Chapter 6 - Brother Against Brother
Salvatore did not reach for his gun.
Carmine did.
Vincent swung the weapon toward him.
“Don’t.”
Carmine stopped.
“Vincent,” Salvatore said, “put it down.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“You don’t understand.”
Salvatore looked at his brother’s trembling hand.
“I understand you’re pointing a gun at me in my own cellar.”
Vincent’s eyes moved toward the ledgers.
“You weren’t supposed to find those.”
A terrible silence followed.
“You knew they were here?”
“No.”
“Then what do you know?”
Vincent swallowed.
“Enough.”
Carmine’s voice hardened.
“Boss, give me one second.”
“No.”
Salvatore kept his eyes on Vincent.
“Why did Elena make records?”
Vincent’s breathing shook.
“She learned what Dominic was doing.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
Salvatore waited.
Vincent lowered the gun a fraction.
“Father didn’t leave the business to Dominic because he didn’t trust him. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“Dominic never accepted it.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
“He built his own network. Judges. City contracts. Union officials. Customs agents. He moved money through our legitimate companies without telling you.”
“Why would Elena know?”
“She was an accountant before she met you.”
Salvatore remembered.
Elena could look at six pages of numbers and find the lie before most men understood the question.
Vincent continued.
“She found irregularities in one of your shipping companies. At first she thought somebody was stealing.”
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“More than money.”
“What does that mean?”
Vincent’s face collapsed.
“He was moving people.”
Carmine frowned.
“People?”
“Women. Runaways. Undocumented girls. Through freight containers.”
Salvatore’s expression changed completely.
Not shock.
Murder.
“Say that again.”
“Dominic built a trafficking pipeline.”
Salvatore’s hand curled around the table.
“You knew.”
“I found out later.”
“How much later?”
Vincent looked ashamed.
“Three years.”
“And you let him live?”
“He threatened my family.”
“You don’t have a family.”
“I did.”
Salvatore stopped.
Vincent wiped his face.
“A woman. Marissa. We had a daughter.”
Salvatore stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“Dominic knew. He showed me photographs of them. Their school. Their apartment.”
“Where are they?”
“Canada. New names.”
Salvatore suddenly understood Vincent’s entire life.
The bachelor image.
The empty penthouse.
The constant nervous loyalty to Dominic.
“He made you choose.”
“Yes.”
“And Elena?”
“She discovered enough that Dominic panicked.”
“So you helped him make her disappear.”
“I helped her disappear.”
Salvatore’s eyes narrowed.
Vincent rushed on.
“The first time, thirteen years ago, I believed Dominic when he said it was temporary. He said Elena would be safer outside New York.”
“You told me she was dead.”
“I hated myself every day.”
“Not enough to tell me the truth.”
“No.”
Vincent lowered the gun.
“But seven years ago, when she came back with Gabriel, I was going to take them to you.”
“What stopped you?”
“Dominic’s men grabbed her before I could.”
Salvatore’s chest hardened.
“And Gabriel?”
“She hid him with a nun. Sister Agnes.”
“The orphanage?”
“No. Different place. She escaped again months later and got him back.”
“Then why didn’t she come to me?”
“She didn’t trust anyone in the family.”
Salvatore looked at the weapon.
“Apparently she was right.”
Vincent finally placed the gun on the floor.
Carmine kicked it away.
“Why point that at us?”
Vincent looked toward the staircase.
“Because Dominic has cameras.”
Everyone froze.
“Where?”
“All through the house. Private network. He’s had access for years.”
Salvatore’s eyes became razor-thin.
“He can see this room?”
“No. He didn’t know this room existed. But he saw us enter the cellar.”
“And he told you to stop me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Vincent opened his mouth.
A phone rang upstairs.
Not one phone.
Every phone.
House lines.
Security desk.
Carmine’s radio exploded with voices.
Then came a scream.
Salvatore ran.
They reached the main level in seconds.
Rosa stood in the foyer.
Her face white.
“Gabriel.”
Salvatore’s blood froze.
“What happened?”
“He was in the library.”
“Where is he?”
“I only left for a minute.”
Salvatore sprinted down the hall.
The library doors stood open.
A chair was overturned.
The window was broken.
Gabriel was gone.
On the carpet lay the torn blanket.
Salvatore dropped to one knee.
Rain blew through the shattered glass.
Then his phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Gabriel sat in the back seat of a car.
A hand covered his mouth.
Beneath the image were six words.
Burn the ledgers or bury your son.
Salvatore stared at the screen.
For thirteen years he had believed Elena dead.
For eight years his son had lived without him.
Now he had been given the boy for less than one night.
And someone had taken him again.
Carmine asked the question carefully.
“What do you want us to do?”
Salvatore stood.
His face had become eerily calm.
“Lock the gates.”
“He’s already outside.”
“Not for Gabriel.”
Carmine understood.
“For Dominic?”
May you like
Salvatore chambered a round into his pistol.
“For everyone.”
