Chapter 6
Antonio Rossi had been buried in Saint Michael’s Cemetery for twenty-eight years.
Chloe stood beside his grave beneath a gray morning sky.
The headstone was simple.
ANTONIO ROSSI
1952–1998
BELOVED BROTHER
Dominic stood beside her.
Paulie and four men guarded the perimeter.
“You actually think he’s alive?” Dominic asked.
“I think your family has a complicated relationship with death certificates.”
Dominic glanced at her.
“That was almost funny.”
“I’m terrified. Humor is cheaper than therapy.”
A faint smile appeared and vanished.
Chloe crouched beside the headstone.
“Who arranged the burial?”
“My grandmother.”
“Did you attend?”
“I was six.”
“Did you see a body?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“Yes.”
“Did he identify it?”
“I assume so.”
“Assumptions are why accountants ask for receipts.”
Dominic looked toward Paulie.
“Have the cemetery records pulled.”
Two hours later, they had them.
Antonio Rossi had supposedly died in a car accident.
The body had been badly burned.
Identification came from dental records.
The dentist who supplied those records died six months later.
The funeral home burned down in 2004.
The medical examiner who signed the death certificate retired to Florida and disappeared from public records fifteen years ago.
Chloe sat in Dominic’s study surrounded by documents.
“That is an impressive number of coincidences.”
Dominic paced.
“My father knew.”
“Maybe.”
“He identified the body.”
“According to paperwork signed by people who are dead or missing.”
Dominic stopped.
“If Antonio survived, why disappear?”
“Because Bellandi wanted him.”
“And leave his family?”
Chloe looked at him.
“People do terrible things when they believe leaving is protection.”
Dominic understood the reference.
His expression softened.
“Keep digging.”
They did.
For three days.
Chloe barely slept.
She followed money rather than names.
Antonio Rossi had disappeared in 1998.
But in 1999, a trust had been established in Delaware by a company called Aster Holdings.
Aster purchased three properties over the next decade.
One in Vermont.
One in Maine.
One in rural Pennsylvania.
All were sold.
Except Pennsylvania.
The current owner was an eighty-one-year-old man named Anthony Ross.
Dominic stared at the screen.
“Too obvious.”
“Sometimes obvious works.”
They drove there without notifying the larger organization.
Dominic.
Chloe.
Paulie.
Two trusted soldiers.
The farmhouse sat at the end of a narrow road surrounded by bare trees.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
Dominic approached the door alone.
He knocked.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
Locks moved.
The door opened.
An old man stood there holding a shotgun.
Dominic froze.
The old man froze.
Chloe saw recognition immediately.
The shotgun lowered.
“My God.”
Dominic said nothing.
The old man’s eyes filled.
“Little Nico.”
Dominic’s face became stone.
Nobody had called him that since childhood.
“Antonio?”
The old man stepped backward.
Dominic entered.
Chloe followed.
The house smelled of coffee and woodsmoke.
Photographs covered the walls.
None showed family.
Antonio sat slowly.
His hands trembled.
“I wondered if this day would come.”
Dominic remained standing.
“You let us bury you.”
“Yes.”
“You let my father think you were dead.”
“No.”
Antonio looked up.
“Your father knew.”
Dominic went completely still.
“He helped me disappear.”
The silence became unbearable.
“Why?”
Antonio closed his eyes.
“Because we stole from Silvio.”
“The two hundred thousand?”
Antonio laughed weakly.
“Two hundred thousand?”
He shook his head.
“That’s what they told you?”
Dominic’s expression changed.
“How much?”
“Thirty-two million.”
Even Chloe stopped breathing.
Antonio looked at her.
“You must be Chloe.”
Dominic immediately stepped between them.
“How do you know her?”
“Silvio knows everything. Which means eventually I hear things.”
Antonio looked toward the windows.
“The money wasn’t cash. It was a ledger.”
Chloe frowned.
“A ledger worth thirty-two million?”
“Accounts. Judges. police captains. senators. union presidents. businessmen. Every person Silvio owned.”
Antonio leaned forward.
“We copied the records and emptied several of his offshore accounts before disappearing.”
“What happened to the money?”
“Used to destroy him.”
Antonio smiled without humor.
“Bribes. Witnesses. prosecutors. Safe houses. We funded the war that brought down the Bellandis.”
Dominic stared.
“And Silvio?”
“Escaped.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You knew he was alive all these years.”
“Yes.”
Dominic struck the table.
The sound made Chloe jump.
“You knew the man who tortured my father was alive!”
Antonio did not move.
“Your father made me promise.”
“My father is dead!”
Antonio’s eyes changed.
“No.”
One word.
Nothing more.
Dominic stared at him.
Chloe felt the world tilt.
“What did you say?”
Antonio swallowed.
“Your father isn’t dead.”
Dominic crossed the room so quickly Paulie stepped forward.
