Chapter 3 - The Cold Ledger of 1974By midnight, the storm had turned the Mississippi River into a churning monster of yellow foam and driftwood.
Two black armored SUVs rolled through the wrought-iron gates of the estate, carrying Luca, Dante, and me toward the swamplands south of Houma. Vanessa Bellini sat zip-tied in the trailing vehicle, guarded by two grim-faced soldiers with suppressed automatic rifles.
The rain beat against the windshield in deafening sheets. I sat in the leather passenger seat beside Luca, my hands clasped tightly in my lap over my damp apron.
“You’ve carried that key for a long time, Nora,” Luca said without taking his eyes off the dark highway.
“Ten years,” I replied, staring out at the silhouettes of Spanish moss hanging from the live oaks. “My father died of cancer when I was fourteen. On his deathbed, he made me swear never to bring that key to the city until I was certain the man sitting in the Moretti chair had his father’s eyes.”
Luca glanced at me, the faint green glow of the dashboard lights illuminating the sharp, ruthless angles of his jaw.
“And do I have his eyes?”
“You hesitated before you took a second bite of that roast,” I told him honestly. “A man who cares only about power eats without tasting. A man who honors his blood remembers the smoke that kept his father alive.”
A rare, faint softening touched the corners of Luca’s mouth.
“My father used to wake up in cold sweats during the winter,” Luca murmured. “He’d walk into the courtyard at three in the morning, smelling the cypress trees, and tell me that the only reason our family ruled this river was because an honest man in a canvas shirt chose honor over a bounty.”
Thirty minutes later, the convoy turned off the paved road onto a narrow gravel levee that cut through the dark marsh.
We arrived at the ruins of Reed’s Tavern.
Decades of rot, hurricane winds, and rising swamp waters had reduced the building to a skeletal framework of charred cypress posts and rusted corrugated tin. The ancient pecan trees still stood near the water’s edge, their bare branches clawing against the stormy sky.
Dante and three men stepped out into the mud, sweeping heavy halogen flashlights across the decaying wooden pilings of the old boat dock.
“Where is the drop, Nora?” Luca asked, pulling up the collar of his black wool coat as the rain lashed against us.
I stepped onto the slippery wooden planks of the ruined walkway, walking straight toward the sixth piling from the bank—the one notched with three deep saw marks.
“Here,” I pointed down into the dark, murky water beneath the pier. “Beneath the waterline. My grandfather wrapped the box in heavy tarpaulin and chained it to the heartwood base.”
Two divers in black tactical wetsuits slipped over the edge into the black water.
For four agonizing minutes, nothing could be heard except the roar of the wind through the sawgrass.
Then, the water broke with a heavy splash.
One of the divers hauled a rectangular object wrapped in blackened, oil-slicked canvas onto the dock.
The chains were secured with an antique brass padlock stamped 1974.
Luca knelt directly in the marsh mud, heedless of his bespoke suit. He inserted the brass key from my uniform into the lock.
With a stiff, grinding creak, the tumblers gave way.
The lock popped open.
Luca peeled back the thick layers of waxed tarpaulin to reveal a heavy, hand-carved cypress chest. Inside, untouched by water or time, lay two items:
A leather-bound journal bearing the crest of the Moretti family, and a thick bundle of bank transfer slips from the First Merchants Bank of New Orleans, dated November 1974.
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Luca opened the bank slips beneath the beam of Dante’s flashlight.
Across the bottom of every voucher, authorizing twenty-five thousand dollars to Falcone’s hitmen, was the unmistakable signature of Marco Bellini.
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