Chapter 13 - The Empire Vincent Gave Away
Saving Sophie did not erase Vincent’s past.
Three days after the gala, federal prosecutors offered him a choice.
Fight dozens of charges and risk spending the rest of his life in prison, or cooperate fully against the Covenant and surrender every business connected to illegal activity.
Tony expected him to fight.
Gabriel expected him to bargain.
Maria expected nothing.
Vincent signed the agreement.
He surrendered warehouses, casinos, offshore accounts and properties acquired through intimidation. He gave investigators names, dates and locations. He described murders he had ordered and crimes he had helped conceal.
For twelve hours, he spoke without asking for immunity.
The legal businesses were placed into a trust benefiting employees, neighborhood programs and victims’ families.
The Golden Palm was sold.
On the final evening before ownership transferred, Vincent sat alone at his corner table.
Sophie entered carrying two plates of chocolate cake.
“You forgot dessert,” she said.
“I didn’t order dessert.”
“I did.”
She climbed into the chair beside him.
The restaurant looked different without lieutenants and armed guards. Ordinary families occupied the tables. A young couple laughed near the window.
Sophie pushed one plate toward him.
“Are you going to jail?”
“Maybe.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not fair. You saved Mama.”
Vincent looked at the cake.
“Sometimes a good thing does not erase a bad thing.”
“But you’re sorry.”
“Being sorry matters. It does not repair everything.”
Sophie considered this carefully.
“Then repair what you can.”
The simplicity of it nearly broke him.
Elena entered from the dining room, walking without assistance now. Her bruises had faded, though one scar near her eyebrow remained.
“She has been practicing that speech,” Elena said.
“I have not,” Sophie protested.
Maria followed behind her.
Gabriel remained in rehabilitation and could stand only with braces, but doctors believed he would walk again.
The family was not restored.
Too much had happened for restoration.
But they were learning the difference between rebuilding and pretending nothing had been broken.
Vincent looked at Elena.
“What will you do?”
“For the first time, I don’t have to disappear.”
She had accepted work helping federal investigators authenticate Carlo’s files. She also planned to create a legal support organization for families escaping organized crime.
“And Sophie?” he asked.
“She wants to attend one school for longer than a year.”
“I also want a dog,” Sophie added.
“No dog,” Elena said.
“A small dog.”
“No.”
“A heroic dog.”
Vincent almost smiled.
Tony approached the table with an envelope.
The expression on his face ended the moment of peace.
“What is it?” Vincent asked.
“A letter delivered to the federal building. No return address.”
Inside was a photograph of Paul D’Amato being transferred between prisons.
A red circle had been drawn around the guard walking beside him.
Vincent recognized the guard.
Anthony Velez.
One of the lieutenants who had survived the Golden Palm attack.
Anthony was supposed to be in protective custody.
On the back of the photograph were six words:
THE COVENANT STILL OWNS ITS DEBTS.
Tony turned on the television behind the bar.
Breaking news filled the screen.
A prison transport carrying Paul D’Amato had crashed outside Joliet. Two officers were dead.
Paul was missing.
Evelyn Vale had been attacked in federal custody the same morning and left in a coma.
Someone was eliminating the old leadership.
Someone new wanted control.
Vincent looked toward Sophie.
He had surrendered his empire.
But the consequences of building it were still moving through the city.
“Take them home,” he told Tony.
Maria heard the decision in his voice.
“No.”
“This is not your fight.”
“It became my fight thirty years ago.”
Elena stood beside her.
“And mine before Sophie was born.”
Vincent looked at both women.
“I am trying to keep you safe.”
Maria moved closer.
“That is what you said when you decided everything alone. Look where it brought us.”
The front windows shattered.
A bullet struck the wall above Vincent’s head.
Everyone dropped.
Tony’s men rushed outside.
A motorcycle sped away from the curb.
Vincent shielded Sophie beneath the table until the street went quiet.
Then he saw the message carved into the bullet lodged in the wood.
Not Salvatore’s warning.
A signature.
Someone else had known about the locker all along.
Someone who had been close enough to Carlo to understand the code.
Elena stared at the bullet.
“My father had a partner.”
“Who?” Vincent asked.
She looked toward the kitchen, where the restaurant’s elderly pastry chef stood frozen beside the doorway.
His name was Mateo Russo.
For twenty years, everyone believed he was Carlo’s harmless younger cousin.
May you like
Mateo slowly removed his apron.
Then he drew a gun.
