"It's not my job to clear people's names," I'd said, knowing it was a rotten thing to say. Justice is my job, but we failed Umberto.
The memory of that day floods back. Elena's face when I brought Rocco to her, the raw terror giving way to desperate relief as she clutched her son.
I remember how she checked him for injuries, how she whispered prayers of thanks as she clung to him.
I'd wanted to help her then. To tell her she could leave this life behind, take her children somewhere safe. But she wouldn’t have it. Maybe it was because Luca and Dom arrived and she couldn’t ask for help.
But I got the sense that wouldn’t have taken me up on my offer. It’s one thing I don’t understand.
Why do the women stay? We could have helped Isabella leave. Elena and her children too.
I’d have helped them even if they didn’t give evidence against the families. But they stay.
These mafia wives and daughters, born or married into violence, living with the constant threat of raids or rival families or prison sentences, stay.
Is it love? Fear? Or something more complicated?
I refer to the most troubling page in my notebook, the notes I took after speaking with Rocco once he'd calmed down enough to talk.
I'd broken protocol interviewing him without a child psychologist present, but something told me to get his account immediately, before anyone could coach him.
And of course, technically, there was no case, so no rules were broken.
"Santa said I could see his sleigh and that he’d take me to see his workshop,” he'd said, between sniffles.
“Did Santa bring you to the house?” I wiped his tears, my heart breaking for the little guy.
He shook his head. “There was another man. Santa said he was a helper, but he wasn’t nice like elves.”
“Did they ask you anything? Did you hear them talking?”
“The helper man asked about Uncle Dom and Daddy.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know anything and it made him mad.” He burst out crying again, so I stopped asking questions and called Elena to arrange her son’s return.
But it begs the question, why would kidnappers question a child about Dom and Luca? Not for ransom information. They never even made a demand.
They were fishing for intelligence in the family? Was it another family in La Corona? Marco Calabresi, whose name has already appeared a lot in this saga. Or maybe Leonardo Ferraza.
I flip to Elena's statement about the winter festival where Rocco was taken. La Corona's annual charity event. Family members, associates, legitimate business partners. Security everywhere.
Someone had to have serious balls to snatch a Vitale-Monti child from a gathering of the most powerful mafia families in New York.
The risk was astronomical.
One wrong move and they'd be found floating in pieces around the harbor.
It speaks to someone on the inside. Someone who knew the security patterns, who could blend in without raising suspicion.
Or someone the families would never suspect. Someone like Santa.
Since there was no case, there’s no hint who Santa might be. Or the man in the SUV who drove off with Rocco. Does Dom know?
"Did you kill Gio Sarto?" Dom’s question from last night comes back to me.
The question had caught me off guard. I was aware of who he was through my investigation of the Vitale family.
He worked for Dom, and for his father before him.
Why would I kill him? Dom suggested that it was because someone was pulling strings, hoping Luca would blame Gio for Rocco’s kidnapping.
