Chapter 2 - The Maid Came to His Mansion Looking for Her Father’s Killer—Then the Mafia Boss Found His Own Family Name in the Dead Man’s NotebookEnzo didn't speak for several seconds.
Neither did Marco.
Adeline stood in the medical room wearing Enzo's coat over a maid's uniform stained with her own blood.
She had imagined this moment many times.
In none of those fantasies was she frightened enough to shake.
Enzo finally spoke.
“You came into my house because you believe I killed your father?”
“No.”
“Someone who works for me.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought becoming a maid was the best way to investigate?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“It was stupid.”
Her chin lifted.
“I didn't have better options.”
Enzo studied her.
Most people lowered their eyes when he looked at them that way.
Adeline didn't.
Interesting.
“What was your father's name?”
“Thomas Croft.”
Marco reacted.
Small.
But Enzo caught it.
“You know the name.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“I've heard it.”
“Where?”
“Marchetti Logistics.”
Adeline's heart jumped.
“My father didn't work for a logistics company.”
Marco looked at her.
“Apparently he did.”
Enzo turned.
“Office. Now.”
They moved to Enzo's private study.
Adeline had never entered it.
Dark wood.
Books.
A fireplace.
No visible extravagance.
Enzo pointed toward a chair.
Adeline remained standing.
“You can sit.”
“I'd rather stand.”
“Fine.”
He didn't argue.
That surprised her.
Marco accessed a secured database.
Thomas Croft appeared almost immediately.
Consultant.
Temporary contract.
Marchetti Logistics.
Fourteen months earlier.
Enzo read the screen.
“What did he consult on?”
“Accounting compliance.”
Adeline stared.
“My father was a restaurant owner.”
Marco opened another file.
“Before that?”
“He worked in corporate accounting for twenty years.”
That explained it.
Enzo continued reading.
Thomas had been hired to audit several shipping subsidiaries after unexplained losses.
Three months into the contract, he resigned.
Two weeks later, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Seven months later, he died.
Except something was wrong.
Enzo leaned closer.
“Who authorized the contract?”
Marco checked.
His expression hardened.
“Alessandro.”
Enzo went still.
Adeline looked between them.
“Who is Alessandro?”
“My uncle.”
Enzo's voice had changed.
“Was,” Marco corrected.
Adeline noticed.
“Was?”
Enzo didn't answer immediately.
“My uncle disappeared six months ago.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“People don't usually disappear.”
“In my family, unfortunately, they sometimes do.”
Adeline swallowed.
Enzo looked toward her.
“What did your father tell you?”
“Not much.”
“Everything you remember.”
Adeline took a breath.
“He got sick very quickly.”
“Pancreatic cancer can—”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“The cancer was real. But he changed before the diagnosis.”
“How?”
“Scared.”
Thomas Croft had never been a frightened man.
He had raised Adeline alone after her mother died when she was thirteen.
He ran Croft's Kitchen for nineteen years.
He argued with suppliers.
Threw drunk customers into taxis.
Once chased a burglar out of the restaurant with a frozen salmon because it was the first object he could reach.
Then one winter, he became afraid of his own telephone.
“He started locking doors during daylight.”
Enzo listened.
“He bought cameras.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“No.”
“He stopped letting me help with the restaurant books.”
“Did you see anything?”
“One thing.”
“What?”
“A name.”
Enzo waited.
“Marchetti.”
Silence.
“That was why you came here.”
“Yes.”
“How did you get hired?”
“I applied.”
Marco looked skeptical.
“So you coincidentally got hired into the house of the family your father feared?”
Adeline's face warmed.
“I may have changed my résumé.”
Enzo's eyebrow lifted.
“How?”
“I said I had three years of domestic experience.”
“How much did you actually have?”
“None.”
Marco laughed.
Enzo looked at him.
He stopped.
Mostly.
Adeline folded her arms.
“I needed access.”
“To what?”
“I didn't know.”
“That is not a plan.”
“I was grieving.”
The words came sharper than she intended.
Enzo became silent.
Adeline continued.
“My father died terrified. He made me promise not to ask questions.”
Her voice broke.
“I kept that promise until I found his notebook.”
Enzo's eyes sharpened.
“What notebook?”
She reached beneath Enzo's coat.
Not toward her body.
Toward the inside pocket she had sewn into her uniform.
Marco's hand moved toward his weapon.
Enzo lifted one finger.
Marco stopped.
Adeline removed a tiny key.
“It's in a locker at Union Station.”
Enzo stared.
“What is?”
“My father's notebook.”
“Why didn't you bring it?”
“Because I'm not completely stupid.”
Marco almost laughed again.
Enzo ignored him.
“What is inside?”
“Names. Numbers. Shipping dates.”
“Anything else?”
“One sentence repeated four times.”
“What sentence?”
Adeline looked at him.
The money isn't disappearing. It's buying something.
Enzo felt something cold move through him.
For nearly two years, millions had vanished from several Marchetti businesses.
He had blamed theft.
Bad management.
Possibly Alessandro.
What if Thomas Croft had discovered something larger?
“Marco.”
“Already arranging the car.”
Adeline shook her head.
“No.”
Enzo looked at her.
“No?”
“I go.”
“Absolutely not.”
Her expression changed.
Enzo remembered the previous night.
Choice.
He exhaled.
“You should not go because someone tried to kill you three hours ago.”
“Better.”
“What?”
“That's better than ordering me.”
His jaw tightened.
She almost smiled.
“I still go.”
Enzo studied her.
“Fine.”
Marco stared at him.
“Boss?”
