Chapter 2 - The Morning Chicago Learned Her NameAt 6:17 the next morning, Nora Dempsey woke to the sound of her dead father’s name on television.
For several seconds, she did not remember where she was.
The ceiling above her was too high.
The sheets beneath her were too soft.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Chicago stretched beneath a pale autumn sunrise, Lake Michigan reflecting silver between towers of glass.
Then the previous forty-eight hours returned all at once.
Osteria Romano.
The gun.
Victor bleeding beside her.
Captain Miller confessing.
Tommy Sullivan collapsing inside the meatpacking plant.
And Victor kissing her on the balcony as if the entire violent city belonged to them.
Nora sat up.
She was wearing one of Victor’s white dress shirts. It reached halfway down her thighs.
She had fallen asleep sometime after three in the morning in the guest bedroom of his Gold Coast penthouse.
Victor had not tried to follow her inside.
That surprised her more than she wanted to admit.
The television was playing somewhere beyond the bedroom.
Nora stepped barefoot into the hallway.
Victor stood in the living room with his back to her.
His injured shoulder was freshly bandaged beneath a black T-shirt. One hand held a cup of coffee. The other rested against the marble kitchen island.
On the enormous television screen, a reporter stood outside Chicago Police headquarters.
“New evidence released early this morning appears to completely exonerate Detective Richard Dempsey, the Chicago police officer who died ten years ago under accusations of corruption.”
Nora stopped walking.
A photograph appeared.
Her father.
Richie Dempsey wore his uniform and the crooked grin Nora remembered from childhood.
Her throat closed.
“The evidence includes financial records, internal police documents, and a recorded confession allegedly made by Captain Harrison Miller, who was taken into federal custody shortly before midnight.”
The reporter continued speaking.
Nora heard only fragments.
Corruption.
Organized crime.
Evidence tampering.
Wrongful termination of benefits.
Formal review.
Posthumous commendation.
Victor turned.
He saw Nora standing there.
Neither spoke.
The reporter said, “The Dempsey family may be entitled to substantial compensation and restoration of benefits.”
Nora crossed the room and turned off the television.
Silence filled the penthouse.
Victor placed his coffee down.
“You okay?”
“No.”
He waited.
That was something she was beginning to notice about him.
Victor Falcone could command twenty armed men without raising his voice, but when Nora was hurting, he did not rush to fill the silence.
“My mother believed him,” Nora said.
Victor’s expression remained still.
“She believed my father was innocent until the day she died.”
“I know.”
Nora looked sharply at him.
“How?”
“I read the files.”
“Of course you did.”
She walked toward the windows.
Her mother, Kathleen, had died from pancreatic cancer three years earlier.
She had spent the final decade of her life defending a husband everyone else called corrupt.
Nora remembered neighbors whispering.
Teachers watching her differently.
College financial-aid officers asking uncomfortable questions.
She remembered her mother selling their house.
Selling jewelry.
Working two jobs.
Dying before the truth arrived.
“She should have seen this,” Nora whispered.
Victor approached but stopped several feet behind her.
“Yes.”
One word.
No false comfort.
No promise that everything happened for a reason.
Nora appreciated him for that.
Her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
Victor immediately became alert.
“Don’t answer.”
Nora answered.
“Nora Dempsey?”
The woman on the other end sounded professional.
“Yes.”
“My name is Special Agent Evelyn Grant with the FBI’s Chicago Field Office. I’d like to speak with you regarding Captain Miller and the events at Osteria Romano.”
Nora looked at Victor.
His face changed.
The warmth disappeared.
The crime boss returned.
“When?” Nora asked.
“Today.”
“Am I under arrest?”
A pause.
“No.”
“Then I’ll call you back.”
Nora ended the call.
Victor stared at her.
“You shouldn’t have answered.”
“I’m tired of other people deciding what I should know.”
“This isn’t nursing school, Nora.”
“No. Nursing school doesn’t usually involve being shot at.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
She turned fully toward him.
“But I need you to understand something. I saved your life. I helped expose Miller. I watched Sullivan die. I’m standing in your penthouse wearing your shirt while half the city is talking about my father.”
She stepped closer.
“I am already involved.”
Victor’s eyes darkened.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to hand you to federal agents.”
“You’re not handing me anywhere.”
“Nora—”
“I decide whether I talk to them.”
Victor stared at her.
For the first time since they met, she saw something almost unfamiliar in his expression.
Frustration.
Not because she was disobeying him.
Because he knew she was right.
His phone buzzed.
He checked the message.
The frustration disappeared instantly.
“What?”
Victor looked toward the windows.
“Dom found something.”
Twenty minutes later, Dom Marchetti entered the penthouse carrying a laptop and a sealed evidence bag.
He was one of Victor’s oldest soldiers, forty-three, broad-shouldered and perpetually unsmiling.
He placed the bag on the table.
Inside was a burner phone.
“Found it inside Lorenzo’s apartment,” Dom said.
Nora remembered Lorenzo.
One of the two men murdered beside Victor at Osteria Romano.
“You searched a dead man’s apartment?” she asked.
Victor gave her a look.
“What did you expect us to do?”
“Send flowers?”
Dom almost smiled.
Almost.
He opened the laptop.
“We assumed Miller gave Sullivan the restaurant location.”
“He did,” Victor said.
“Yes. But Miller didn’t know about the Oak Park house.”
