Chapter 1
TU ME MANQUES
A TRE QUARTI College Years Novel
Chapter One
The 33%
Opening Scripture: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6:21
Kabbalah Opening: What is hidden in the vessel still shapes the light that passes through it.
Italian Opening: Il debito non dorme mai. Debt never sleeps.
Five-Card Pull
Bellucci: The Magician Reversed. Image without full control. A man learning the machine while the city thinks he already owns the room.
Caronna: Four of Pentacles. Paper held tight. Money held tighter. Files locked away because files are power.
Romano: Justice Reversed. A debt made to look clean while everyone knows it came from pressure.
Alto: The Moon. Theater, illusion, false faces, pretty lighting over fear.
Lipari: The High Priestess. The sealed archive. The basement. The thing known before anyone says it out loud.
Zodiac: Gemini Sun, Sagittarius wound, Capricorn pressure.
Rune: Fehu reversed, wealth under obligation.
Gemstone: Smoky Quartz, for buried things and dirty protection.
Pendulum: South by Southwest, toward old freight and older trouble.
The rain made Caronna Publishing look guilty.
It slid down the front windows in crooked silver lines, catching the glow from the streetlamp outside and dragging it across the glass like somebody was trying to erase the name painted there.
CARONNA PUBLISHING
Gold letters.
Black door.
Old brick.
Too much history for one building to carry honestly.
Valeri sat inside at the back table with five tarot cards spread in front of her and the college theater packet stacked beside her coffee. The cards had been bothering her since she pulled them.
The Magician reversed for Bellucci.
Four of Pentacles for Caronna.
Justice reversed for Romano.
The Moon for Alto.
The High Priestess for Lipari.
Five families. Five cards. Five doors.
None of them opened clean.
She tapped one nail against The Magician reversed and stared at the picture until the candle flame beside it bent hard to the left.
“Of course,” she muttered. “Of course Bellucci gets the trickster card upside down.”
The front bell rang once.
She did not look up.
Vinny Bellucci came in wet from the rain, black jacket darkened at the shoulders, hair damp, silver chain catching the low office light. He carried himself like the whole city had already moved out of his way before he arrived.
That was what people saw.
That was what people liked to repeat.
Valeri and Vinny Bellucci moving through New Orleans like mob boss and Trap Queen, like Caronna Publishing had risen from the sidewalk because they looked good standing in front of it.
People loved a myth when it came with a logo.
They loved a crown.
They loved a red car.
They loved a man with Bellucci attached to his name and a woman with Caronna attached to hers.
They did not love paperwork.
Paperwork told the truth.
Vinny shut the door behind him and glanced at the cards.
“Bad?”
Valeri leaned back in her chair.
“Depends if you think being upside down is bad.”
He walked closer and looked at The Magician reversed.
“Which one is that?”
“You.”
He gave the card a flat look.
“That little man in the robe is me?”
“Tonight he is.”
“I don’t wear robes.”
“No. You wear debt.”
That made him stop.
Not visibly enough for most people to notice.
Valeri noticed.
Vinny took the chair across from her, pulled an envelope from inside his jacket, and placed it on the table without sliding it over.
The envelope was cream-colored, thick, expensive, and sealed with red wax.
Caronna did not send cheap paper when they wanted somebody to feel the weight of a number.
Valeri looked at the wax seal.
“Thirty-three?”
Vinny nodded once.
Thirty-three percent.
That was the number sitting underneath every joke, every rumor, every look, every late-night meeting, every pretty little poster that made people think Caronna Publishing belonged to whoever smiled hardest in front of it.
Vinny Bellucci owed Caronna thirty-three percent.
And when you owed the mafia a debt, they did not just want to hear that you could pay.
They made sure you could pay.
That was how Bellucci ended up with Caronna Publishing.
Not because he invented it.
Not because the families loved him.
Not because the city admired him out loud.
Because Caronna Publishing could make money move without looking like money was moving.
Printing.
Routes.
Files.
Contracts.
Books.
Programs.
Manifests.
Receipts.
Names.
Paper with enough ink on it could become cleaner than cash and dirtier than blood.
Valeri had already been there before Bellucci got handed the machine.
That was the part people missed.
She was already inside the building.
Editor when they needed an editor.
Author when they needed an author.
Publisher when they needed a public face.
File-handler when they needed somebody to touch documents without asking too many questions.
She did not need to own the building to know what was buried in the walls.
Vinny tapped the envelope once.
“They want the first quarter cleaned by Friday.”
“First quarter of what?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Act like the number is stupid.”
“The number isn’t stupid. The people pretending it’s holy are stupid.”
His mouth almost smiled.
Almost.
