🥀 THE MAFIA BOSS WHO TRUSTED THE WRONG WOMAN

Chapter 08 - The Driver Who Kept the Keys

Samuel Rizzo lived in a narrow house south of Joliet with a vegetable garden and a dented blue pickup. He was fifty-nine, broad-shouldered, and moved one arm stiffly from an injury that had never healed quite right. When he opened the door to Luca, he looked at the two cars parked along the curb and sighed.

“I wondered how long it would take you.”

Luca had come with Helen and no guards. He had told his security chief to remain in Chicago. Samuel offered coffee but not warmth. They sat at a kitchen table covered in oilcloth while the refrigerator hummed and rain struck the gutter outside.

“I need to know what happened the morning Elena died,” Luca said.

Samuel looked at the window. “I told the police. It was raining. The brakes felt soft. I tried to slow before the curve.”

“Did you know the vehicle had failed inspection?”

“I knew something was wrong two days before. I wrote it on the dispatch sheet.”

“Why did you drive it?”

Samuel's jaw worked. “I didn't choose the car. I got the keys at the gate. I called dispatch and said I wanted the backup vehicle. They said the boss had authorized it. I thought that meant you.”

“Did they use my initials?”

“They said LM. I never saw a form.”

Luca remembered the signed fleet waiver, the handwritten letters of his name on hundreds of papers. There was a reason a man in his position should read what he signed. He did not know yet whether the initials were forged or simply inserted under the authority he'd given Julian.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Samuel looked at him then, and Luca saw a bitterness older than the accident. “Your man Vale had me sign a settlement while I was still in a sling. He said the family would make sure I never worked again if I spoke. I had a wife receiving chemotherapy. I needed the money.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's the first time I've heard that from a Moretti.”

Samuel went to a cupboard and returned with a ring of keys, the old vehicle tag still attached. “I kept these because the investigators only asked for the car. The tag has the dispatch number stamped on it. Maybe that's useful. Maybe it isn't.”

Helen photographed it and asked permission to have the records subpoenaed. Samuel said yes, provided he could speak to an investigator himself and see any statement before signing. He had learned what a signature could cost.

On the drive back Luca called June. He told her Samuel's account without claiming to have proved anything. June listened, then asked after Sofia's therapy. It irritated him for a heartbeat, until he understood she was refusing to let a dead person's tragedy take precedence over a living child's day.

“She practiced standing at the counter for forty seconds,” he said. “Ruth supervised. Afterward she made me help with algebra.”

“Which was harder?”

“Algebra.”

June laughed. The sound reminded him of Elena, who had inherited her mother's laughter along with her stubbornness.

At home Emily had made Sofia a chart with little boxes for what she wanted to practice, including cooking an egg, brushing the dog, and writing invitations to friends. There were no boxes for how many steps she could take. Luca noticed that Sofia used a green pencil to mark activities she enjoyed and left the others blank without apology.

“It's my chart,” she said when he admired it. “Ruth says if I don't like an exercise, I can say so and we talk about it.”

“Ruth sounds wiser than I am.”

“She says that too.”

Emily stifled a laugh. Luca asked if she wanted to join them for tea. She seemed embarrassed by the invitation. She had been careful to remain an employee despite the family's upheaval, and he realized that asking her to become a confidante was another way of confusing his needs with hers.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I'm off at four. My mother has a doctor's appointment.”

“Of course. Take the car if you need it.”

“I can get there,” Emily replied. “I just need to leave on time.”

He had never considered how radical it might be, in his house, for an employee to expect the end of a working day.

At four o'clock Emily left through the staff entrance, where the stone path had frozen into ridges. Luca saw her pause to steady a bag on her shoulder. He thought of offering a driver again, then remembered she'd asked only for an ordinary departure. He called the groundskeeper instead and asked whether the uneven path could be repaired for everyone.

Mrs. DeLuca heard him giving the instruction. “There are three staff members who use that path in the dark,” she said. “The lights have been broken since September.”

“Why wasn't I told?”

“We put in work orders.”

Luca had to smile without amusement. Another form of silence in a house full of people whose job was to keep him comfortable. He signed the repair order himself and asked to see the outstanding requests.

That evening Vanessa received a call from her father. Luca heard her voice rise in the guest hallway, then fall when she noticed him nearby. She said she would not go to a lawyer alone. Carlo replied loudly enough for Luca to hear, “You'll do what protects this family.”

Vanessa ended the call and leaned against the wall. “My mother is ill,” she said, perhaps expecting it to excuse everything. “She's been waiting for years for Dad to stop pretending the business can be saved.”

“What's her name?” Luca asked. He had met Mrs. Bellini at charity galas but knew almost nothing about her.

“Teresa.”

“Has anyone asked Teresa what she wants?”

Vanessa stared at him. “No.”

The next morning Helen received a certified duplicate of the original dispatch instruction from an off-site backup. The change was made at 7:06 a.m. on the morning of the accident, five minutes before Julian's email to the maintenance office. Luca's initials appeared at the bottom, but the authorization had been entered from Julian's personal terminal while Luca's phone records placed him on a flight to New York.

“That helps,” Helen said. “It's evidence of who entered it, though we'll need authentication before drawing conclusions.”

A second attachment came with the duplicate: an audio file from the dispatch office, retained for insurance compliance. Helen played it once, then asked Luca to sit down.

There was Julian's voice telling the dispatcher to release the car. The dispatcher asked what to do about the warning. Julian answered, “Mrs. Moretti will be gone before anyone knows the difference.”