Chapter 8
Thomas Marino survived.
Dante was not sure whether he considered that good news.
The bullet had shattered Thomas's shoulder but missed the artery. Federal agents transported him under armed guard to Northwestern Memorial, where surgeons repaired the damage while prosecutors began constructing what newspapers would soon call the largest organized-crime corruption case in Chicago in decades.
By sunrise, Judge Rourke's death was national news.
By noon, three city officials had resigned.
By evening, two retired police commanders had disappeared.
And by the following morning, every television station in Chicago was showing footage of Marino Corporation headquarters.
Emily watched from Dante's kitchen.
“This is bad.”
Dante poured coffee.
“That depends on your definition.”
“They're calling you the head of a criminal syndicate on live television.”
“I am the head of a criminal syndicate.”
“Yes, but generally we prefer journalists not to announce it before breakfast.”
Leo laughed.
It was the first time he had laughed since Pier 19.
He sat at the kitchen table wearing borrowed sweatpants and working on a thousand-piece puzzle of the solar system.
Oakridge had agreed he could remain temporarily at Lake Forest with his clinical team rotating in.
Dante placed a plate of toast beside him.
Leo looked suspiciously at it.
“Emily says you kill people.”
Dante paused.
Emily closed her eyes.
“Leo.”
“What?”
Dante sat opposite him.
“Sometimes.”
Leo considered this.
“Bad people?”
“Usually.”
“That's not the same as always.”
“No.”
Leo placed a puzzle piece.
“Emily says people who pretend complicated things are simple are usually selling something.”
Dante looked at Emily.
She stared intensely into her coffee.
“I like your brother.”
“Please don't recruit him.”
Leo looked up.
“Do mobsters get dental?”
Dante almost choked.
Emily stood.
“Conversation over.”
For several minutes, the kitchen felt almost normal.
Then Tommy entered.
The expression on his face destroyed the illusion.
“Federal agents are downstairs.”
Dante's hand stopped around his coffee.
“How many?”
“Twelve.”
“Warrant?”
“Yes.”
Emily stood.
“For what?”
“Financial records. Marino Corporation. Twenty years.”
Dante looked at her.
Michael's files had done exactly what they expected.
The evidence did not distinguish neatly between Thomas's conspiracy and the broader Marino organization.
Dante had inherited Giovanni's businesses.
He had continued many of them.
Some legitimate.
Many not.
Emily had known this moment would come.
Dante had too.
“Let them in,” he said.
Tommy stared.
“Boss?”
“You heard me.”
“They'll take everything.”
“Then they take everything.”
Dante looked at Emily.
“No more hiding.”
Federal agents entered seven minutes later.
The lead investigator was Special Agent Rebecca Sloan.
Forty-something.
Sharp eyes.
No patience.
She placed the warrant on the kitchen island.
“Dante Marino.”
“Agent Sloan.”
“You're unusually calm for a man whose company is about to be dismantled.”
“I dislike repeating myself. My attorney has already explained that we will cooperate.”
Sloan looked at Emily.
“Emily Davies?”
“Yes.”
“You submitted the files?”
“Yes.”
“Knowing they implicated Mr. Marino?”
Emily looked at Dante.
“Yes.”
Sloan studied the glance between them.
“Interesting relationship.”
“Complicated payroll structure,” Emily replied.
Dante's mouth twitched.
Sloan did not smile.
“We need statements from both of you.”
For six hours, federal agents copied servers.
Emily gave testimony.
Dante gave testimony.
Tommy gave substantially less useful testimony.
By evening, three Marino-controlled warehouses were sealed.
Two bank accounts were frozen.
A dozen employees were detained.
Dante stood at the window watching agents remove boxes from his home office.
Emily approached.
“You okay?”
“I have been richer.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Dante turned.
“For seventeen years, Thomas murdered people to protect this structure.”
He looked around the estate.
“My father killed people to build it.”
His eyes returned to Emily.
“If losing it is the price of ending what they started, then I lose it.”
Emily studied him.
“You understand they may prosecute you too.”
“Yes.”
“You could go to prison.”
“Yes.”
Her throat tightened.
Dante touched her cheek.
“Emily, I was not secretly innocent before you met me.”
“I know.”
“I have done things I cannot make disappear because I decided to become a better man after thirty-eight.”
“I know.”
“I won't run.”
She closed her eyes.
“That is extremely inconvenient.”
Dante smiled.
“I assumed you would say something more emotional.”
“I am emotional.”
“You are discussing inconvenience.”
“My emotional vocabulary is primarily administrative.”
He pulled her against him.
Emily rested her forehead against his chest.
“What happens to us?”
“I don't know.”
She hated those words.
Dante Marino always knew.
Or pretended he did.
Now there were no spreadsheets capable of calculating what came next.
Three days later, Thomas was transferred from the hospital to federal custody.
He requested one visitor.
Emily.
Dante refused immediately.
Emily went anyway.
The federal detention facility smelled of disinfectant and old concrete.
Thomas sat behind reinforced glass.
His wounded arm was immobilized.
He smiled when Emily picked up the phone.
“You came.”
“I wanted to see what a coward looks like without armed men around him.”
Thomas laughed.
“Dante's humor has infected you.”
“No. Mine infected him.”
His smile faded slightly.
Emily leaned closer.
“You killed my parents.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you kill Leo and me?”
“Children create attention.”
“So we were simply inconvenient?”
“You were irrelevant.”
Emily absorbed that.
Seventeen years of grief reduced to a tactical calculation.
Thomas studied her.
“You want remorse.”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I don't care whether you're sorry.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you said this didn't end with you.”
Thomas smiled again.
“There it is.”
“What did you mean?”
“You think the old organization belonged to Giovanni? Then me?”
“It didn't?”
“Chicago is a network, Emily. Judges, unions, contractors, politicians, police, freight companies. Men like Dante think power comes from guns.”
Thomas leaned toward the glass.
“Power comes from dependency.”
“Who else?”
“Everyone.”
“Names.”
“You have Michael's files.”
“Those files are seventeen years old.”
Thomas's smile deepened.
“Exactly.”
Emily stared at him.
“There's a current ledger.”
Thomas said nothing.
She knew she was right.
“Where?”
He leaned back.
“You're very much your father's daughter.”
Emily tightened her grip on the phone.
“Where is it?”
Thomas's eyes glittered.
“You should ask Carlo Moretti.”
The line disconnected.
Emily remained seated.
Carlo.
Again.
Always at the edge of everything.
She left the detention room and found Dante waiting in the corridor.
She stopped.
“You said you weren't coming.”
“I lied.”
“You also said you wouldn't stop me.”
“I didn't.”
He held out her coat.
“What did he say?”
Emily put it on.
“He said there's a current ledger.”
Dante's expression sharpened.
“And Carlo knows where it is.”
They found Carlo that evening.
Dead.
He sat behind his restaurant desk with a bullet through his forehead.
No forced entry.
No struggle.
On the desk was a single white envelope.
Emily opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Dante at Clara's funeral.
Thomas stood beside him.
Carlo stood farther back.
But Emily's attention fixed on another man.
A younger man in a dark overcoat.
She had seen him before.
Not in person.
In her father's files.
One of the unidentified figures from the warehouse photograph.
On the back, someone had written:
HE WAS THERE BEFORE THOMAS.
Dante looked at the photograph.
His face changed.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Dante took a long breath.
“Senator William Hale.”
Emily stared.
A United States senator.
Former Illinois attorney general.
One of the most powerful political figures in the state.
Dante turned the photograph over again.
May you like
And beneath the first message, almost invisible in pencil, was another.
THE LEDGER IS IN WASHINGTON.
