Chapter 3 - The Brother Buried Without a BodyVictor Falcone had attended his brother’s funeral at eighteen years old.
There had been no body.
Nora learned that thirty minutes later.
They sat inside Victor’s private office while rain streaked the windows overlooking Chicago.
“The car went into the river,” Victor explained.
“Adrian was driving?”
“Yes.”
“How old was he?”
“Seventeen.”
“And you?”
“Eighteen.”
Nora studied him.
Victor rarely appeared vulnerable.
Now he looked carved from stone.
“What did police find?”
“The car. Blood. His jacket.”
“But no body.”
“No.”
“Why did everyone assume he died?”
Victor gave a bitter laugh.
“Because my uncle told us he did.”
Salvatore Falcone.
The former head of the family.
Victor’s uncle had raised both brothers after their parents died.
“What happened to your parents?”
Victor’s eyes moved toward the city.
“House fire.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
Nora absorbed that.
Two dead parents.
A missing brother.
A criminal uncle.
An empire inherited at thirty-two.
Suddenly Victor’s obsession with control made more sense.
Everything he had loved had disappeared.
“You never questioned Adrian’s death?”
“Every day for three years.”
“What changed?”
“I learned not to ask questions my uncle didn’t want answered.”
That sentence told Nora more about Victor’s childhood than any confession could have.
Dom entered.
“We found the investigator’s office.”
“And?”
“Cleaned out.”
“Recently?”
“Within hours.”
Victor cursed.
Nora picked up Richie’s photograph again.
Her father stood beside Gabriel DeLuca and Adrian.
Why?
She remembered something.
“My father kept a storage unit.”
Victor turned.
“What?”
“After he died, my mother couldn’t afford it. She told me the contents were auctioned.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think.”
Nora closed her eyes.
She remembered being twelve.
Her mother crying at the kitchen table.
A yellow notice.
A company logo.
“Bridgeport Storage.”
Dom was already typing.
“Still exists.”
Victor stood.
“We go now.”
Nora followed.
Victor stopped.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“We already had this conversation.”
“And now the situation is different.”
“How?”
“My dead brother may be alive.”
“My dead father left the message.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Nora stepped closer.
“You don’t get to decide that your grief matters more than mine.”
Silence.
Dom suddenly became fascinated with his phone.
Victor stared at Nora for several seconds.
“Get your coat.”
Bridgeport Storage occupied a block of aging industrial property south of downtown.
The manager was a seventy-year-old woman named Mrs. Alvarez.
She remembered Richie.
“Police officer?”
Nora leaned across the counter.
“Yes.”
The woman studied her.
“You’re his daughter.”
Nora swallowed.
“Yes.”
Mrs. Alvarez’s expression softened.
“I saw the news.”
She reached across the counter and squeezed Nora’s hand.
“Your father was a good man.”
Those six words nearly destroyed her.
For ten years, nobody outside her family had said them.
Nora managed to nod.
“My mother thought his unit was auctioned.”
“It was scheduled for auction.”
“But?”
“Someone paid the balance.”
Victor stepped closer.
“Who?”
Mrs. Alvarez looked uncomfortable.
“Cash.”
“When?”
“About two weeks after Detective Dempsey died.”
“Who accessed the unit afterward?”
“Nobody.”
Nora frowned.
“Then it’s still here?”
Mrs. Alvarez nodded.
Unit 317 smelled of dust and cardboard.
Nora stood at the entrance while Victor cut the old lock.
Inside were boxes.
Christmas decorations.
Fishing equipment.
Police academy photographs.
Her father’s winter coat.
Nora touched the sleeve.
For a moment she was twelve again.
Then Victor found the false wall.
Behind it sat a metal case.
Inside were documents.
Photographs.
Cassette tapes.
And a ledger.
Nora opened it.
Her father’s handwriting filled every page.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Police officers.
Judges.
Politicians.
Union officials.
But one name appeared repeatedly.
Gabriel DeLuca.
Victor read over her shoulder.
“Your father was investigating him.”
“Then why meet him?”
Victor turned several pages.
He stopped.
A note had been underlined twice.
G.D. claims S.F. ordered fire. Says boys were supposed to die too.
Victor stopped breathing.
Nora read it again.
“S.F.”
“Salvatore Falcone.”
“Your uncle.”
Victor’s face became empty.
The fire.
His parents.
“You think your uncle killed them?”
“I don’t think anything yet.”
But Nora could see that he did.
Dom called from outside the unit.
