Chapter 16 - UNCLE NINO’S PRICENino Russo had been at Elena’s fake funeral.
She remembered him standing near the back of the church, hat in his hands, eyes red, whispering that Carlo would have known what to say if he were still around. He had hugged Luciana. He had kissed Elena’s forehead. He had called her brave.
He had helped lower the tiny white coffin into the ground.
Now Elena stared at the photograph on her phone and saw him beside Carmela in the room where her father had been tortured.
The lie widened until it swallowed her childhood.
Damian took the phone from her gently before her fingers lost strength.
Marco looked at the photograph and stiffened.
“I know him.”
Elena’s head snapped up.
“How?”
“He runs a funeral home in Bensonhurst.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Of course.
The coffin.
The closed lid.
The death certificate.
The burial.
Uncle Nino had not merely attended the funeral.
He had staged it.
Miriam’s voice was quiet but urgent.
“Did he handle your daughter’s burial?”
Elena nodded.
“I didn’t arrange anything. My mother said I was too weak. Nino did it as a favor.”
“A favor,” Damian repeated.
His face looked like a storm about to break.
Miriam pointed at him.
“No.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
Elena took the phone back.
“I want to see him.”
Damian shook his head immediately.
“Elena—”
“I’m done finding out truth from papers.”
Miriam considered her carefully.
“He may run.”
“Then we go now.”
Damian looked to Miriam.
She sighed.
“Record everything. Do not threaten him. Do not touch him. Do not let Damian speak first.”
Damian arched one eyebrow.
Miriam said, “Especially that.”
The funeral home sat on a quiet street with green awnings and polished windows. Elena had been there only once before, heavily medicated and barely able to stand. She remembered the smell of lilies. The awful softness of the carpet. Nino telling her some grief was too sacred for open caskets.
Now she understood why he had said it.
Nino Russo opened the door himself.
He was older, rounder, wearing a dark vest and tie. For half a second, warmth entered his face.
“Elena?”
Then he saw Damian behind her.
The warmth died.
Elena held up the photograph.
Nino’s mouth went slack.
“Invite us in,” she said.
He looked past them at the street, calculating.
Damian leaned slightly closer.
Miriam, who had insisted on coming, cleared her throat.
“Mr. Russo, I am counsel for Ms. Moretti. We are recording this conversation.”
Nino’s face went gray.
Inside, the funeral home was quiet. Too quiet. Elena hated that she had once trusted this silence as respect.
She stood in the viewing room where the empty coffin had been displayed two years ago.
“Was she ever in here?” Elena asked.
Nino swallowed.
“Elena—”
“Was my daughter ever in that coffin?”
He looked down.
“No.”
The word did not surprise her.
It still cut.
“What was inside?”
Nino’s eyes filled.
“Blankets. Weight. Nothing else.”
Elena swayed.
Damian moved closer but did not touch her.
“Did you know she was alive?”
Nino covered his face.
“At first, no. Luciana came to me destroyed. She said Carmela had forced her. She said Carlo was gone. She said if there was no funeral, people would ask questions.”
“You helped.”
“I thought I was helping keep you alive.”
Elena laughed, bitter and sharp.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Nino looked at her, pleading.
“Carmela told us if the lie cracked, she would kill you and the child. She said Damian would do worse if he learned his daughter was stolen.”
Damian’s voice was quiet.
“You believed that?”
Nino looked at him with shame.
“I believed your name.”
That silence hurt more than Elena expected.
Damian stepped back.
Elena opened the phone again and showed him Carlo’s picture.
“What happened to my father?”
Nino began crying.
“I tried to save him.”
“No,” Elena said. “No more soft lies.”
He nodded, breaking.
“Carlo came to me before he went to St. Agnes. He suspected something. He said if anything happened, I should take evidence to the police. But Carmela’s men came first. They knew about me. They took me to Van Brunt. Carlo was there.”
His voice failed.
Elena waited.
“He begged me to protect you. Carmela gave me a choice. Sign the funeral papers and stay quiet, or watch them send you to your father.”
Elena’s entire body shook.
“So you chose.”
“Yes.”
“You chose your life.”
Nino whispered, “I chose yours.”
“Don’t you dare.”
He flinched.
“Don’t make betrayal sound like love.”
Nino bowed his head.
Miriam asked, “Do you still have records?”
Nino nodded slowly.
“Copies. In the basement.”
Damian looked at him.
“Of Sofia?”
“Of more than Sofia.”
Miriam’s eyes sharpened.
Nino led them downstairs to a locked file room behind the embalming suite. Elena stayed at the doorway, unable to cross the threshold.
The smell of chemicals dragged her back to that tiny coffin.
Damian noticed and stepped inside instead.
He and Marco carried out three boxes.
Miriam opened the first.
Inside were burial permits. Closed casket authorizations. Cash receipts. Private correspondence.
Names.
So many names.
Elena saw Rachel Dunn.
She saw two others from the files.
Then she saw something that made her blood stop.
Moretti, Elena — Infant female.
Beside it, handwritten in Nino’s careful script:
Transferred alive. Carmela C. Paid. Mother unstable narrative approved.
Elena picked up the paper.
The world narrowed.
“Mother unstable narrative,” she whispered.
Miriam’s face hardened.
“That is how they planned to discredit you if you ever came forward.”
Nino sank into a chair.
“I’m sorry.”
Elena looked at him.
“You don’t get sorry yet.”
Her phone buzzed again.
Another unknown number.
This time there was no photograph.
Only a message.
Thank you for finding the boxes.
Then the funeral home lights went out.
From upstairs came the sound of glass breaking.
Damian moved instantly, pushing Elena behind him.
Marco whispered, “Back exit.”
Miriam clutched the files.
Nino began sobbing.
“They followed you.”
Damian’s voice was ice.
“No.”
May you like
He looked toward the dark staircase.
“We led them here.”