Then his eyes moved to the theater packet.
“What’s that?”
Valeri turned the top page around.
ST. CHARLES COLLEGE
ROMEO AND JULIET
SPRING PRODUCTION
PRINT ORDER AND SPONSOR MATERIALS
Vinny read the heading.
“College play?”
“College play with donor inserts, private sponsor pages, an after-party guest list, and three invoices that don’t belong in a theater packet.”
The rain pushed harder against the glass.
Vinny reached for the packet.
Valeri put her hand over it first.
“No.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“No?”
“You don’t get to snatch paper off my table because your last name makes people nervous.”
“My last name doesn’t make you nervous.”
“That’s why I still have both hands.”
He sat back.
She let him look at the first page.
The ordinary pages were ordinary enough. Cast list. Crew list. Director’s note. Shakespeare quote. Donation tiers.
Then the wrong pages started.
A hotel block.
A private reception list.
An invoice for printing that Caronna Publishing had not generated.
A sponsorship sheet with one donor address in Illinois.
Nothing shouted.
That was what made it wrong.
Wrong paper never screamed when it came into a building like Caronna Publishing. It behaved. It dressed correctly. It sat in the right stack and waited for somebody tired enough to file it.
Vinny pointed at the Illinois address.
“That one local?”
Valeri stared at him.
“Since when is Illinois local?”
“People travel.”
“For Shakespeare?”
“People do worse for less.”
She pulled another sheet forward.
“This invoice number has freight formatting.”
Vinny’s expression cooled.
“Show me.”
She slid the paper over.
He read the number twice.
Then again.
There it was, buried in the middle of a college theater packet like a bone in wedding cake.
A route-style code.
Not full.
Not obvious.
But close enough that Vinny’s hand stilled on the page.
Valeri watched him.
“That’s not theater.”
“No.”
“That’s not publishing either.”
“No.”
“That’s movement.”
Vinny looked at the door behind her, then at the hallway leading deeper into the building.
“Who brought this in?”
“Courier.”
“What courier?”
“You think they introduced themselves? They dropped it at the front with the receipt.”
“Where’s the receipt?”
Valeri picked up a narrow slip from under her coffee mug and handed it to him.
He read it.
No company name.
Just initials.
V.B.
Vinny’s jaw tightened.
Valeri saw it.
“Bellucci?”
“Could be anybody.”
“Could be Vinny Bellucci.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You sure?”
He looked at her then.
Not offended.
Not angry.
Worse.
Measuring how much truth she could carry tonight.
Valeri hated that look because part of her wanted him to trust her and part of her knew trust was just another room people locked from the inside.
She took the receipt back.
“Then somebody wants me to think it was.”
A pipe knocked somewhere under the floor.
Once.
Hard.
The candle flame snapped upright.
Neither of them spoke.
The building settled above them, or pretended to.
Valeri glanced toward the hallway.
“That wasn’t rain.”
Vinny stood.
The chair legs scraped against the floor.
“Basement?”
“There’s storage under the back offices.”
“You’ve been down there?”
“No.”
“How long you worked here?”
“Long enough to know when not to open doors.”
Another knock came from below.
This one was softer.
Almost polite.
Three taps.
Vinny looked at the tarot spread.
His eyes landed on The High Priestess.
“The sealed woman,” Valeri said.
“What?”
“That card. Lipari. The High Priestess. Secrets. Archives. Things hidden under silence.”
Vinny gave her a look.
“Cards knocking now?”
“No. Buildings do.”
He took a flashlight from the supply drawer like he already knew where it was. That annoyed her. She had been in that building longer than him and somehow he moved through it like debt had given him a map.
She gathered the theater packet, slipped the suspicious pages into a red folder, and tucked the folder under her arm.
Vinny noticed.
“You’re bringing that?”
“I’m not leaving it upstairs.”
“You think the basement wants the playbill?”
“I think somebody sent freight codes inside Romeo and Juliet and then the floor started knocking. I’m not making assumptions.”
They moved into the hallway.
Caronna Publishing changed after midnight.
In daylight, it was cramped offices, old shelves, printing samples, author boxes, invoices, coffee stains, and deadlines.
At night, the building remembered it was older than anybody using it.
The back hallway smelled of dust and rain rot. Framed covers lined the walls, some recent, some yellowed, some so old the names had faded into brown ghosts.
Valeri passed them slowly.
Caronna titles.
Caronna imprints.
Caronna logos.
Caronna paper pretending history was a straight line.
At the end of the hall sat a narrow door half-hidden behind a rolling shelf stacked with outdated inventory.
Vinny pulled the shelf aside.
Iron door.
Old lock.
No modern keypad.
No label.
