Italian Mafia Boss, My Cell

Chapter Seven: The Ledger

The warden's office sat at the far end of the administrative wing, behind a door with a brass nameplate that read WARDEN THOMAS BRACK, polished to a shine that felt obscene against the grime of everything else in the building.

Two guards flanked Isabella and Salvatore as they walked, close enough that their shoulders brushed against hers with every step, a silent reminder that this wasn't a request. Salvatore's expression had gone carefully blank, the same stillness she'd noticed the night before when the cell door had unlocked itself in the dark. She was starting to understand that stillness meant something specific with him. It meant he was afraid, and refusing to let it show.

Brack was seated behind a wide mahogany desk when they entered, a man in his fifties with a soft belly and hard eyes, the kind of face that had learned to smile at exactly the moments smiling would do the most damage.

"Mr. Cosa." He gestured toward two chairs without standing. "And Miss Marchetti. I understand you two have gotten acquainted quickly."

"Get to the point, Thomas." Salvatore didn't sit.

Brack's smile tightened at the use of his first name, a deliberate diminishment Isabella recognized even without understanding the history behind it. "Fine. I'll get to the point. There's been a request from certain interested parties regarding your cellmate's records. Financial records, specifically. The kind she apparently had access to before her conviction."

"What kind of interested parties," Isabella said, before she could stop herself.

Brack's eyes slid toward her, assessing, cold. "The kind that fund a significant portion of this facility's operating budget through certain private contracts, Miss Marchetti. The kind whose interest in your case predates your arrival here by several months."

The room seemed to tilt slightly beneath her. "You're saying someone paid to have me sent to this specific prison."

"I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm simply informing you that certain parties have expressed interest in reviewing whatever documentation you may still have access to, mentally or otherwise, regarding the Vantage Logistics audit." Brack folded his hands on the desk. "Cooperation would be noted favorably in your file. Possibly affecting parole eligibility down the line."

Salvatore's hand closed around the back of the chair in front of him hard enough that his knuckles went white. "You're asking her to hand over evidence to the same people who framed her."

"I'm asking her to consider her options, Mr. Cosa. Something you'd be wise to consider as well, given your own appeal is scheduled to be heard in the coming months, and certain parties have significant influence over how favorably that proceeding unfolds."

The threat hung in the air, thinly veiled behind bureaucratic language, and Isabella watched something shift in Salvatore's face, not fear exactly, but the cold recalculation of a man who understood he'd just been shown exactly how much power the enemy held over both of their futures.

"We'll consider it," Salvatore said finally, voice flat.

"See that you do." Brack smile returned, thin and satisfied. "You're dismissed."

The walk back to the cell passed in silence, guards trailing close enough to prevent conversation, and it wasn't until the cell door slid shut behind them, sealing them back into their small concrete world, that Salvatore finally spoke.

"He's working for them," he said, pacing the length of the cell in three long strides, over and over, a caged animal working through calculations Isabella couldn't follow. "Which means every conversation we have inside this cell, every piece of information you carry in your head about Vantage Logistics, is worth money to Brack. He'll sell you out the second it benefits him."

"What do we do?"

Salvatore stopped pacing and looked at her, something calculating and dangerous behind his eyes. "We give him nothing. Whatever you remember about those accounts, whatever numbers, names, dates, you keep it in your head and nowhere else. No paper, no conversations he could overhear, nothing that becomes evidence he can trade."

"That's not sustainable forever, Salvatore. Eventually someone needs that information to actually clear my name."

"I know." He ran a hand through his hair, the first genuinely frustrated gesture she'd seen from him. "But right now, the only leverage either of us has is what's inside your memory. The second you write it down, or say it to the wrong person, that leverage disappears."

Isabella sat down heavily on the bottom bunk, exhaustion pressing down on her shoulders. "How did they even know I had access to those specific accounts? My name wasn't public during the audit. Vantage Logistics wasn't named in my trial."

"That's what I keep coming back to." Salvatore sat across from her, close enough that his knee nearly brushed hers. "Someone connected you to Vantage Logistics before you ever set foot in this building. Someone knew exactly what evidence you had before Brack ever mentioned it in that office."

"Which means whoever framed me isn't just trying to bury the evidence I found. They're trying to control it."

"Or eliminate it." Salvatore's voice had gone quiet, grim. "And the people who control it."

The implication settled over her like ice water, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke.

"There's something else," Salvatore said finally, reaching beneath the thin mattress of his bunk and withdrawing a folded scrap of paper Isabella hadn't noticed before. "A note. Slipped under the door sometime during the lockdown, while we were with Brack."

He unfolded it slowly, and Isabella leaned forward, heart hammering, to read the six words scrawled across the paper in hurried, uneven handwriting.

They know what she found. Run.

Salvatore's face had gone pale beneath his olive complexion, and when he looked up at her, the calm composure he'd maintained since her arrival had entirely vanished.

"Someone inside this building is trying to warn us," he said quietly. "Which means whatever's coming, it's coming faster than either of us realized."

Before Isabella could respond, the cell block lights flickered once, twice, then plunged the entire corridor into sudden, absolute darkness.