Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Castelli KitchenFranca did not deny it.
That frightened Emmett more than denial would have.
At two forty-seven in the morning, she stood in the Castelli mansion kitchen wearing a gray robe over her nightdress while snow struck the dark windows.
Valerie sat at the long butcher-block island with both hands wrapped around coffee.
Luca stood near the door.
Emmett placed the cemetery photograph on the counter.
Franca looked at it.
Then she closed her eyes.
“Where did you find that?”
“Under Valerie’s grave.”
Franca opened her eyes.
“You dug it up?”
“I was having trouble sleeping.”
Valerie almost smiled.
Franca did not.
Emmett pushed the photograph closer.
“Who started the fire?”
Franca sat down.
For the first time in Emmett’s life, she looked old.
Not elderly.
Old.
As though twenty years of secrets had suddenly demanded payment at once.
“Your father gave the order.”
Valerie stopped breathing.
Emmett did not move.
Behind him, Luca whispered one curse.
Franca continued.
“Salvatore believed Angela had copied the accounts.”
“She had,” Valerie said.
Franca nodded.
“Yes.”
“You knew my mother?”
“I knew everyone who worked around the old businesses.”
Valerie stood.
“You knew she was being hunted?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t warn her?”
Franca’s face tightened.
“I tried.”
Valerie’s chair scraped back violently.
“You tried?”
Emmett stepped between them.
Valerie glared at him.
“Move.”
“No.”
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“She let my mother die.”
Franca flinched.
“No.”
Valerie looked around Emmett.
“Then tell me what happened.”
Franca folded trembling hands.
“Salvatore ordered two men to retrieve the records. He told them Angela and the girl were not to survive.”
The kitchen seemed to shrink.
Emmett stared at the woman who had fed him since childhood.
“You knew this?”
“After the order was given.”
“And what did you do?”
“I went to your mother.”
Emmett frowned.
“My mother?”
Franca nodded.
“Sofia.”
Memory opened somewhere deep and painful.
Sofia Castelli.
Quiet.
Elegant.
Always watching her husband the way prey watched a locked door.
She had died when Emmett was nineteen.
Officially, an aneurysm.
Emmett had never questioned it.
Franca continued.
“Your mother had spent years hiding money from Salvatore.”
“Why?”
“To leave.”
Emmett felt something twist inside him.
“She wanted to take you and your sister.”
“My sister died when she was three.”
Franca stared at him.
“No.”
The word was soft.
Impossible.
Emmett’s face hardened.
“What did you say?”
Franca’s eyes filled.
“Your sister did not die.”
No one spoke.
Emmett stepped closer.
“My father buried her.”
“An empty coffin.”
Valerie lowered herself slowly back into the chair.
Emmett’s voice became dangerous.
“Explain.”
Franca did.
Sofia Castelli had married Salvatore at eighteen.
By twenty, she understood what he was.
By twenty-three, she had Emmett.
By twenty-seven, she had a daughter named Isabella.
Salvatore adored the boy he believed could inherit him.
He barely noticed the daughter.
Sofia saw that as protection.
When Isabella was three, Sofia arranged for the child to disappear with relatives in Canada.
A fake illness.
A sealed coffin.
A priest paid to ask no questions.
“Why leave me?” Emmett asked.
Franca looked devastated.
“She intended to return.”
“She didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Your father found out.”
The room went still again.
“What did he do?”
“He beat her badly.”
Emmett remembered his mother spending three weeks in the hospital after what Salvatore called a staircase fall.
He had been sixteen.
Franca continued.
“Sofia knew if she tried again, he would kill both of you.”
Emmett turned away.
He could almost hear his father’s voice.
Family is ownership.
Blood is debt.
Love makes men weak.
Emmett had spent half his life becoming a man Salvatore could never control.
He had not realized how much of Salvatore still lived inside him.
Valerie’s voice cut through the memory.
“What does this have to do with my mother?”
“Sofia wanted Angela’s records,” Franca said.
“Why?”
“To destroy Salvatore.”
Emmett turned back.
Franca nodded toward the photograph.
“Angela cleaned Adrian Costas’s office, but the accounts connected both families. Judges, developers, police, unions, dock managers. Sofia believed if she got copies, she could take Emmett and escape permanently.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“Because my mother died,” Valerie said.
Franca nodded.
“Your mother called Sofia the night of the fire. She said she had hidden the most important ledger.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Valerie’s breath caught.
“She said only her daughter could find it.”
Emmett looked at Valerie.
“Did your mother ever hide things with you?”
“All the time.”
“Games?”
“Treasure hunts.”
“What kind?”
Valerie closed her eyes.
“She would leave clues.”
Franca continued.
“Sofia sent Marian Vance to get you out.”
Valerie stared at her.
“You knew Marian?”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
Franca hesitated.
“My sister.”
Valerie rose again.
This time she looked stunned rather than furious.
“Marian was your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she tell me never to trust a Castelli?”
Franca looked at Emmett.
“Because at the time, she believed Salvatore’s sons would become Salvatore.”
Emmett’s expression did not change.
“She wasn’t entirely wrong.”
“No,” Franca said softly. “She wasn’t.”
Valerie’s eyes moved toward him.
Something complicated passed between them.
Franca stood.
“There is more.”
Emmett almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
“Marian contacted me three weeks ago.”
Valerie’s coffee cup slipped from her fingers.
It shattered on the floor.
“What?”
“She called from a blocked number.”
“You knew she was alive?”
“I suspected.”
“You knew where she was?”
“No.”
“What did she say?”
“That someone had found Valerie.”
Valerie’s face drained.