“She goes.”
“Someone tried to poison her.”
“I'm aware.”
“And you're taking her outside?”
“No.”
Enzo reached for his coat.
Then remembered she was wearing it.
Something strange passed between them.
“I’m going with her.”
Union Station was nearly empty at four in the morning.
Adeline walked between Enzo and Marco.
She hated how safe it made her feel.
Dependence frightened her.
Her father had taught her to handle problems herself.
But there was a difference between needing rescue and accepting help.
She was still learning it.
The locker stood near the south concourse.
Number 418.
Adeline inserted the key.
Nothing happened.
“Turn it twice,” Marco said.
She did.
The door opened.
Inside sat a canvas bag.
Adeline pulled it out.
The notebook was gone.
Her stomach dropped.
“No.”
She searched.
Nothing.
“Someone took it.”
Enzo examined the locker.
“No damage.”
“They had a key.”
“Or access.”
Marco pointed.
“Camera.”
Within twenty minutes, they had security footage.
A man opened the locker two days earlier.
Adeline stared at the screen.
“I know him.”
Enzo turned.
“Who?”
“Father Michael.”
“A priest?”
“He was my father's closest friend.”
They found Father Michael Donnelly at St. Catherine's Church shortly after dawn.
He didn't deny taking the notebook.
He looked at Adeline and began crying.
“Your father made me promise.”
Adeline's anger disappeared.
“Promise what?”
“That if anyone came asking questions after his death, I would move it.”
“Where is it?”
“Safe.”
Enzo remained near the back of the church.
Father Michael noticed him.
Fear entered his face.
“Marchetti.”
Enzo nodded.
“You shouldn't have brought him.”
Adeline looked at the priest.
“Why?”
“Because Thomas died because of that family.”
Enzo's expression didn't change.
Adeline stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
Father Michael sat.
“Your father discovered payments connected to shipping containers.”
“What was inside them?”
“He didn't know at first.”
“And later?”
Father Michael looked toward Enzo.
“Weapons.”
Marco swore softly.
Enzo went still.
The Marchetti organization had criminal operations.
He didn't pretend otherwise.
Gambling.
Smuggling untaxed luxury goods.
Protection arrangements.
But weapons trafficking had been forbidden since his father ran the organization.
Too much heat.
Too many innocent bodies.
“Who?” Enzo asked.
Father Michael shook his head.
“Thomas never told me.”
“The notebook.”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
The priest looked at Adeline.
“You need to understand something first.”
“What?”
“Your father wasn't murdered because he discovered the operation.”
Adeline's heart pounded.
“He was murdered because he copied the evidence.”
She stopped.
“But he had cancer.”
Father Michael's face twisted.
“The cancer killed him eventually.”
Adeline couldn't breathe.
“Eventually?”
“He was poisoned first.”
Silence.
Father Michael continued.
“Slowly. Small doses.”
Adeline's knees weakened.
Enzo caught her elbow.
She didn't pull away.
“How do you know?”
“Thomas had tests done privately.”
Father Michael removed an envelope.
“Arsenic.”
Adeline stared.
Her father had spent his final months vomiting.
Losing weight.
Weak.
Doctors attributed everything to cancer.
But someone had been helping the disease kill him faster.
Tears blurred her vision.
Enzo's hand remained beneath her elbow.
Steady.
Not controlling.
“Who did it?” she whispered.
Father Michael looked at Enzo.
“Thomas believed Alessandro Marchetti ordered it.”
Enzo closed his eyes.
His uncle.
His father's younger brother.
A man who had taught Enzo to drive.
Taken him to baseball games.
Given him his first watch.
And disappeared six months ago.
“Where's the notebook?” Enzo asked.
Father Michael stood.
Behind the altar, beneath a removable floorboard, he retrieved a sealed plastic package.
Adeline opened it.
Her father's handwriting covered the pages.
Numbers.
Dates.
Names.
Container codes.
Then Enzo saw something.
A symbol.
A small black crown.
He knew it.
“Marco.”
“I see it.”
Adeline looked up.
“What?”
Enzo pointed.
“The Black Crown.”
“What is that?”
“An organization.”
“Criminal?”
“Yes.”
“Worse than yours?”
Marco coughed.
Enzo ignored him.
“Yes.”
Adeline turned pages.
One name appeared repeatedly.
A. Marchetti.
Alessandro.
Then another.
W. Ashford.
Adeline stopped.
“Camilla's father?”
Enzo's expression hardened.
Senator William Ashford.
Suddenly the gala made sense.
The engagement.
The alliance.
The poison.
Camilla might not have known.
But her father did.
Enzo's engagement hadn't merely been social.
The Ashfords had wanted permanent access to the Marchetti organization.
Through marriage.
And Adeline had accidentally walked into the middle of it.
Then Father Michael said something that changed everything.
“There's one more thing.”
He handed Adeline a photograph.
Thomas Croft stood outside his restaurant.
Beside him was Alessandro Marchetti.
And between them stood a third man.
Enzo stared.
Impossible.
Adeline looked at him.
“You know him?”
Enzo didn't answer.
She looked again.
The third man resembled Enzo.
Older.
Silver at the temples.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
“Who is he?”
Enzo's voice was almost inaudible.
“My father.”
Adeline frowned.
“I thought your father died eight years ago.”
“He did.”
“Then when was this photograph taken?”
Father Michael answered.
“Fourteen months ago.”
Nobody moved.
Adeline stared at Enzo.
May you like
Either the photograph was fake—
or Enzo Marchetti had spent eight years believing a lie about his own family.
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