Chapter 12 - A Son Worth an Empire
Dominic Russo had served Salvatore for fifteen years.
He knew every safe house.
Every surveillance blind spot.
Every corrupt officer.
Every emergency route.
Finding him would mean thinking like him.
Salvatore hated that he knew exactly how.
Dominic would not leave the city immediately.
Too obvious.
He would change vehicles.
Cut digital contact.
Move Leo through places the Moretti organization would hesitate to search.
Hospitals.
Schools.
Church properties.
Matteo stood over a city map beside Salvatore.
Carmine watched them both with open distrust.
"I still don't like him here," Carmine said.
Matteo ignored him.
Salvatore didn't.
"Neither do I."
Matteo looked almost amused.
"Family reunion going well."
Salvatore wanted to hit him.
Instead he focused on Leo.
Dominic sent his first demand at 3:17 p.m.
The time was deliberate.
Box 317.
A photograph showed Leo sitting inside a small room.
Alive.
Unhurt.
Holding that day's newspaper.
The message beneath it said:
BRING THE LEDGER AND BOTH BROTHERS TO WAREHOUSE 12 AT MIDNIGHT.
NO CARMINE.
Carmine scoffed.
"I feel insulted."
Salvatore enlarged the photograph.
Leo's expression looked frightened but focused.
His left hand rested on his knee.
Three fingers extended.
Two bent.
Salvatore stared.
"What?"
Matteo asked.
Salvatore remembered something Leo had said the previous night while playing cards with Carmine.
At the orphanage, the children had developed signals when staff entered rooms.
Three fingers meant upstairs.
Two bent meant second floor.
Leo was telling him where he was.
Salvatore examined the background.
Painted cinder block.
A small stained-glass window.
Not a warehouse.
A church facility.
Carmine noticed.
"He's giving us something."
Salvatore nodded.
They checked properties connected to Dominic.
One matched.
A former Catholic school in Brooklyn, abandoned after a fire-code dispute.
Two floors.
Stained-glass panels in the old chapel classrooms.
Salvatore looked at Carmine.
"Quiet team."
Matteo shook his head.
"Dominic will expect that."
"Then what?"
"We go to the warehouse."
Salvatore stared.
"And leave Leo?"
"No."
Matteo tapped the map.
"Send Carmine."
The message specifically said no Carmine.
Exactly why Dominic might not monitor him closely.
At eleven thirty, Salvatore and Matteo approached Warehouse 12 with the ledger.
Carmine led a separate team toward the school.
Inside the warehouse, one chair waited beneath a hanging bulb.
Dominic's voice came through speakers.
"Put the ledger on the chair."
Salvatore did.
"Now guns."
They complied.
"Very good."
Matteo looked around.
"He's not here."
"No," Salvatore said.
"This is delay."
Dominic's voice returned.
"I always wondered which of you Vittorio hated more."
Matteo looked toward the ceiling.
"Come out and ask him."
A laugh.
"Still charming, Uncle Matteo."
Salvatore's head turned.
Uncle.
Dominic was Matteo's cousin once removed through Domenico, but family language in these circles was flexible.
"Where is Leo?"
"Safe."
"I'll decide that."
"You're not very good at keeping him safe, Sal."
Salvatore's fist tightened.
Dominic continued.
"Elena kept him alive eight years by staying away from you. He lasted three days with you before being kidnapped twice."
The words were designed to hurt.
They did.
Matteo watched Salvatore carefully.
Then another voice came through the speaker.
Leo.
"Salvatore?"
Salvatore stepped forward.
"Leo!"
"I'm okay."
"Did he hurt you?"
"No."
Dominic cut the connection.
"Proof of life."
Salvatore looked at his watch.
Carmine should be entering the school.
Dominic's voice shifted.
"Now open the ledger to the last page."
Salvatore did.
A sequence of numbers.
"What is it?"
"Half the archive code."
Matteo understood.
"The other half is in Vittorio's ring."
Salvatore looked at him.
The ring from the empty coffin.
It was locked in his penthouse safe.
Dominic knew.
"Which means," Matteo said, "he doesn't actually need the ledger."
"No."
Salvatore's blood went cold.
"He needs time."
At the abandoned school, Carmine found the second floor empty.
One chair.
One newspaper.
And a small bloodstained bandage.
No Leo.
On the chalkboard someone had written one word.
SORRY.
Carmine called Salvatore.
"He's not here."
Salvatore closed his eyes.
Dominic had predicted everything.
Then Matteo noticed a sound.
Faint.
A train horn.
It came through the speaker before Dominic muted his microphone.
Matteo smiled.
"I know that horn."
Salvatore looked at him.
"Where?"
"Freight line near Red Hook."
Salvatore snatched the ledger.
They ran.
Dominic had hidden Leo inside a shipping facility near the waterfront.
But when Salvatore arrived, the building seemed deserted.
Then he heard a crash above.
Leo appeared on a catwalk.
Running.
"Salvatore!"
Dominic emerged behind him.
"Stop!"
Leo kept running.
A gunshot cracked.
The bullet struck the railing.
Salvatore's heart stopped.
"DOMINIC!"
Leo reached the stairs.
Dominic grabbed him by the shirt.
The boy bit his hand.
Dominic cursed.
Leo broke free.
Salvatore ran toward them.
Dominic raised his gun.
Matteo fired first.
The bullet hit Dominic's shoulder.
He fell.
Leo stumbled down three steps.
Salvatore caught him at the bottom.
For several seconds he could only hold the boy.
"I'm sorry," Leo gasped.
"For what?"
"I left the church."
"What?"
"Dominic told me Carmine was hurt."
Salvatore closed his eyes.
Of course.
A lie tailored to an eight-year-old.
Leo looked past him.
"He's getting up."
Salvatore spun.
Dominic had vanished through an upper door.
Matteo followed.
Salvatore started after them.
Leo grabbed his sleeve.
"Don't leave."
Two words.
Salvatore stopped.
Every instinct told him to hunt Dominic.
Every old lesson said eliminate the threat.
But Leo's small fingers trembled around his sleeve.
So Salvatore stayed.
Carmine arrived minutes later.
Matteo returned alone.
"He escaped."
Salvatore nodded.
Matteo looked surprised.
"You didn't follow."
"No."
"Why?"
Salvatore looked down at Leo.
"Priorities."
Something in Matteo's expression changed.
Not quite respect.
Maybe envy.
They returned to the penthouse at dawn.
Leo fell asleep in the car with his head against Salvatore's arm.
Salvatore did not move for the entire ride.
When they arrived, Nathaniel Crane waited inside.
His face was grave.
"There's been a development."
Salvatore carefully lifted Leo.
"What?"
"The trust board received an authenticated directive from Vittorio."
Salvatore frowned.
"He's dead."
"Apparently the directive was scheduled years ago."
"What does it say?"
Nathaniel looked at the sleeping child.
"On Leo's ninth birthday, control of the Moretti Continuity Trust passes permanently to his legal guardian."
Salvatore stared.
Leo's birthday was October twelfth.
Three weeks away.
Nathaniel continued.
"Unless the child dies first."
Silence.
Salvatore tightened his hold.
Now they understood the clock.
May you like
Three weeks.
And every ambitious Moretti had a reason to make sure Leo never reached nine.