Valeri frowned.
“That wasn’t visible before.”
“It was visible. You just weren’t meant to see it.”
“I hate when you say things like that.”
He crouched and looked at the lock.
“Old.”
“Can you open it?”
He looked up.
“You asking as an employee or whatever title they need you to carry that day?”
Her face hardened.
“Open the door.”
That little flash in her voice made him obey faster than charm would have.
He took a thin tool from his pocket.
Valeri watched his hands.
Careful hands.
Not soft.
Not nervous.
Bellucci hands, she thought, and then hated herself for thinking in family language.
The lock clicked.
The door opened inward.
Cold air breathed out.
Not basement air.
Tunnel air.
Wet brick. Iron. Old paper. River damp. Something mineral and dead.
Valeri lifted the candle from the hallway table. Vinny raised the flashlight.
The stairs went down farther than they should have.
“This building isn’t that deep,” she said.
Vinny’s voice dropped.
“Apparently it is.”
They descended.
The first landing had old wooden shelves and broken crates. The second had rusted file cabinets. The third should not have existed at all.
At the bottom, the brick changed.
Older.
Darker.
Curved like an old freight passage.
Valeri touched the wall.
Her fingers came away black.
“Freight tunnel?”
Vinny shone the flashlight ahead.
The beam caught rails embedded in the floor.
Thin ones.
Old ones.
Cart tracks.
The tunnel ran beneath the publishing house and continued past it into darkness.
For the first time that night, Vinny did not look like the man people put on posters.
He looked young.
Not afraid.
Just aware that debt had handed him a building with a throat.
Valeri opened the red folder and looked again at the freight-style code in the theater packet.
Then she looked at the tracks.
“Vinny.”
“I see it.”
“No, you don’t.”
She held up the paper.
“The route code in the Romeo and Juliet packet doesn’t start at the college.”
She turned toward the tunnel.
“It starts here.”
A sound moved far ahead.
Not a knock this time.
A drag.
Wood against stone.
Vinny stepped slightly in front of her.
She stepped right back beside him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
She held his stare.
“I’m the same height in this tunnel as I am upstairs.”
The corner of his mouth twitched despite the dark.
“Noted.”
They moved forward together.
The tunnel widened into a chamber lined with shelves. Old crates sat stacked under canvas tarps. Some had Caronna markings. Some had no markings at all. A few bore symbols Valeri did not recognize: a crown, a key, a split heart, and a letter V drawn twice, one facing the other like a mirror.
On a central table sat a wooden chest.
Not hidden.
Waiting.
Valeri set the candle beside it.
The flame leaned toward the chest.
Vinny brushed dust off the lid.
No Caronna crest.
No Bellucci crest.
Just two names scratched into the wood with a blade or a nail.
Valentino.
Vincenza.
Valeri’s throat tightened before she knew why.
Vinny read the names in silence.
Then he looked at her.
The old tunnel hummed around them.
Valeri reached for the latch.
The metal was cold enough to hurt.
Inside the chest were papers wrapped in oilcloth, a leather diary, a folded map, two sepia photographs, and a small blackened rosary tangled around a key.
Vinny lifted the first photograph.
A Victorian man stared back from the old card stock.
Dark hair.
Set mouth.
Eyes that looked too tired for the century holding him.
Valeri’s breath caught.
Vinny turned the photograph slightly.
The woman beside the man wore a high-necked dress and a severe expression, but her eyes were alive in a way the camera had failed to kill.
She looked enough like Valeri to make the chamber feel smaller.
Not exact.
Not impossible.
Worse.
Close.
Valeri picked up the diary.
The leather cracked under her thumb.
On the first page, written in a slanted hand, were the same two names.
Valentino Caronna.
Vincenza Bellucci.
Below them, in darker ink:
tu me manques.
Valeri stared at the words.
Vinny leaned closer.
“What does that mean?”
She did not answer immediately.
Because she knew.
Because the phrase felt older than translation.
Because some sentences did not enter a room as language. They entered as memory.
Finally she said, very quietly,
“You are missing from me.”
The tunnel went still.
Above them, somewhere inside Caronna Publishing, the front bell rang once.
Then once again.
Then a third time.
Valeri closed the diary against her chest.
Vinny turned toward the stairs, flashlight raised.
“Somebody’s upstairs.”
She looked at the five-card pull in her mind.
The Magician reversed.
The Four of Pentacles.
Justice reversed.
The Moon.
The High Priestess.
The cards had not warned her about the future.
They had opened the floor under the present.
Closing Prayer:
Lord, guard what is hidden until truth is ready.
Guard what is revealed from hands that would bury it again.
Let no false light lead us out of the dark.
Amen.
