The Morelli ledgers.
When we absorbed the Morelli family's debts—including Eraldo Romano's—we also acquired their records. Every transaction. Every bribe. Every dirty deal they'd made over the past thirty years. Names, dates, amounts. Enough information to bring down half the corrupt officials in Chicago.
We've been using those ledgers as leverage. Insurance. A guarantee that certain people in power will look the other way when we need them to.
"You have forty-eight hours," the voice continues. "Deliver the ledgers to a location I'll specify. Once I've verified they're authentic and complete, your wife will be released."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand.
Forty-eight hours.
The Morelli ledgers.
My wife's life.
The silence stretches.
No one moves. No one speaks.
I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. The phone sits in my palm like a grenade with the pin pulled.
I close my eyes.
Think.
Don't feel. Think.
"Bruno." Pietro's voice is careful. Measured. "We need to discuss?—"
"I need Vittoria."
The words come out flat. Certain.
Pietro blinks. "What?"
"Vittoria." I look up at him. "Get her on a secure line. Now."
Nico steps forward. "Bruno, we need to talk about what we're going to do. The ledgers?—"
"I know what the ledgers are worth." I cut him off. "I know what losing them means. I also know my wife is pregnant and bleeding in some room while we stand here with our thumbs up our asses."
The room goes quiet again.
I wheel myself closer to the desk, closer to the screens showing that useless red dot where Antonella's phone died.
"We have forty-eight hours," I say. "That's not nothing. That's time. And I'm not spending it deciding whether to hand over our leverage or let them kill her."
"Then what are you suggesting?" Pietro asks.
"I'm suggesting we use the next two hours to scan every page of those ledgers." I turn to face them all. "Vittoria can digitize them faster than anyone. Cross-reference every name, every transaction, every dirty secret in those books against known associates of every crime family in Chicago."
Nico shakes his head. "Bruno, it could be anyone. The Morellis had their fingers in everything. Half the city's power structure is in those ledgers. Politicians, judges, police captains, businessmen?—"
"And crime families," I finish for him. "Other organizations who would kill to get their hands on that information. Or kill to make sure it never sees the light of day."
"That's dozens of potential suspects," Nico argues. "Maybe hundreds. We don't have time to investigate them all."