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
Franca looked toward Emmett.
“She told me if Valerie came to Providence, I should keep her away from the Costas family.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian has spent twenty years searching for Angela’s ledger.”
Emmett thought of Adrian recognizing the school photograph.
“And Delphine?”
Franca’s silence answered.
Valerie stepped backward.
“What about Delphine?”
Emmett looked at Franca.
“Say it.”
Franca swallowed.
“Delphine was fourteen the year of the fire.”
“So?”
“She was there that night.”
Valerie’s face became blank.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. There were two men.”
“And a girl waiting in the car.”
Valerie pressed one hand to her mouth.
A memory moved behind her eyes.
Headlights.
Rain.
A young face through glass.
She whispered, “I remember someone.”
Emmett’s chest tightened.
“Delphine?”
“I don’t know.”
Franca continued.
“Adrian used his daughter as an alibi. They attended a charity event together. He left for forty minutes. She stayed in the car while his men handled Angela.”
Emmett’s voice became ice.
“She knew?”
“Not everything.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She knew a woman and child were inside.”
Valerie closed her eyes.
“She watched.”
Franca nodded.
“And said nothing.”
Emmett reached for his phone.
Valerie grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He looked down at her hand.
She released him immediately.
“You call Delphine now, she warns her father.”
“He already knows something is wrong.”
“Not what we know.”
Luca agreed.
“She’s right.”
Emmett disliked hearing it.
Valerie saw.
“You always hate being told you’re wrong?”
“Only when it happens.”
“That often?”
“Recently.”
A ghost of the girl he remembered appeared in her face.
Then vanished.
Franca swept the broken cup from the floor.
“There’s one more thing.”
Emmett stared at her.
“You are developing a talent for terrible sentences.”
Franca ignored him.
“The message Marian left me included a location.”
“Where?”
“St. Ambrose Church.”
Valerie’s gaze snapped to Emmett.
“The first button.”
He nodded.
The one he had buried beneath the steps at thirteen.
By four in the morning, snow covered Providence.
They reached St. Ambrose through a side alley.
The church had been closed for renovations for six months.
Luca forced an old gate.
Emmett found the stone step from memory.
Third from the left.
He knelt.
Unlike the cemetery, the ground beneath the sheltered steps was not frozen.
Valerie crouched beside him.
“You really buried a button here?”
“I was thirteen.”
“That explains nothing.”
“I thought if we ever came back, I’d know one part of me stayed.”
She looked at him.
“That is unexpectedly sentimental.”
“Forget you heard it.”
“Too late.”
His fingers struck metal.
The brass button was still there.
But something else had been placed beneath it.
A narrow brass key.
Attached to it was a paper tag.
VALERIE KNOWS THE ROOM.
Valerie stared.
“I don’t.”
Emmett brushed dirt from the key.
“Think.”
She closed her eyes.
“My mother used to bring me here sometimes.”
“For Mass?”
“No.”
“To meet someone?”
“I don’t remember.”
Franca suddenly inhaled sharply.
“What?”
Franca looked toward the church doors.
“Not here.”
“Where?”
“She used to bring Valerie to the old parish school basement.”
Valerie’s eyes widened.
“The red room.”
Emmett frowned.
“What red room?”
“A storage room.”
She stood.
“I used to wait there while my mother cleaned upstairs offices.”
Emmett remembered the boarded school building behind the church.
Luca pulled a flashlight.
They entered through a maintenance corridor.
Dust covered everything.
Their footsteps echoed down narrow stairs.
Valerie moved ahead slowly.
At the end of the basement hallway stood a faded red door.
Her hand shook as she inserted the brass key.
It turned.
Inside, old desks and church banners crowded the room.
Valerie looked around.
“My mother used to hide candy behind—”
She stopped.
An old wooden cabinet stood against the wall.
She crossed to it.
Behind the cabinet, one brick had a child’s red crayon mark shaped like a star.
Valerie touched it.
“She made me draw that.”
Emmett helped remove the brick.
Inside the wall cavity sat a sealed metal document box.
Valerie stared at it for several seconds before opening it.
Inside were ledgers.
Photographs.
Bank records.
And a VHS tape.
Emmett picked up the top photograph.
His father.
Adrian Costas.
Two judges.
A police captain.
And a younger Franca.
Then Valerie lifted a smaller envelope.
Her name was written on it.
She opened it carefully.
Inside was a letter.
My Red,
If you are reading this, I failed to keep the worst men in Providence from finding us.
But you are alive.
That means I did one thing right.
Do not hate Emmett for his father.
He was the only Castelli who ever tried to protect you without knowing why.
Valerie stopped reading.
Her eyes filled.
Emmett stared at the handwriting.
“Why would she say that?”
Franca’s face had turned white.
Because she knew the answer.
Emmett saw it.
“What did I do?”
Franca whispered, “The night before your family fled Providence, you heard your father talking.”
Emmett frowned.
“I don’t remember.”
“You went to Sofia. You told her Salvatore planned to hurt the Russo family.”
His breath stopped.
“You were thirteen.”
Franca’s voice trembled.
“You saved Valerie once before.”
A sound came from the hallway.
Luca turned.
Gunfire exploded through the basement door.
Wood splintered.
Franca screamed.
Emmett shoved Valerie behind the stone wall as bullets tore through the room.
Luca fired back.
Then a voice shouted from the corridor.
“Burn it!”
Emmett’s blood went cold.
Gasoline rolled beneath the door.
Valerie smelled it too.
Her face became fourteen years old again.
“No.”
May you like
A match struck outside.
And the red room began to burn.
Related Stories
