Chapter 4 - The Brother I Never Knew
I walked out of Clarence's hospital room before anyone could stop me.
Roman caught up in the stairwell.
"Norah."
"Don't."
I kept descending.
"Norah."
"Do not use that calm voice with me."
"What voice?"
"The one you use when everyone else is losing their mind."
He stepped in front of me at the landing.
I nearly collided with his chest.
"My father had another child in our house?"
"We don't know that."
"Clarence just said—"
"He said Thomas protected Gabriel's son. That doesn't mean the boy lived with you."
I laughed.
"No. It means everyone in my life knew something except me."
Roman's expression softened.
I hated that more than his authority.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you understand."
"I do."
"No, you don't."
"My father lied to me about my brother's death. My uncle may have tried to kill him. My mother may have been murdered. I found out all of that today."
I stopped.
He had a point.
I sat down on the stair.
For a minute, Roman stood.
Then, instead of towering over me, he sat two steps below.
We were quiet.
"I remember a boy," I said eventually.
Roman turned slightly.
"What boy?"
"I thought he was a cousin. My father called him Mikey. He stayed with us one summer when I was eleven."
"How old was he?"
"Maybe six."
Roman's face changed.
"What do you remember?"
"He hated thunderstorms. Loved peanut butter. He had this ridiculous Chicago Cubs cap even though my father was a Sox fan."
Roman smiled faintly.
"Gabriel was a Cubs fan."
I looked at him.
Of course.
"Mikey disappeared before school started. Dad said his aunt took him home."
"Did you ever see him again?"
"No."
"Pictures?"
"Maybe."
We drove to my apartment under guard.
I had not been home since the robbery.
The front door was open.
Roman stopped me before I entered.
Two of his men cleared the rooms.
My apartment had been destroyed.
Couch cushions sliced.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress overturned.
Family photos scattered across the floor.
My father's old metal toolbox lay open.
Roman crouched beside it.
"What did they want?"
"The tape? The key?"
"We had both."
"Then something else."
I went to the hall closet.
Behind winter coats was a plastic storage bin.
It had been dumped.
School papers.
Old birthday cards.
My mother's recipe notebook.
Photographs.
I knelt.
My hands moved faster.
Summer.
Eleven years old.
Mikey.
There.
A faded photo showed me sitting on the front steps with a skinny boy wearing a blue Cubs cap.
His arm was around my shoulders.
We were both holding melting popsicles.
Roman took the picture.
He stared so long I had to say his name.
"Roman?"
He swallowed.
"That's Gabriel."
"What?"
"The eyes. The chin."
"He's six."
"He looks exactly like Gabriel did."
I looked at the boy again.
A stranger.
A memory.
A cousin who wasn't a cousin.
"Turn it over," I said.
Roman did.
My father's handwriting:
NORAH + MIKEY. JULY 2003. KEEP THEM BOTH SAFE.
Roman exhaled.
"Luca."
His man entered.
"Run facial recognition. Quietly. Search Michael Hayes, approximate age twenty-nine. Start Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana."
Luca photographed the picture.
"Got it."
I picked up another item from the floor.
An old VHS tape.
Label: NORAH 10TH BIRTHDAY.
My throat tightened.
"My father filmed everything."
Roman looked at the broken television.
"We'll find a player."
We did.
At three in the morning.
Luca found one at a twenty-four-hour media conversion shop owned by someone who apparently owed Roman a favor.
We watched in the lake house library.
Ten-year-old me blew out candles.
My father laughed behind the camera.
My mother had died by then, so it was just Dad, Clarence, me, and a few neighbors.
Then the footage jumped.
A year later.
Summer.
Mikey ran through the kitchen.
I chased him with a water gun.
"Norah!" my father's voice shouted. "Not in the house!"
The boy laughed.
Roman leaned toward the screen.
"Mikey!"
The child turned toward the camera.
Roman froze the image.
Gabriel's face lived inside that little boy.
No one needed facial recognition.
Then another voice came from off camera.
Adult.
Male.
"Michael."
The boy stopped.
Roman stood so fast the chair fell backward.
"Play it."
I did.
A man entered the frame.
Hat low.
Beard.
Thin face.
Scar through left eyebrow.
Gabriel.
Roman moved toward the screen.
For fifteen years, he had possessed one photograph of his brother.
Now Gabriel was alive in front of him.
Moving.
Smiling faintly.
Older.
Tired.
But alive.
The timestamp on the tape read JULY 18, 2003.
Six years after the warehouse.
Gabriel crouched and hugged his son.
Then he looked toward my father behind the camera.
"You sure?"
Dad answered.
"As sure as I can be."
Gabriel glanced toward the doorway.
"If Roman ever finds out—"
"He won't."
"Promise me."
"Until it's safe."
Gabriel looked directly at the lens.
"Roman, if you're ever watching this, I'm sorry."
Roman's face broke.
Not dramatically.
No tears at first.
Just a fracture in the expression of a man who had spent years refusing to show weakness.
Gabriel continued.
"I wanted to come back. Every day. But Dad chose Salvatore. And Salvatore chose power. You were still inside the house, and I couldn't risk bringing them to Michael."
He looked down at his son.
"Tell Roman I didn't leave because I stopped loving him."
Roman turned away.
I paused the tape.
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No."
His voice was rough.
I pressed play.
The recording continued only another minute.
Then the image shifted.
Dad had apparently set the camera down without turning it off.
Gabriel and my father talked in the kitchen.
"Salvatore found us in Milwaukee," Gabriel said.
"Then you move again."
"I can't keep doing this to Michael."
"You can if the alternative is a coffin."
"What about Norah?"
"She doesn't know."
"She will someday."
"Only if we fail."
Gabriel was quiet.
Then he said, "I found something."
"What?"
"Mom's medical file."
Roman slowly turned back toward the television.
Gabriel continued.
"Dr. Vale falsified the cancer records. She was never terminal."
My hand covered my mouth.
Roman's eyes went black.
"Salvatore and Dad poisoned her."
The tape ended.
The television went blue.
Roman stood perfectly still.
His phone rang.
Luca answered his own at the same moment.
Both men looked down.
Luca's face changed.
"We got a match."
Roman turned.
"Michael?"
"Probably."
"Where?"
Luca hesitated.
"Chicago."
My skin prickled.
"He's here?"
Luca nodded.
"Under a different surname. Michael Hayes became Michael Grant at eighteen."
Roman stepped closer.
"What does he do?"
Luca turned the phone around.
A professional profile showed a man in a suit.
Twenty-nine.
Dark hair.
Familiar eyes.
Assistant State's Attorney for Cook County.
I laughed once in disbelief.
"Gabriel Bellucci's son became a prosecutor."
Roman almost smiled.
Then Luca scrolled.
The smile vanished.
"There's more."
"What?"
"Michael Grant is currently assigned to the organized crime task force."
Roman's face hardened.
May you like
Luca looked at me.
"And the primary target of his investigation is Roman Bellucci."
