Chapter 7 - My Father Came Back From the Dead
The wall clock said 8:12 p.m.
Three hours and forty-eight minutes until midnight.
Caruso wanted me to believe that mattered.
I let him.
Fear works both ways.
People who think they have all the power become careless when the person in the chair starts acting helpless.
My father taught me that too.
Not in those words.
When I was eight, he took me fishing and told me never to fight the line harder than the fish.
Let it run, Norah. Make it believe it has room. Then bring it back when it gets tired.
So I looked terrified.
That part wasn't difficult.
“I don't know where Vault 318 is,” I said.
Harlan pressed the barrel of his pistol against my father's temple.
“Wrong answer.”
My father didn't flinch.
“Raymond,” he said, “you always were dramatic when someone else had the gun.”
Harlan's face reddened.
Caruso lifted one hand.
“Enough.”
He moved closer to me.
“Your father has spent thirteen years protecting you with a lie. Do you know that?”
“Yes.”
“He told us the ledger was tied to your twenty-fifth birthday. Every year, I wondered whether he had invented the whole thing.”
“You could have killed him and found out.”
“I considered it.”
My father smiled without humor.
“He considered many things. Thinking was never Vincent's problem.”
Caruso turned.
For the first time, his mask of polite control cracked.
“You should be grateful I kept you alive.”
“You kept me alive because dead men don't answer questions.”
“I kept you alive because I am patient.”
“You kept him alive because you're scared of a book,” I said.
Caruso looked at me.
Marlene made a tiny sound in the back of her throat.
My father stared at me like he couldn't decide whether to be proud or horrified.
I continued.
“You built an empire everyone is supposed to fear, but for thirteen years you've been chasing a ledger hidden by one security contractor and one accountant.”
Caruso stepped closer.
“Be careful.”
“Why? You're going to shoot me?”
I leaned forward as far as the ropes allowed.
“Then you'll never know what I found behind the Bluebird sign.”
His eyes changed.
There.
The fish had taken the line.
“What did you find?”
I looked toward Harlan.
“Not with him in the room.”
Harlan laughed.
Caruso didn't.
“You think you can divide us?” he asked.
“No. I think men who trust each other don't need to ask that question.”
Silence.
Harlan's jaw tightened.
Caruso watched me for several seconds.
Then he said, “Ray, wait outside.”
Harlan stared at him.
“You're kidding.”
“Outside.”
That was the first crack.
Small.
But real.
Harlan holstered the pistol.
As he passed me, he leaned down.
“You're not half as smart as you think.”
I looked at his belt.
His radio was missing.
His badge was clipped backward.
And there was blood on the cuff of his shirt that didn't belong to anyone in this room.
“You're right,” I said. “I'm probably twice as smart.”
He left.
Caruso pulled a chair in front of me and sat.
“What was behind the sign?”
“A keycard.”
“To what?”
“Great Lakes Data Archive.”
He went still.
My father closed his eyes.
Caruso noticed.
That told me more than anything.
He knew the company.
“Where is the card?”
“Dominic has it.”
Caruso smiled.
“No. Dominic has a concussion.”
My stomach dropped.
He knew Dominic had been hurt.
I forced my face not to change.
“The card was in his jacket.”
“Then Marco will bring it to me.”
My father looked up sharply.
“Marco?”
Caruso enjoyed that.
“You missed a few chapters, Evan.”
My father looked at me.
I shook my head slightly.
Not now.
Caruso continued.
“Dominic trusted the boy. Just like Salvatore trusted Marco's father. History has very little imagination.”
I thought about Marco in the diner shouting down before the glass shattered.
He could have shot Dominic.
He hadn't.
He could have delivered me quietly.
Instead, Caruso's men had stormed the place.
Maybe Marco had betrayed Dominic.
Maybe he had also been trying to warn us.
Both things could be true.
“What happens when you get the ledger?” I asked.
Caruso smiled.
“You go home.”
My father laughed.
It was the first sound from him that felt familiar.
“That lie hasn't improved with age, Vincent.”
Caruso stood.
“You always were exhausting.”
He walked out.
The door locked.
For ten seconds, none of us spoke.
Then my father said, “How much did you tell Dominic?”
“Everything I knew.”
“Do you trust him?”
I looked at him.
“I don't know.”
“Good answer.”
“He spent thirteen years looking for you.”
My father's face changed.
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“He also left me on the pier.”
“He told me that too.”
My father studied me.
“And you're still working with him.”
“I'm not working with him.”
Marlene raised an eyebrow.
I ignored her.
“We have overlapping problems.”
My father almost smiled.
“You sound like your mother.”
That hurt in a new way.
I swallowed.
“She died three years ago.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Caruso brought me the obituary.”
His voice broke on the last word.
“I begged him to let me call you. Just once. He said grief might make me honest.”
I stared at him.
Thirteen years of anger collided with the image of my father locked in a room while my mother died.
“Why didn't you come home before they took you?”
“I tried.”
He leaned back, exhausted.
“Harlan had me after the pier. Caruso moved me three times in the first month. I escaped once outside Kenosha. I got as far as a gas station and called your mother.”
My heart pounded.
“She told you not to come back.”
His eyes filled.
“She told me men were watching the house. She told me they had followed you to school. She said if I loved you, I would stay dead.”
I couldn't breathe.
“So you did.”
“For two days. Then they found me again.”
He looked at his bound hands.
“After that, Caruso made sure I couldn't run.”
I wanted to cross the room.
I wanted to put my arms around him.
The ropes made that impossible.
