Page 29 of Code Name: Dante

“He should be focused on his testimony.”

“Yeah, well.” Grit’s smile was grim. “You try telling him that.”

Less than an hour later, I was in the back, restocking supplies and going through the list of things we did each day before closing. Since tomorrow was Saturday, it would probably be busier than today had been. I wiped my hands on my apron and was about to hang it on a hook when I heard a crash from the front of the shop. It sounded like glass shattering. Someone screamed, then Tank’s voice cut through the chaos. “Get down!”

I ran out of the kitchen with my heart in my throat. The front window had a large hole in the middle, and it looked like the rest of the glass might soon give way. Gram stood frozen behind the counter, her face pale.

“Everyone okay?” Tank was already moving, coordinating with his team through his earpiece while checking on the handful of customers. No one appeared hurt, just shaken.

“What was that?” I asked.

“This,” said Grit, holding a brick wrapped in paper held by a rubber band.

I reached for it, but he stopped me. “Let me.” He removed it, his expression darkening as he read whatever was written there.

“What does it say?” I demanded.

He hesitated, glancing at Gram.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She snatched the paper from his hands and scanned the message. “‘Family takes care of family,’” she read aloud. “Signed with a ‘V.’”

“Vincent,” I whispered. “I don’t understand why he has it out for us,” I added in a shaky voice. It was like their family was specifically targeting ours, even at the time of the fire. I couldn’t remember hearing about any other factories that burned. That didn’t mean there weren’t more. Apart from Papa Werner refusing to pay the extortion money Vincenzo demanded, how did they even know us?

Gram’s hand found mine, squeezing tight. “Come with me.” She pulled me into the back storeroom. “The marinara sauce,” she said out of the blue.

“What about it?”

“The recipe.” Her eyes met mine. “It wasn’t handed down from your grandfather’s family like I told you.”

“I don’t understand?—”

“It was Maria Castellano’s. She was Vincenzo’s wife. I’m not sure how it came about, but she and my mother became friends. Anyway, I thought about my mom’s sauce while in the supermarket one afternoon, lamenting to a friend that I’d never gotten her to write down the recipe. The next day, a man delivered an envelope, and it was inside.”

“So someone overheard you and got a message to Maria?”

Gram shook her head. “I always had the feeling it was her daughter-in-law, Amelia. By that time, Maria was already dead.”

“Amelia is Alessandro’s mother?”

She nodded.

“I found this in the basement. It’s an invoice with Maria listed as the customer.” I pulled the folded invoice from my pocket and showed it to her.

Gram studied it. “According to my mother, Maria ordered new gloves from us every year. The betrayal, even if they weren’t best friends, hit her hard after the factory burned. She couldn’t believe the woman didn’t warn her and Papa.”

“Maybe she didn’t know.”

Gram shrugged. “There is no one left alive who could say for sure. The hatred our family felt for her husband, Vincenzo, was multiplied by what my mother saw as another betrayal. The note delivered via a brick thrown through our window reinforces what I’ve always been told about the Castellanos. ‘Family takes care of family.’”

“Wait. You said you thought someone overheard you talking about the recipe in the grocery store. Did the Castellanos live around here?”

“They had a compound on Great Sacandaga Lake. Back then, there were far more stores here than there. The summer crowd would flock to town in droves.”

“Gram, did my mother leaving have something to do with their family?”

Her already pale face lost its remaining color. “Why would you ask that?”

I shrugged. “A hunch.” My eyes opened wide, remembering the conversation Alessandro and I had about his brother and my mother being the same age. “Vincent Castellano isn’t my…” I couldn’t speak the words. It was too horrific to imagine he could be my father.

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