Victor became still.
Nora felt cold.
The safe house.
The one Victor had claimed nobody knew existed.
Dom continued.
“Someone accessed Falcone property records three days before the hit. They searched shell-company holdings connected to Oak Park.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Victor looked at the burner phone.
Dom removed it from the evidence bag.
“Lorenzo received six calls from this number during the week before the restaurant attack.”
Nora frowned.
“Maybe Lorenzo betrayed you.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“Lorenzo took three bullets protecting me.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
Victor looked at her.
Neither Dom nor Nora spoke.
Finally Victor nodded.
“Fair.”
Dom continued.
“The strange part is the last call.”
“When?”
“Eleven thirty-eight Friday night.”
Seven minutes before the shooting.
Nora felt something tighten in her stomach.
“Lorenzo was sitting at the table with Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Did he answer?”
“No.”
Dom turned the laptop toward them.
“The phone that called him was located less than two blocks from Osteria Romano.”
Victor studied the screen.
“So whoever called Lorenzo was watching the restaurant.”
“Looks that way.”
Nora folded her arms.
“And Sullivan is dead.”
Victor looked at her.
“So is Miller’s career.”
“Meaning somebody else is still out there.”
“Yes.”
The elevator chimed.
Every man in the room reached toward a weapon.
Nora did not.
She was learning.
Victor’s penthouse elevator required biometric authorization.
An elderly man stepped out.
He wore a navy suit and carried a leather briefcase.
Victor relaxed slightly.
“Anthony.”
Anthony Bellini had served as Falcone family attorney for almost thirty years.
He looked at Nora.
“So this is her.”
Nora raised an eyebrow.
“I’m standing right here.”
Anthony smiled.
“I can see why Victor likes you.”
Victor ignored that.
“What happened?”
Anthony placed his briefcase on the table.
“We have a larger problem.”
He opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Surveillance photographs.
Nora leaving nursing school.
Nora working at Osteria Romano.
Nora visiting her mother’s grave.
Nora grocery shopping.
Some photographs were months old.
Nora’s blood went cold.
“These existed before Friday?”
Anthony nodded.
“Some date back almost a year.”
Victor picked up one photograph.
His face became terrifyingly blank.
Nora recognized that expression.
It was the one he wore when rage became too deep to display.
“Who had these?”
“A private investigator was found dead this morning in Cicero.”
Anthony placed another photograph on the table.
It showed Nora’s father.
Not Richie as a young police officer.
Richie several days before his death.
He was meeting another man beside a parked car.
The second man’s face was partially hidden.
Nora leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
Anthony looked at Victor.
Victor looked at Anthony.
Something passed silently between them.
Nora noticed.
“Who is he?”
Victor answered reluctantly.
“Gabriel DeLuca.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“Should I know him?”
Dom swore quietly.
Anthony closed his eyes.
Victor stepped toward the windows.
“Gabriel DeLuca controlled most of Chicago’s organized crime before my uncle took power.”
“Controlled?”
“He disappeared twelve years ago.”
“Dead?”
“That’s what everyone believed.”
Nora looked at the photograph again.
Her father had known him.
“Why was my father meeting a crime boss?”
Victor said nothing.
Nora turned.
“Victor.”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“I know DeLuca was dangerous.”
“So are you.”
Victor’s eyes met hers.
“Not like him.”
The room became quiet.
Anthony removed one final item from the briefcase.
A yellow envelope.
NORA DEMPSEY was written across the front.
Her father’s handwriting.
She knew it immediately.
Her knees almost gave out.
“Where did you get that?”
“The investigator had it.”
Nora reached for the envelope.
Victor caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
She looked at him.
“It could be contaminated.”
“It’s twelve years old.”
“You don’t know that.”
Nora pulled free.
“My father wrote my name.”
Victor stepped back.
Nora opened the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph and a handwritten note.
The photograph showed Richie standing beside Gabriel DeLuca.
Between them was a teenage boy.
Maybe seventeen.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
Nora looked at Victor.
Then back at the photograph.
Because she knew that face.
Not from Victor.
From somewhere else.
Her pulse accelerated.
The handwritten note contained only one sentence.
If anything happens to me, find the boy before Gabriel does.
Nora read it twice.
“Who is he?”
Victor took the photograph.
His expression changed.
For the first time since Nora met him, genuine shock broke through his control.
“No.”
“What?”
Victor turned the photograph over.
A name had been written on the back.
ADRIAN FALCONE.
Nora stared at him.
“Falcone?”
Victor looked as if someone had struck him.
“My brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“I had one.”
“What happened?”
“He died fourteen years ago.”
Nora looked at the photograph again.
The date printed along the bottom was twelve years old.
Two years after Adrian Falcone supposedly died.
Victor’s voice became almost inaudible.
“That’s impossible.”
Nora looked from Victor to the message written by her father.
Suddenly Sullivan no longer seemed like the center of anything.
He had been a piece.
Miller had been a piece.
Maybe even Victor had been a piece.
Someone had watched Nora for months.
Someone had known about Richie.
Someone had known about Adrian.
And somewhere in Chicago, a man Victor Falcone had mourned for fourteen years might still be alive.
Nora looked at Victor.
“Your brother didn’t die.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“No.”
May you like
He picked up his phone.
“Then somebody spent fourteen years making sure I believed he did.”
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