Not identical. The accounts are different, the timing is separate. But the architecture matches. Cyprus first, then Panama, then the Caymans. The same three-hop pattern. The same careful misdirection.
Someone who knew how to hide money taught him that route. Or someone built it for both purposes.
Romano didn’t just skim from the family.
He paid Elena to sabotage the wedding.
The same hand, the same method, two different operations.
But why?
Stealing makes sense. Greed is simple. But paying two million dollars to destroy an alliance between the Santoros and the Neris? That’s not greed. That’s strategy.
I have the records showing Romano is stealing. I have the trail connecting him to Elena.
What I don’t have is who he’s working for.
I need more.
I’m cross-referencing authorization chains when the floorboard creaks.
My head snaps up.
The entrance is empty. Then a figure steps into view.
Marco Santoro.
He’s hovering at the threshold like he’s not sure he’s allowed to be here. Which he isn’t. This is Dante’s study. The innersanctum. Not a place for the youngest brother to wander into uninvited.
“I found something.” He speaks low, uncertain. “I don’t know if it matters.”
I set down my highlighter. Study him.
He’s carrying a folder, gripping it tight enough that his knuckles are white.
“Come in.”
He crosses the room and hands me the folder. Inside: printed call logs. Encrypted communications from a phone number I don’t recognize.
“What am I looking at?”
“Romano’s personal phone. Not the one the family issued him.” Marco’s jaw is tight. “He’s been making calls. Twenty-three of them over four months. To numbers that don’t trace to anyone in our network.”
I flip through the pages. The timestamps jump out first. Late night calls. Early morning. The kind of schedule that suggests secrecy rather than convenience.
“How did you get this?”
“Does it matter?”
I look at him. A long, searching look.
The youngest Santoro brother. The one who walks the perimeters while his brothers make decisions. The one I’ve seen at the edges of every family gathering, watching, waiting, burning with ambition no one seems to notice.
“Why bring this to me? Why not Dante?”
His mouth presses into a line.
“Because Dante would ask how I got it. You’ll ask what it means.”
