chen Logistics trucks used to park in yards exactly like this one when I was a little girl.
My father had let me sit in his office above Terminal 4 and watch the cranes move containers below.
I had not allowed myself to think about those afternoons in years.
Thinking about him always made the official story feel wrong.
A car accident on Harbor Bridge, Aunt Marie had said.
Rain, speed, and bad luck, Aunt Marie had said.
No reason to ask questions, Aunt Marie had said.
Dante cut through an open gate and merged into traffic on the bridge road.
The car behind us missed the turn and kept going straight.
"We are clear for now," Dante said.
Alessandro finally eased back into his seat, but he did not let go of my hand.
I asked who was shooting at us.
"Men who were paid to watch the bakery and report if I ever found you."
"That makes no sense."
"It will."
"You said the people who killed my father found me."
"Yes."
"My father died in a car accident."
"No, Sophia."
"He died because someone cut his brakes before he crossed Harbor Bridge."
The words hit me harder than the gunshots had.
I pulled my hand away from him and ignored the pain.
"You are lying."
"I wish I was."
"You were not even there."
"I was at the hospital with my father when they brought your father in."
"My father Antonio demanded an independent inspection of the wreck before anyone could touch it."
"The report disappeared from police custody three days later."
My throat closed so tightly that I could barely breathe.
"Why would anyone kill him?"
"That is what your envelope is for."
I looked down at the old envelope clutched against my bloodied apron.
My father's handwriting stared back at me from the front of it.
FOR SOPHIA — WHEN SHE IS SAFE.
I had carried that handwriting in my memory for six years without ever seeing it on paper again.
Alessandro reached for the envelope, then stopped himself.
"It is yours," he said.
"He sealed it the week he died and gave it to my father."
"My father kept it hidden until the night you vanished."
"Then I kept it."
"You have had it for four years?"
"I have had it since the morning I came home from Chicago and found you gone."
We turned through the iron gates of the Caruso estate as the rain finally began to slow.
The long driveway curved past wet stone walls and dark gardens I remembered too well.
The house rose ahead of us, tall and lit from within, exactly as it had looked on my wedding day.
I had sworn I would never walk into that house again.
Alessandro helped me out of the SUV without asking if I wanted his help.
This time, I did not push him away.
My legs felt too weak to argue with him.
Dr. Elena Rosini met us at the side entrance with her medical bag already open.
She was older than I remembered, with silver at her temples and the same calm voice she had used when I lived here.
"Sophia, sit down before you fall down."
Alessandro guided me to a chair in the warm kitchen while Dante locked every door behind us.
Dr. Rosini unwound the soaked handkerchief and examined the cut across my palm.
"You need stitches."
"How many?"
"Six, maybe seven."
"I cannot pay for seven stitches."
Alessandro made a low sound in his throat.
"You are not paying for anything."
Dr. Rosini cleaned the wound while I bit down hard on my lower lip.
The needle hurt, but the truth hurt worse, and I needed something to focus on besides my father.
When she finished, she wrapped my hand in clean white gauze and gave me a glass of water.
"Rest that hand for ten days."
"No lifting trays and no hot ovens."
I almost laughed at the idea that my life still included trays and ovens after this morning.
Alessandro waited until Dr. Rosini left the kitchen before he pulled out the chair across from me.
"Ask me," he said.
"Ask me what?"
"Everything you have wanted to ask me for four years."
"Did you send me away?"
"No."
"Did you sign papers ending our marriage?"
"No."
"Did you know Aunt Marie was moving me from town to town?"
"I learned that later."
"Then why did nobody come for me in Pittsburgh?"
His jaw tightened, and he looked down at his hands.
"Because by the time my investigators found the Pittsburgh address, you had already been gone for eleven days."
"Someone always warned Marie before we arrived."
I stared at the envelope on the kitchen table between us.
"Open it," Alessandro said quietly.
My fingers trembled as I broke the old seal.
Inside was a folded letter in my father's careful handwriting and a small brass key taped to a paper card.
The card read safety deposit box 417 at First Bellhaven Bank.
I set the brass key aside and unfolded the letter with my good hand.
My father's voice seemed to fill the silent kitchen as I began to read.
He wrote that he loved me and that he was sorry for the marriage he had arranged without giving me a real choice.
He wrote that he had discovered his own partner network was being used to move illegal weapons through Terminal 4.
He named the shipment S-19 and wrote that the containers had been relabeled under Chen Logistics paperwork.
He wrote that he had traced the orders back to someone inside the Caruso family whom he had trusted for twenty years.
He wrote that he feared for his life and that he believed his car would be tampered with if he went to the police too soon.
He wrote that Antonio Caruso had promised to protect me by joining our families until the danger passed.
He wrote that Alessandro had agreed to the marriage only after Michael promised him that Sophia would be free to leave once she was safe and grown.
Tears blurred the last lines until Alessandro slid a clean napkin toward me without saying a word.
I wiped my eyes and forced myself to read the final paragraph.
My father wrote that money and pride would make good men lie to me in the coming years.
He wrote that one man in particular would smile while he destroyed everything our families had built.
May you like
Then I read the last line of the letter out loud, and my voice broke in the middle of it.
Trust no Caruso except Alessandro.