Marlene whispered, “Evan, where is the ledger?”
He looked at her.
“Not where Vincent thinks.”
“Vault 318?” I asked.
“Contains a copy.”
My pulse quickened.
“How many?”
“Three.”
The tape.
One copy is enough to save you. Three copies are enough to destroy them.
“Where are the others?”
“Clarence had instructions for one. Your mother had the third.”
“My mother never told me.”
“She wasn't supposed to unless I died for certain.”
I laughed weakly.
“That turned out to be a complicated standard.”
My father smiled.
This time it reached his eyes.
For one second, he looked like the man who used to lift me onto his shoulders at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Then footsteps approached.
We all went still.
The door opened.
Marco entered.
He was alone.
There was blood at his hairline.
He closed the door behind him.
My father stared.
“Bellini.”
Marco looked at him.
“Mr. Hayes.”
“You look like your father.”
“I've been told.”
“That's not a compliment.”
Marco almost smiled.
Then he moved behind my chair.
I tensed.
A blade flashed.
The rope around my wrists fell loose.
Marlene gasped.
Marco cut her free next.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Making a very late correction.”
“Your son?”
His face tightened.
“Dominic found him.”
I stood too quickly and nearly fell.
“Dominic is alive?”
Marco looked at me strangely.
“Of course he's alive.”
“Caruso said—”
“Caruso says what makes people obedient.”
Relief hit so hard I had to grip the chair.
Marco cut my father's restraints.
“Isaiah got my son out thirty minutes ago. Dominic gave me a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Keep running from what I did or help him end it.”
My father rubbed his wrists.
“And you chose redemption?”
Marco shook his head.
“No. I chose my son. Redemption can decide later if it wants me.”
A burst of gunfire sounded somewhere above us.
Marco looked toward the ceiling.
“That would be Dominic.”
I stared at him.
“You let him come here?”
“Try telling him no.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency lamps glowed red along the corridor.
Marco handed my father a pistol.
My father checked the magazine automatically.
His hands remembered what thirteen years had not erased.
He looked at me.
“You stay behind me.”
I almost cried again.
Instead I said, “I am not eleven.”
“I noticed.”
“Good.”
“You're still staying behind me.”
Some fathers apparently returned from the dead exactly as annoying as they had left.
We moved into the hall.
The building was an old meatpacking warehouse, long corridors and metal stairs. Shouting echoed from the floor above.
Marco led us toward a service exit.
Halfway there, Harlan appeared at the far end.
His pistol came up.
My father shoved me against the wall.
A shot cracked.
Marco fired back.
Harlan disappeared around the corner.
“Move!” Marco shouted.
We ran.
At the stairwell, a man came through the door.
I raised my arms before I recognized him.
Dominic.
A bruise darkened one side of his face. Blood streaked his shirt near his ribs, but he was standing.
He saw me.
Everything in his expression changed.
“Norah.”
I had never heard my name sound like relief before.
I crossed the distance between us without thinking.
My arms went around him.
He froze.
So did I.
For one heartbeat, maybe two, I didn't care that he was Dominic Vescari.
I didn't care that my father was ten feet away.
I didn't care about Caruso, Harlan, the ledger, or Chicago.
He was alive.
That was enough.
Then Dominic hissed in pain.
I stepped back.
“You're hurt.”
“Not badly.”
“You are bleeding through your shirt.”
“Technicality.”
I glared at him.
My father cleared his throat.
Dominic looked past me.
The two men saw each other for the first time in thirteen years.
No one spoke.
Dominic took one step forward.
“Evan.”
My father's face hardened.
“Dominic.”
“I looked for you.”
“I know.”
Dominic stopped.
My father looked at the blood on his shirt.
“You still lead with your left shoulder when you enter a room?”
A strange expression crossed Dominic's face.
“You still criticize people during rescues?”
“Someone has to.”
Then my father did something I did not expect.
He pulled Dominic into a one-armed embrace.
It lasted less than a second.
When he stepped back, his eyes were wet.
“You were a kid,” he said quietly. “I was angry a long time. But you were a kid.”
Dominic looked down.
“I left you.”
“You survived.”
“I should have—”
“Later.”
My father nodded toward the hall.
“Let's survive again first.”
Footsteps thundered below.
We reached the loading dock just as Isaiah pulled an SUV around.
Marlene climbed in.
My father followed.
Marco stayed behind to cover us.
Dominic pushed me toward the door.
A shot cracked from the upper catwalk.
Dominic jerked.
For one terrible second, he remained standing.
Then he fell against me.
“Dominic!”
Blood spread across his side.
Harlan stood above us with a gun.
My father fired once toward the railing, forcing him back.
Isaiah and Marco returned fire.
I dragged Dominic behind the SUV.
His face had gone pale.
“Stay with me.”
“Bossy,” he breathed.
“You haven't seen bossy.”
I pressed both hands over the wound.
He looked at me through half-closed eyes.
“You hugged me.”
“You're hallucinating.”
“I remember.”
“Then remember this too. You are not dying.”
His mouth moved faintly.
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
His hand closed over mine.
“I take orders from you surprisingly well.”
Even my father made an exasperated sound.
Then Isaiah got Dominic into the SUV, and we drove into the night with sirens rising behind us.
For the first time in thirteen years, my father sat beside me.
For the first time in my life, Dominic Vescari's blood was on my hands.
And for the first time since the robbery, I understood exactly what I was afraid of.
May you like
It wasn't Caruso.
It was losing either man before I got the chance to know what life looked like with them both alive.
