Chapter 4
Dominic found the cabin before midnight.
Nobody had entered it recently.
Dust.
Mouse tracks.
Snow piled against one wall.
The floorboard beneath the old iron stove had been cut and replaced.
Inside was a metal case.
He brought it unopened.
I placed it on my desk.
Noah slept in my bed behind the closed inner door.
Mark stood across from me.
Claudia beside him.
Neither had been invited.
They came anyway.
That told me how badly they wanted the box.
“What is it?” I asked.
Mark stared at the case.
“I don’t know.”
Lie.
Claudia tried another version.
“Anna was unstable near the end.”
I looked at her.
“You never met Anna.”
She stopped.
Good.
Mark spoke.
“She left things everywhere.”
“What things?”
“Notes. Recordings.”
There.
Too specific.
I opened the box.
Inside were three objects.
A small digital recorder.
A family photograph.
And a black notebook.
Mark closed his eyes.
Claudia whispered something under her breath.
I picked up the photograph first.
Anna standing outside this lodge with Noah in her arms.
Behind her—
Mark.
And another man.
My younger brother, Anthony.
Dead fourteen months.
Interesting.
The notebook contained route names.
Amounts.
Crew initials.
Nothing formal.
Operational shorthand.
Enough for me to understand.
Mark and Anthony had been using the mountain lodge as an unauthorized transfer point.
Money.
Weapons.
Messages.
Old contacts I had explicitly shut down after becoming head of the family.
I looked at my son.
“How long?”
He said nothing.
I turned on the recorder.
Anna’s voice filled the room.
Calm.
Tired.
“If Richard hears this, then Mark either finally told him the truth or I failed to.”
My chest tightened.
Mark looked away.
The recording continued.
“They are using the Bellacorte lodge behind his back. Anthony calls it preserving the old structure. Mark calls it protecting his future.”
Silence.
Claudia stared at Mark.
Apparently she had not known everything either.
Anna’s voice continued.
“I don’t care about their routes. I care that Mark has started looking at Noah like the boy is something that can be used.”
My hands became cold.
Then came the sentence that explained everything.
“If anything happens to me, do not let Mark teach our son that fear is family.”
The recording stopped.
Mark’s face had gone gray.
May you like
Anna had been dead almost two years.
And she had understood the man he was becoming before I did.
