Chapter 17: Behind the Wine List

Renzo's POV

The restaurant opened at eleven, and I walked in through the kitchen door at ten.

My key still worked.

Nobody had changed the lock in five years, because my father believed a man who was thrown out would never come back to use it.

The prep cooks looked up from their onions.

The oldest one put down his knife, wiped his hands and crossed himself.

"Signor Renzo," he said.

"Stay at your station," I said.

"You're back?" he said.

"For ten minutes."

He nodded and picked up the knife, and nobody said a word as I went down the hall.

The office was a narrow room behind the walk-in, with a desk, a bad chair and a framed wine list on the wall.

I took the frame down.

Behind it was a steel door the size of a bread box.

Gianna had told me the safe was Adele's, and she had not known the combination.

I did.

My mother set every number in her life to the birthday of the son she loved best.

I turned the dial to Dario's.

The door opened with a soft click.

Inside lay a stack of cash in rubber bands and a leather-bound ledger with a green ribbon.

I opened it on the desk.

Her writing ran down every page in neat blue ink.

A payment to the doctor in Hackensack, with the date and the sum.

A payment to a school in Ridgewood, in the name of a boy, with a note: "Grandson of the judge."

A wire to a clinic in Connecticut, deposit paid, one private room, garden side.

Beside each line was my brother's signature.

I turned to the last page.

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