Chapter 3

Saint Cecilia's Church was at the end of the old town, its walls peeling and the stained-glass image of the Virgin Mary faded. The side door was ajar. I pushed it open, and the hinges creaked.

In the main hall, only two old women were lighting candles in the front pew. Nico had told me to meet him in the sacristy. It was a small room where priests once changed their vestments, now just a storage space for old relics and a single iron chair.

Everyone in the family knew this was Nico's meeting place. According to the old ways, business that couldn't see the light of day was spoken in God's ear.

I pushed open the sacristy door. Nico was already there, sitting.

He was thinner than I remembered from my father's memorial last year. His graying hair was combed meticulously, his suit jacket draped over the back of the chair. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing an old scar that ran from his wrist to his forearm.

"Maeve, sit." He gestured to the leather chair opposite him, then turned to pour me a glass of straight whiskey from the bar. "Take a drink first. You look like you just crawled out of a grave."

I shook my head and handed him the summons with the wax seal.

"Nico, I won't beat around the bush."

Nico took it, his eyes narrowing as he scanned it quickly. "Leo? The brother you went to all that trouble to send to Europe six years ago?"

"Yes," I nodded.

"He's petitioning the family council to take the territory?" Nico's voice was low. "All the businesses your father left? Everything?"

"Everything," I said.

Nico pinched the bridge of his nose and threw the summons on the table. "Tell me what happened over the last six years, word for word. Don't leave out a single detail."

I started with my father's murder on the street. I talked about the dilapidated streets, Leo's desperation to escape, the years I spent wiring money through the underground bank, the high-interest loan I took three months ago for his yacht party, and finally, yesterday's phone call and today's summons.

Through it all, my voice was steady. As if I were talking about someone else's life.

When I finished, the sacristy was so quiet you could hear the buzz of the old women in the main hall reciting the rosary.

Nico lit a cigar and opened the backpack I had brought. He first looked through the old iron box with the secret ledger, page by page, very slowly.

Then he started on the three hundred-plus pages of overseas transfer records. It took him a good half hour to skim through them.

"This money," he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, looking at me through the gray haze, "you gave it all to him willingly?"

"Willingly," I said. "But at the time, if I didn't give it, he would have been kicked out of that circle. Every time, he cried and said it was the last time. Every time, there was a life-or-death reason he needed the money."

Nico nodded, his fingers tapping the table.

"According to the old Mafia traditions," he began slowly, his voice deep, "your brother's claim has merit. The territory left by the old Capo, he does have a share in it."

"You siphoned off all the business profits to fund his lavish lifestyle. Even though it was to 'protect' him, in the eyes of those old men on the council, you overstepped in managing his share of the inheritance."

My heart sank.

"However," Nico's tone shifted, and he pulled the stack of bank statements closer, "there's a lot more to this. You used far more than the little profit from what your father left. These streets have been in the red for years, and the extra money you put in…"

"Almost two million dollars. This is your blood money. Your personal "gift.""

"Gift?" I repeated the word, tasting the bitterness.

"Yes, a unilateral gift," Nico leaned forward. "For him to keep this money, you would have to prove he used fraud to get it. Otherwise, by the code of the street, a gift is a gift. Not a loan."

He paused, his cigar-holding fingers tapping the summons. "Maeve, let me be blunt. If it's just about the territory, your brother has the bloodline argument. But if you put everything you've shouldered for him, all the blood you've shed for the past six years, on the table, the nature of the situation changes."

"You put your life on the line for him. Now he latches onto a Valenti woman, and the first thing he does is conspire with an outsider to take your livelihood, instead of showing a little gratitude. By the family's code, this is a vile betrayal."

"And how much is loyalty worth to those old foxes?" I asked.

"A fortune," Nico's tone was certain. "What do those old men on the council value most? Rules and respect. If you can prove that your brother's actions have severely violated the family's bottom line, even bringing in wolves, the council will never hand the territory over to a traitor."

He flipped to the end of the petition and let out a cold laugh. "Look at this. He accuses you of 'acting autocratically and embezzling family assets.' Once we disprove this accusation and show that he's trying to bleed you dry and then finish you off, his reputation in the underworld will be ruined."

I was silent for a moment. "What do I need to prepare?"

"First, solidify the evidence. The transfer records are ironclad. But we need more. We need to prove the money really went to his European accounts. His spending receipts, party bills, any financial trail we can dig up."

"I can't get those."

"I'll use my contacts to look into it," Nico said, chewing on his cigar. "Second, find witnesses. Are there any old-timers who know how you've bled for this family these past six years?"

I thought for a moment. "The old guys know. When Dad first passed, a few of the old guys warned me that betting everything on a boy unwilling to get his hands dirty was a death wish."

"Find them. Get them to speak at the arbitration," Nico tapped the table. "Third, prove that you were the only one carrying the Conti family's weight for these six years."

"Fourth, and the fatal blow, the phone records. All the evidence of him asking you for money."

I pushed the burner phone towards him and showed him the screenshots on the screen.

Nico scrolled through the messages for a few minutes, his brow furrowing deeper. "This is powerful. But it would be better if you had something more direct, something that proves he was lying and playing the victim."

I didn't say anything. I just played an audio file.

Leo's fragile, tear-filled voice echoed in the dim room. "Maeve, I'm really at my wit's end. Juliana's family is hosting a gala in Rome, and if I don't buy that designer suit, I won't even be able to get in. Those elite kids will eat me alive… Please, sister, this is really the last time. Once I officially become a Valenti, I swear I'll pay back everything you've fronted, with interest. I swear it."

The recording stopped abruptly.

Nico's intense gaze moved from the phone to my face. "How many recordings like this do you have?"

"Hundreds."

"Starting from his second year in Europe, every time he asked for money, I recorded it. At first, it was just so I wouldn't forget how much to send…"

I paused, looking him straight in the eye. "Later, I got scared. I was scared he'd climb too high and pretend he never knew me. Scared I'd end up dead in an alley with nothing to show for it."