Chapter 16: The Whole Book

Pietro's POV

My grandmother wanted me to bring the shotgun to the Sartorelli house.

I told her no and took the phone instead.

My surgeon's nephew had scrolled through it at dawn on the kitchen table.

Under the text that had shocked us there was a voice note, forty seconds long, sent from the same number.

He played me the first ten seconds and I told him to stop.

I knew the voice.

I had heard it say "I'd have been so good to you" in a hotel corridor.

I went to Newark at noon with my left arm in a sling and Ugo's car behind mine.

All the way up the turnpike I could still feel her weight on my chest.

Rosalba received me in her study.

Two of her men stood at the door, and the printer sat on a side table with a cover over it.

She didn't get up.

"Signor Calderara. I'm told you were hurt."

"A scratch."

"I'm sorry for it." She folded her hands. "My daughter has been sick with worry. She would like you to rest before the wedding."

"I came to talk about the wedding."

"Then sit."

I stayed on my feet.

I put the cracked black phone on her blotter, and I touched the screen.

"Make sure she's dead this time," Irene's voice said, small and clear, in her best kind tone.

One of the men at the door shifted his weight.

Rosalba didn't move at all.

I watched her hands.

The knuckles went the color of candle wax, and that was all.

"A voice can be made," she said.

"Yes."

"Anyone can buy a machine that does it. I have a nephew in a basement who could do it for a hundred dollars."

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