“What are you talking about, Bella?” I asked, keeping my voice low and steady. “I have nothing to do with Kane. He is a monster. He is running a network under the city.”

“And who do you think paid for the concrete?” she asked.

A tear tracked through the dark soot on her cheek, leaving a pale line.

“Who do you think paid the workers who dug these shafts?” she continued, her voice rising. “Who bought the silence of the city inspectors?”

“We run the docks, the local unions, the garbage routes,” I said. “We don’t touch this.”

“You don’t look at the books, Dante,” she said.

She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her dirty coat, her hand still trembling.

“You think the Moretti syndicate is clean because you don’t look at where the money goes after it leaves the shell companies.”

“That’s business,” I said. “It’s real estate. It’s development.”

“It’s Kane,” she said.

The word fell between us like a heavy stone.

“Your syndicate funded his entire infrastructure,” she whispered. “The money from our family’s accounts has been keeping his lights on for ten years.”