THE MAFIA BOSS'S GRANDMOTHER SPELLED ONE WORD AT HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER—THEN EXPOSED THE WOMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL HER

The message included an address: a shuttered movie theater in East Boston. A second text arrived before I could decide what to do.

NO POLICE. NO ROMANO.

I stared at the screen until the words blurred. Teresa watched me from her bed. She could not see the message, but she recognized fear immediately. She reached for the board.

TELL MATTEO.

I shook my head. “They said they'd hurt Rebecca.”

Teresa struck the board with her palm. She spelled the words again, more firmly.

TELL MATTEO.

I called him.

He answered on the first ring. I read the messages aloud and waited for him to tell me I had been foolish to consider going. Instead, he asked whether I had clicked any links, whether the sender had called, and whether anyone else knew my location.

“Stay at the hospital,” he said. “Gabriel will contact the detective assigned to the case. Don't answer the sender.”

“But Rebecca—”

“If she's alive, we help her by giving the police a chance to find her. We don't give the people threatening her another victim.”

I hated how sensible he sounded. I hated that he was right.

Detective Lena Ortiz arrived forty minutes later. She had dark curls pulled into a tight bun and a notebook full of questions. She listened to the entire story, including my mother's records, Rebecca's disappearance, and the surveillance photograph.

“Threats like this are meant to isolate you,” she said. “The fact that they know your connection to Rebecca tells us something. It doesn't tell us where she is.”

She arranged a controlled visit to the theater without sending me inside. I stayed at the hospital with Teresa, trying not to imagine every terrible outcome.

At 11:18 p.m., Ortiz called. The theater was empty. Police found a prepaid phone taped beneath a seat, along with a photograph of Rebecca holding that day's newspaper. She looked exhausted but alive.

“Was there anything else?” I asked.

“A note. It said, 'Ask Matteo about the ninth ledger.' Does that mean anything to you?”

“No.”

When I repeated the phrase to Matteo, his face changed.

“Ledger Nine,” he said quietly.

He told me his grandfather had maintained handwritten records of the Romano family's early harbor business. Some were legitimate accounts. Others documented cash payments to men who had used violence to keep competitors away. When Matteo took control, he ordered the records preserved for legal review. One ledger had disappeared before the attorneys could inventory it.

“Why would anyone want it now?” I asked.

“Because it could identify people who are still alive. And it might show where the money went.”

“Could it connect Julian to the trust?”

“Possibly.”

He rubbed his forehead. For the first time since the engagement dinner, I saw how tired he was. His grandmother was in the hospital, his fiancée had betrayed him, and someone was turning his family's history into a weapon.

“Matteo,” I said, “if the ledger shows your family hurt people, what will you do?”

He looked at me for a long moment. “Give it to the authorities. Even if it destroys what my grandfather built.”

I wanted to believe him. More than that, I wanted him to have the chance to prove it.

The next morning, Nora arrived at the hospital with an urgent court filing. She had asked a judge to suspend any attempted transfer of the waterfront properties while the authenticity of Teresa's signature was investigated. The request had been granted temporarily.

“We've bought time,” she said. “Not safety.”

Teresa smiled faintly. Then she tapped the alphabet board.

GOOD.

Nora laughed, and for a moment the room felt ordinary.

The moment ended when Gabriel entered carrying a sealed envelope. It had been delivered to the estate by courier, addressed to Emma Walsh. Inside was a photocopy of an old photograph showing my mother, Rebecca Hale, Arthur Cross, and a younger man standing outside the harbor clinic.

I recognized the younger man instantly.

He was Matteo's father, Vittorio Romano.

On the back, someone had written: YOUR MOTHER KNOWS WHO STARTED THIS.

I looked at Matteo. He was staring at his father's face as though seeing a stranger.

“My father told me he'd never met Arthur Cross,” he said.

Teresa began to shake her head.

Then she spelled one word that changed everything I thought I knew about the Romano family.

BROTHER.