165.🥂 The Bruised Wrist That Shattered the Mafia Boss’s Engagement

Chapter 11 - The Ledger at St. Brigid’s

Carlo did not look like a man trapped in an abandoned chapel.

He looked like a man hosting a dinner party where everyone else had arrived underdressed.

Nina’s wheelchair was positioned beside him, but her eyes were on Sofia, and there was no softness there.

“You brought them,” Nina said.

Sofia swallowed. “I had to.”

“You always have to when it becomes impossible to keep pretending.”

That landed harder than any slap.

Dante stepped forward. “Let her go.”

Carlo touched the ledger with two fingers. “You haven’t heard the price.”

“I don’t bargain for people.”

“Of course you do. We all do. You just prefer not to admit it in front of the help.”

I was getting very tired of being described as furniture.

Nina looked at me. “You’re Emma.”

“Yes.”

“Your brother?”

“Safe.”

“Good.”

There was something in her voice, clean and sharp, that made me stand straighter.

Carlo sighed. “Touching. The wounded collecting themselves.”

Nina turned her head. “Be quiet, Carlo.”

He laughed.

Then stopped when he realized no one else did.

Dante looked at the ledger. “What do you want?”

“For you to marry Sofia quietly. Dissolve the trust. Move the funds through the Marchetti accounts. Let old stories stay old.”

“And if I don’t?”

“The ledger goes to federal investigators.”

Dante’s expression did not change.

Carlo leaned back. “Your father’s notes name safety violations, bribes, falsified inspections, political payments. Enough to bury the legitimate companies you’ve spent years polishing.”

“Then release it.”

For the first time, Carlo blinked.

Dante moved closer. “Release it. All of it.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“You would ruin your own name?”

Dante looked at me, then at Nina, then at Sofia.

“My name appears to have been standing on other people’s graves for longer than I knew.”

Carlo’s face hardened.

Behind him, Nina smiled.

Just a little.

“What?” Carlo snapped.

“I told you he wasn’t his father,” she said.

Carlo turned toward her.

That was when Sofia moved.

She took the ledger.

Not gracefully.

Not like a heroine from a film.

She lunged, grabbed it with both hands, and shoved it toward Dante as Carlo reached for her. Marco crossed the chapel in three long strides and caught Carlo before he touched her.

The room erupted without shouting.

Dante seized the ledger.

Carlo fought Marco with the fury of an old man who had mistaken age for immunity.

I went to Nina and pulled her wheelchair back.

She grabbed my bruised hand by accident.

I hissed.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Busy.”

“Fair.”

Then the chapel doors opened.

Police entered with federal agents behind them.

Carlo went still.