“Victor.”
Something in his voice made them move.
Dom stood near the corridor window.
Three black SUVs had entered the property.
Men stepped out.
Not Sullivan’s men.
They wore suits.
Professional.
Victor grabbed Nora’s arm.
“Back exit.”
They moved through the storage building.
A voice echoed behind them.
“Victor!”
Victor stopped.
The voice came again.
“You’ve spent fourteen years looking for a ghost.”
Nora looked at him.
He had gone pale.
“You know that voice?”
Victor did not answer.
A man stepped into view at the far end of the corridor.
He was tall.
Dark-haired.
Around thirty.
His face was harder than the teenager in Richie’s photograph, but unmistakable.
Victor whispered one word.
“Adrian.”
The man smiled.
“Hello, brother.”
Victor stood completely still.
Nora had seen him wounded.
Angry.
Killing.
She had never seen him helpless.
Adrian walked closer.
Victor finally raised his weapon.
“Stop.”
Adrian stopped.
“You going to shoot me?”
“Give me one reason not to.”
“Because Mom would be disappointed.”
Victor flinched.
Nora watched both men.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Different souls.
“Where have you been?” Victor asked.
“Surviving.”
“For fourteen years?”
“Fourteen years, three months, eleven days.”
Victor’s hand trembled almost imperceptibly.
“I buried you.”
“No. Salvatore buried an empty coffin.”
“Why?”
Adrian looked toward Nora.
“Because our uncle needed one Falcone heir he could control.”
Nora felt the puzzle beginning to assemble.
Victor asked, “Why are you here?”
“For what Richie Dempsey hid.”
Nora immediately stepped between Adrian and the storage unit.
Adrian smiled.
“You really are Richie’s daughter.”
“You knew him?”
“He saved my life.”
Victor lowered the weapon slightly.
“What?”
Adrian looked at him.
“The night my car went into the river, Richie pulled me out.”
Nora stared.
“My father?”
“He discovered Salvatore had ordered the crash.”
“Why would our uncle kill you?”
“Because I knew he murdered Mom and Dad.”
Victor’s face changed.
Adrian continued.
“I was supposed to disappear until Richie could expose him.”
“But Richie died.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed hidden?”
“I had no choice.”
“For fourteen years?”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“You think hiding kept me safe? Gabriel DeLuca moved me between Montreal, Boston and Europe. Every year Salvatore sent men looking for me.”
“Salvatore has been in federal prison for seven months.”
“And yet people are still dying.”
Nora thought of the photographs taken of her.
“You were watching me.”
Adrian looked at her.
“No.”
“Someone was.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Adrian’s answer came quietly.
“Gabriel.”
Victor’s hand tightened around his weapon.
“Where is he?”
“Closer than you think.”
A sharp crack sounded outside.
Glass shattered.
Dom shoved Nora down.
“Sniper!”
Chaos erupted.
Victor dragged Nora behind a concrete pillar.
Adrian’s men returned fire toward the roof across the street.
Victor looked at his brother.
“You brought them.”
Adrian shouted back.
“No. They followed you.”
Another shot struck the wall.
Nora saw Dom fall.
“Dom!”
She crawled toward him.
Blood spread across his side.
Nora immediately pressed both hands against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Dom grunted.
Victor covered them while Adrian shouted orders.
Within seconds, the shooting stopped.
The attackers disappeared.
But they left something behind.
A phone.
It began ringing in the middle of the corridor.
Victor stared at it.
Adrian did too.
Nora kept pressure on Dom’s wound.
The phone rang again.
Victor picked it up.
“Who is this?”
A man laughed softly.
Nora could hear him from several feet away.
“Both Falcone brothers together again. Richie would be proud.”
Victor’s expression darkened.
“Gabriel.”
“Hello, Victor.”
Victor said nothing.
Gabriel continued.
“You killed Sullivan. You exposed Miller. Very impressive.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you should ask Nora what happened to her mother.”
Nora froze.
Victor looked at her.
“My mother died of cancer.”
Gabriel laughed.
“I wasn’t talking about Kathleen.”
Nora’s heart stopped.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Gabriel answered.
“Ask Richie’s daughter why there is no birth certificate before she was six months old.”
The line disconnected.
Nora stared at Victor.
Her entire life shifted beneath her feet.
Because Gabriel was right.
She had never seen her original birth certificate.
May you like
And suddenly Richie Dempsey’s secrets were no longer only about Victor’s family.
They were about hers.
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