Dominic grabbed Antonio by the shirt.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
Antonio’s voice broke.
“Silvio took him.”
Dominic released him.
Antonio coughed.
“He didn’t kill your father that night. He kept him because he thought Joseph knew where the ledger was.”
Dominic staggered backward.
Chloe reached for him.
This time he allowed it.
“For how long?” she asked Antonio.
“Years.”
Dominic looked at his uncle.
“You left him.”
“No.”
Antonio stood.
“I spent ten years looking.”
“You hid in a farmhouse.”
“After ten years!”
Antonio’s own anger finally surfaced.
“I lost my wife. Two friends. My brother was gone. Bellandi had men everywhere. Joseph made me promise that if anything happened, I would stay alive because someone had to keep the evidence.”
“What evidence?”
Antonio disappeared into another room.
He returned carrying an old metal box.
Inside were notebooks.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Cassette tapes.
Chloe opened the first notebook.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Some were decades old.
Others were recent.
Very recent.
“Someone kept updating this,” she said.
Antonio nodded.
“Joseph.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Your father started sending information again eleven years ago.”
“From where?”
“We don’t know.”
“How?”
“Different intermediaries.”
Antonio looked at Dominic.
“The last package came six months ago.”
He removed an envelope.
Dominic recognized the handwriting.
He had not seen it since childhood.
His father’s.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
NICO,
IF YOU EVER READ THIS, THEN SILVIO HAS COME BACK FOR YOU.
I AM SORRY.
I THOUGHT STAYING DEAD WOULD KEEP YOU ALIVE.
DO NOT LOOK FOR ME.
PROTECT THE BOY YOU BECAME.
Dominic stopped reading.
Chloe saw the muscles in his jaw contract.
There was more.
He forced himself to continue.
THE LEDGER IS NOT MONEY.
IT IS POWER.
SILVIO WILL DESTROY EVERYONE YOU LOVE UNTIL YOU GIVE IT BACK.
ANTONIO KNOWS THE FIRST HALF.
I KNOW THE SECOND.
NEVER LET THEM MEET.
Dominic lowered the page.
Antonio looked terrified.
“Silvio needs both halves.”
Chloe understood.
“And he thinks Dominic can lead him to you.”
“Yes.”
A gunshot cracked outside.
Paulie shouted.
“DOWN!”
The front window exploded.
Dominic threw Chloe to the floor.
Automatic fire ripped through the house.
Wood splintered.
Antonio crawled toward the metal box.
“Leave it!” Dominic shouted.
Another burst tore through the wall.
Paulie returned fire.
One Rossi soldier screamed outside.
Chloe pressed herself against the floor.
Dominic drew his pistol.
“Back door.”
They moved through the kitchen.
A man appeared outside.
Dominic fired twice.
The attacker fell.
Paulie reached the SUV.
“Move!”
Antonio stopped.
“The box.”
“Forget the box!” Dominic shouted.
“They can’t have it!”
Antonio turned back.
Dominic grabbed him.
A bullet punched through the kitchen door.
Antonio jerked.
For a second, nobody understood.
Then blood spread across his shirt.
Dominic caught him.
“No.”
Antonio collapsed.
Dominic dragged him behind the counter.
Chloe pressed both hands against the wound.
Too much blood.
Far too much.
Antonio looked at Dominic.
“Listen.”
“Save your strength.”
“Listen!”
Dominic bent closer.
“Your father…”
Antonio coughed blood.
“He’s in Chicago.”
Dominic froze.
“Where?”
“Saint Vincent.”
“What is that?”
Antonio tried to answer.
His eyes lost focus.
“Antonio.”
Dominic shook him.
“Where is Saint Vincent?”
Antonio’s fingers closed around Dominic’s wrist.
“Your father never stopped watching you.”
His hand fell.
Dominic stared at him.
Chloe checked his pulse.
Nothing.
“Dominic.”
He did not move.
“Dominic, we have to go.”
Paulie shouted from outside.
“Boss!”
Dominic looked toward the metal box.
Then toward his dead uncle.
He grabbed the box.
They ran.
The farmhouse burned behind them.
An hour later, inside the moving SUV, nobody spoke.
Dominic held his father’s letter.
Chloe searched Saint Vincent on her phone.
Churches.
Hospitals.
Schools.
Dozens.
Then she remembered something.
Dominic had told her where he grew up.
The Narrows.
She searched again.
Saint Vincent Home for Boys.
Closed twenty years ago.
Address: the Narrows.
Chloe turned the phone toward Dominic.
He stared.
“I know that building.”
“How?”
Dominic’s face became pale.
“My father used to take me there.”
“Why?”
“He said he was visiting a friend.”
The SUV turned south.
Toward Chicago.
May you like
Toward the neighborhood Dominic had spent his entire adult life trying to escape.
And perhaps toward a man he had spent twenty-five years believing was dead.
