Chapter 10 - The Bookkeeper’s Price

Luca did not rage.

That was the frightening part.

He stood in the cemetery office with his mother’s cassette player still humming beside him, his hands resting flat on the groundskeeper’s desk, and became so still that every man in the room seemed to step carefully around the shape of his anger.

Daniel made calls.

The groundskeeper pretended not to listen and failed.

I stood near the window watching the empty cemetery road and thinking about Evelyn Shaw’s gloved hands.

She had cried.

She had trembled.

She had looked so fragile that I had pulled out a chair for her.

Maybe that was the oldest trick in the world.

Make people pity you before you steal from them.

Luca turned to me.

“You need to go home.”

The sudden order hit me wrong.

“No.”

His eyes narrowed.

“No?”

I folded my arms because my hands were shaking and I did not want him to see.

“My father is in your family’s tomb. Your mother mentioned me on a tape. An old bookkeeper just ran away with a ledger connected to both our families. You don’t get to send me home like a maid after dessert.”

Daniel looked away.

Luca held my gaze.

“You are not trained for this.”

“Neither was my father.”

That landed.

For a moment, I regretted it.

Then I didn’t.

Luca stepped closer, his voice low enough that the others could not hear.

“I am trying to keep you alive.”

“And I’m trying not to spend the rest of my life protected out of my own story.”

Something moved across his face.

Respect again.

Or recognition.

He nodded once.

“Then you stay behind me.”

“I’m not furniture.”

“No.” His mouth almost softened. “You are the woman who moved the furniture and ruined my engagement.”

Despite everything, a small laugh escaped me.

It surprised us both.

Then Daniel said, “Boss, we found Evelyn’s driver.”

Luca turned.

“Where?”

“Dead.”

The word erased the moment.

Daniel continued.

“Alley off Kedzie. Single shot. Evelyn’s gone. Ledger not in the car.”

Luca took the news without expression.

But I saw his jaw shift.

“Decker?”

“Maybe. Or Silvio cleaning house.”

“And Vanessa?”

“Still at the mansion. Guarded.”

“Her phone?”

“Wiped remotely ten minutes ago.”

Luca looked toward the window.

“The transmitter went through Decker. Evelyn ran when my mother named her. Silvio is in town. Vanessa may be bait or blade. We need the ledger before they do.”

I said, “Evelyn wouldn’t keep it on her.”

Both men looked at me.

“She was too careful. If she planned to run, she had a place ready.”

Daniel asked, “You know that how?”

“My mother kept emergency envelopes in flour tins, hems, pillowcases. Women who live around dangerous men learn not to carry the only copy.”

Luca studied me.

“Where would Evelyn hide hers?”

“She was a bookkeeper.”

“So?”

“So she’d hide a book among books. Or numbers among numbers.”

Daniel frowned.

“Office?”

“No,” I said slowly. “Too obvious. Somewhere nobody thinks rich criminals go.”

Luca’s phone rang.

He answered.

Listened.

His face changed.

“What hospital?”

My stomach tightened.

He ended the call.

“Your mother collapsed.”

The cemetery office tilted.

“What?”

“She’s alive. Neighbor found her. Ambulance took her to Mercy South.”

The thermos slipped from my hand and hit the floor.

Tea spread across the old linoleum like weak brown blood.

Luca reached for me.

I stepped back.

“Was it because I called her?”

“No.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Grace—”

“My mother told me to leave your house. I didn’t. Now she’s in a hospital.”

“Daniel,” Luca said. “Car.”

The ride to Mercy South blurred. Luca drove too fast, but not recklessly. I sat beside him with my phone pressed against my ear, listening to ringing no one answered.

At the emergency room, people moved slowly in that peculiar hospital way, both urgent and tired. Luca’s name opened doors. I hated that. I was grateful for it. Both feelings stood in me at once and refused to cancel each other out.

My mother was awake.

Pale.

Angry.

That helped.

The doctor said it was stress and dehydration, not a heart attack. She needed fluids, tests, rest. My mother said she needed people to stop bringing dead men back into her kitchen.

When she saw Luca, she turned her face away.

“Get out.”

He stopped at the foot of her bed.

“I will. After I know you’re protected.”

“Protected from whom? Your family or everyone your family keeps attracting?”

“Both.”

She looked at him then.

Her expression changed.

“You didn’t know.”

“No.”

“You should have.”

“Yes.”

It was the first answer she respected.

She closed her eyes.

“Evelyn Shaw called me.”

I leaned forward.

“When?”

“After you left for the cemetery.”

Luca went still.

“What did she say?”

“She said Sofia was wrong about one thing.”

My mother swallowed.

“She said the ledger was never meant to save Luca.”

The monitors beeped beside us.

“What was it meant to do?” I asked.

Mom opened her eyes.

“To save Grace.”

A chill moved through me.

Luca’s voice sharpened.

“Where is Evelyn?”

My mother turned her head slowly toward me.

“She said to tell you she was sorry for the driver. She didn’t kill him. She said she was going to the only place Sofia never wrote down.”

I whispered, “Where?”

My mother’s eyes filled.

“The old alterations shop,” she said. “The one before mine. The one where your father first met Sofia.”

Then she looked at Luca.

“And if you go there, she said bring the maid, not the men.”