Chapter Five: A Knife Behind the Smile

The next morning dawned harsh and cold, a bitter wind sweeping down the Hudson and rattling the windows of the Moretti estate. Ronnie stared at her reflection in the mirror above her father's desk, half-dressed in a blazer she hadn't worn in years. The woman staring back at her didn't look like someone grieving—she looked like someone preparing for war.

She tucked the letter from Domenico into the inside pocket of her coat and strode downstairs.

The dining room was full. Every Moretti cousin, capo, and consigliere had been summoned for a mandatory breakfast meeting. It was the first official family gathering since her father's death. And everyone was waiting to see who would claim the empty throne.

Ronnie entered without a word. Conversations hushed. Forks paused mid-air. Even the usually loud-mouthed Carmine sat quietly, eyeing her with poorly veiled suspicion.

She took her place at the head of the table.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "We have business."

She looked down the table, locking eyes with each of them.

"Someone in this room helped orchestrate my father's murder."

Gasps. Stiffened backs. A glass clinked too hard against the table.

"I'm not here to ask for confessions. I'm here to give you one chance to stand down. Because when I find out who it was—and I will—you won't get the grace my father would have shown."

No one spoke. Not even Carmine.

She leaned back. "Now eat. And pray I never come to you with a question I already know the answer to."

---

Later, in the garage, Sparks lit a cigarette and leaned on the hood of her black Maserati.

"You sure it was smart to call them all out like that?"

"Yes," Ronnie said, tightening her gloves. "Because now the guilty one will start moving. Panicking. Making mistakes."

Luca handed her another file. "We ran the bank routing numbers from the coded messages. They led us to a dummy account."

"Whose?"

"Not sure yet, but the money flowed through a construction firm your family owns in Staten Island. Guess who manages that site?"

Ronnie flipped the file open.

Tommy.

Her stomach twisted. "I want to see it for myself."

---

The Staten Island site was quiet when they arrived. Muddy, half-built foundations stretched across the lot, cranes frozen in place like metal skeletons.

Inside the main trailer, a laptop blinked to life with a single password—Capo2022.

"He didn't even change the default," Sparks muttered.

Luca worked fast, digging through emails, encrypted messages, and financials. Ronnie paced behind him.

"Wait," he said suddenly. "There's a name here. Transactions labeled 'internal consulting.' But it's a shell company. Registered under a real name."

He turned the screen.

"Dominic Rossi."

Ronnie's blood froze. Dominic was her cousin. Her mother's sister's son. The one who vanished four years ago after an "accident" during a shipment run gone wrong.

"I thought he was dead," she whispered.

"Everyone did," Luca said. "But this? This says he's alive. And getting paid."

Sparks stood. "So Tommy isn't the traitor. He's the cover. Dominic's the ghost."

Ronnie nodded slowly. "And ghosts always come back for something."

---

That night, unable to sleep, she walked the halls of the estate until she found herself back in her father's study. She ran her fingers over the spine of a book, half-lost in thought.

Footsteps behind her.

"You always did wander when you were thinking," Tommy said gently.

She turned. He looked exhausted. Hollowed out by fear and uncertainty.

"You said you wanted the family to be better," she said softly. "Did you mean that?"

"Every word."

She held up a photo of Dominic. "He's alive. And someone's funding him. You didn't know?"

Tommy stared at the image. His face went pale.

"No. But if he's alive, then that changes everything."

"Yeah," she said. "It means we were looking in the wrong place."

He hesitated. "I can help. Let me help."

She studied him. Then nodded.

"You're with me. But if you ever lie to me again, I won't give you a second warning."

He nodded. "Understood."

---

Across the city, in a small apartment above a boarded-up bar, a phone rang. A man with a jagged scar down the side of his jaw answered it.

"She's digging too fast," said a voice on the line.

The man—Dominic Rossi—grinned. "Then it's time we speed things up."