Chapter 5 - The Prosecutor With Gabriel's Eyes
Michael Grant agreed to meet me.
Not Roman.
Me.
We chose a coffee shop near the courthouse at nine the next morning.
Roman objected.
I went anyway.
He sent three men.
I sent them to sit across the street.
Michael arrived exactly on time.
I recognized him before he reached the table.
Not because of the photograph.
Because he still rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger when nervous.
Mikey used to do that during thunderstorms.
He sat across from me.
"Norah."
His voice had changed.
Everything else had too.
But for a second, I was eleven again.
"You remember me."
"Of course."
"Then why didn't you ever call?"
His face tightened.
"I was told you were safer if I didn't."
"By who?"
"My father."
My heart hit hard.
"Gabriel is alive?"
Michael looked down.
"Was."
Roman had prepared me for possibilities.
Not that one.
"When?"
"Three years ago."
"How?"
"Cancer."
The ordinary answer hurt more than murder would have.
After all the guns, betrayal, and disappearances, Gabriel had died from something ordinary.
"Did Roman know?"
"No."
"Did you?"
"Who he was? Yes."
I leaned back.
"You knew your uncle was Roman Bellucci."
Michael's mouth twisted.
"I knew Roman Bellucci was the reason my father spent half his life looking over his shoulder."
"That's not what I asked."
"My father loved him."
"Then why are you trying to put him in prison?"
Michael stared at me.
"Because loving someone doesn't make them innocent."
That stopped me.
He was right.
I had known Roman one day.
I had seen him threaten robbers.
Give orders without hesitation.
Move men like pieces on a board.
Whatever truth existed about his family, Roman was not a misunderstood accountant.
"What do you think he's done?"
Michael opened a folder.
"Money laundering. extortion. illegal gambling. bribery. conspiracy."
"Murders?"
"No provable ones."
"Provable."
His eyes sharpened.
"Don't romanticize him because he helped Clarence."
"I'm not."
"You don't know what he is."
"Neither do you."
Michael's jaw tightened.
"I've spent four years investigating him."
"And how many times have you sat across from him?"
Silence.
"That's what I thought."
He closed the folder.
"Why did you ask me here?"
I placed the photograph from the hospital envelope on the table.
Gabriel outside the church.
Michael stared.
"Where did you get that?"
"Clarence."
His face changed.
"He's alive?"
"Barely."
Michael looked toward the window.
"You shouldn't have contacted me."
"Why?"
"Because my task force is compromised."
I sat straighter.
"What?"
"Someone has been leaking witness locations for months."
"Salvatore."
Michael's eyes widened.
"You know that name?"
I told him everything.
The robbery.
The locker.
The tape.
The wolf ring.
My father's letter.
When I finished, Michael looked ten years older.
"My father said Salvatore was dead."
"Clearly he lied."
"No. Dad believed it."
I leaned forward.
"Michael, someone tried to kill Clarence last night."
His face drained.
"At the hospital?"
"Yes."
He stood.
"We need to move him."
"Roman already doubled security."
Michael's expression hardened.
"Roman is not security."
"Today he is."
"No."
"Then who do you trust?"
He had no answer.
His phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
Then looked at me.
"I have to go."
"Michael."
He stopped.
I reached across the table.
For a second, neither of us knew what to do.
Then I touched his hand.
"You were my little brother for one summer."
His eyes changed.
"I remember."
"You cried when I threw away your broken toy truck."
"It was my favorite."
"I dug it out of the trash."
"You washed it."
"With dish soap."
He almost smiled.
Then he looked toward the street.
"Tell Roman nothing about my investigation."
"Why?"
"Because if the leak is inside the task force, I need to know whether it also reaches him."
I wanted to argue.
Instead I nodded.
Michael left through the side door.
Roman was waiting beside my apartment building when I arrived.
He looked irritated.
"How did it go?"
"Fine."
"Fine is not an answer."
"It is where I come from."
"Did he remember you?"
"Yes."
"Is Gabriel alive?"
I looked at him.
He already knew the answer from my face.
Roman looked away.
I said softly, "He died three years ago."
Roman did not speak.
"Cancer," I added. "Michael was with him."
Roman nodded once.
That was all.
But later, in the car, I saw his hand close around the old photograph until his knuckles turned white.
We went to Bellucci headquarters.
Not because I wanted to.
Because Roman said I could not understand Salvatore without understanding the family.
The building looked legitimate.
Glass.
Steel.
Bellucci Development on the lobby wall.
Roman owned hotels, construction companies, restaurants, shipping interests.
Some legal.
Some, I suspected, less so.
In his office, he opened a wall safe.
Inside were files.
Not cash.
Files.
"My father kept records," he said.
"Blackmail?"
"Insurance."
He removed a ledger.
"I stopped most of the street operations after he died."
"Most?"
"I said I wasn't going to lie to you."
I appreciated that more than I wanted to.
"What did you keep?"
"Bookmaking. private clubs. some collections."
"Collections sounds polite."
"It usually isn't."
I folded my arms.
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because Michael is investigating me."
I froze.
Roman watched my face.
"How did you know?"
"I know who's investigating me."
"Then why did you ask?"
"I wanted to know if you'd tell me."
Anger flared.
"Do not test me."
"I'm trying to find out who I can trust."
"So am I."
He looked at me.
Fair.
He opened the ledger.
"Three years ago, I started moving everything legitimate. Someone resisted. Quietly."
"Salvatore."
"I thought he was in Sicily."
"You thought wrong."
Roman showed me payments to shell companies.
One name appeared repeatedly.
GRANT CONSULTING.
I stared.
"Michael?"
"No. The company predates his name change."
I followed the payments.
Medical facilities.
Private security.
A nursing home outside Rockford.
"What is this?"
Roman pointed.
"St. Vincent Care Center."
The name meant nothing to me.
Then he turned the page.
A patient code.
G.B.-17.
Payments every month for eighteen years.
Until three years ago.
My skin went cold.
"Gabriel Bellucci."
Roman said nothing.
"Michael said his father died three years ago."
"Maybe he did."
"But he said cancer."
Roman looked at the ledger.
"Or maybe he was told that."
We drove to Rockford before sunset.
St. Vincent Care Center had closed eighteen months earlier.
The building was boarded up.
Roman's men found a former nurse named Elena Price.
She lived nearby.
She remembered G.B.-17.
"Long-term neurological patient," she said. "Male. Private wing. No visitors except one man."
"Who?" Roman asked.
"Older. Expensive suits. Wolf ring."
Salvatore.
Roman's jaw tightened.
"What was the patient's name?"
"We weren't allowed to know. But sometimes he talked in his sleep."
"What did he say?"
Elena looked at Roman.
"He kept saying 'Roman.'"
Roman gripped the back of a chair.
My heart pounded.
"But Gabriel died three years ago," I said.
The nurse shook her head.
"Patient G.B.-17 didn't die."
Roman stared.
"What?"
"He was transferred."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"When?"
"Three years ago."
The same year Michael believed his father died.
Roman's phone rang.
Luca.
Roman answered.
His face changed immediately.
"What happened?"
He listened.
Then looked at me.
"We have a problem."
"What?"
"Michael Grant just disappeared from the courthouse parking garage."
My stomach dropped.
"Kidnapped?"
Roman's voice turned cold.
"His car was found running."
A text arrived on my phone.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
A photograph.
Michael tied to a chair.
Behind him stood an older man wearing a gold ring with a black wolf.
May you like
Below the photo was one sentence.
BRING ROMAN BELLUCCI TO THE OLD STOCKYARD ALONE, OR YOUR BROTHER DIES TONIGHT.
