His Arranged Protection
The solid steel seam running down the center of the box split open by half an inch, releasing a faint, sharp puff of ozone and old paper.
Niccolò reached out, his fingers hooking into the seam, and slowly pulled the lid back.
Inside the velvet-lined interior of the vault lay a thick, leather-bound notebook with yellowed pages, the true red ledger of the Santoro family. But resting directly on top of the ledger was a small, plastic cassette tape, labeled with a single word in my mother’s handwriting:
Vito.
Suddenly, a sharp, frantic knock rattled the heavy wooden door of the workshop.
Father Thomas spun around, his hand flying to the iron latch as Marco’s panicked voice cut through the wood.
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