Chapter 4 - The Ledger of the Forgotten Name
The silence in the nursery was no longer merely tense; it had mutated into something suffocating and dangerous, heavy with the weight of unearthed graves.
Tony moved into the room, his eyes flicking between the shattered drawer in the sitting room and the open book in Vincent’s hands. The lieutenant’s demeanor had completely shed its earlier amusement. His right hand rested naturally against his jacket lapel, his sharp eyes assessing Sofia, reading the frantic rise and fall of her chest, the defensive way her hands were shielding Lily’s small body.
"Vincent," Tony muttered in a low, cautious undertone. "What is that?"
Vincent did not look at Tony.
His thumb slowly traced down the yellowed page of the journal, moving past the three numbered rules that his mother had written for him when he was an angry, frightened boy hiding from his father’s violent rages.
Beneath the rules, separated by a hand-drawn horizontal line of sepia ink, was a paragraph written in a tighter, more hurried script. It was dated August fourteenth, nineteen-ninety-nine—three weeks before Maria Marquetti had passed away in a private clinic in Switzerland.
Vincent’s eyes scanned the text.
The camera never clearly revealed the faded handwriting, but the impact of the words was visible in the violent, sudden transformation of Vincent’s face.
His jaw did not drop; it locked. The blood drained from his skin, turning his sharp cheekbones ashen under the morning light. His breath hitched in his throat, a sharp, whistling sound through his teeth, as his eyes stopped on a single word written near the bottom margin.
A name.
A name accompanied by a sum of money, a private bank account number in Geneva, and an instruction that had never been executed by the family executors.
Vincent slowly raised his head from the book.
His gaze cut across the room like a cold bayonet, bypassing Lily, bypassing Tony, and locking with terrifying, microscopic precision onto Sofia Reyes.
Sofia stood pinned against the white dresser. She had never seen Vincent Marquetti look at anyone like this. When he looked at his captains, his eyes held cold calculation; when he looked at his enemies, they held absolute, lethal finality. But right now, looking at her, his pale gray eyes held an agonizing mixture of profound disbelief, buried guilt, and an ancient, terrifying hunger for the truth.
"Reyes...?" Vincent whispered.
The single syllable fell into the room like an unexploded artillery shell.
Sofia’s face tightened instantly. Her chin lifted by a fraction of an inch—not in arrogance, but in the instinctive, protective defiance of an animal cornered with its young. Her hands gripped Lily’s shoulders tighter, pulling the four-year-old completely behind the folds of her dark navy apron.
"My mother’s maiden name was Reyes, Mr. Marquetti," Sofia said, her voice trembling slightly, but carrying a sharp, defensive edge that surprised Tony. "I gave it to human resources when I was hired three years ago. My background check cleared. I have never stolen anything from this house. I have never touched your personal belongings."
Vincent took half a step forward, the book still open in his left hand. "Your mother's maiden name. What was her first name, Sofia?"
Sofia’s eyes narrowed, genuine fear warring with mounting bewilderment. "Why are you asking about my mother? She has been dead for twenty years. She was a seamstress in the lower west side. She has nothing to do with this family."
"What was her name?" Vincent’s voice dropped into a register of raw, vibrating command that made the crystal drops on the wall sconces hum faintly.
Sofia swallowed hard, her throat clicking dryly in the quiet room. "Elena. Her name was Elena Reyes."
Vincent did not blink. He looked down at the journal, where the sepia ink at the bottom of the page clearly read:
May you like
Elena Reyes — For the infant in the cradle. May God forgive Vittorio, for I cannot.
Before Vincent could speak, the heavy footsteps of Tony’s lieutenant, Marco, sounded from the outer gallery, followed by the muffled rustle of stiff paper.
