Chapter 6 - The Uncle Who Had Been Dead for Twenty Years
We reached the mansion after midnight.
Snow covered the driveway.
Lights glowed inside.
The house looked exactly as I remembered.
The same stone steps.
The same windows.
The same iron gate.
My childhood had been built on lies.
I entered through the front door.
No resistance.
That was what frightened me.
The hallway was empty.
A fireplace crackled in the study.
An elderly man sat behind the desk.
Silver hair.
Perfect suit.
Sharp eyes.
Vincent Caruso.
My uncle.
He smiled.
“Matteo.”
I raised my weapon.
“You are supposed to be dead.”
“So is your sister.”
He laughed.
“I suppose death has been very unreliable in this family.”
Clara stepped beside me.
Vincent stared at her.
“My little princess.”
Clara's face hardened.
“Don't call me that.”
“You were always clever.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I tried to control the situation.”
I almost fired.
“You destroyed my family.”
“No.”
He tapped the desk.
“Your family destroyed itself.”
He told us the truth.
My father had wanted to leave organized crime.
He had planned to expose the North Star Group.
Vincent refused.
Their argument became a war.
Lorenzo's father became Vincent's ally.
The explosion was intended to scare my father.
It was never supposed to kill Clara.
But someone had changed the plan.
“Who?”
Vincent looked at Lorenzo.
His expression shifted.
“His father.”
Lorenzo went pale.
“My father?”
“He wanted full control.”
Then Vincent turned toward me.
“Your father survived the explosion.”
I stared.
“I know.”
“No.”
Vincent smiled.
“He survived for three months.”
I felt sick.
“And during those three months, he knew Clara was alive.”
“Why didn't he find her?”
“He did.”
I looked at Clara.
She swallowed.
“What happened?”
Vincent answered.
“Your father met her once.”
Clara's eyes filled with tears.
“Where?”
“At the hospital.”
She covered her mouth.
“Why didn't I remember?”
“You were sedated.”
Vincent continued.
“Your father told me to protect you.”
“Why?”
“Because he knew the people around him couldn't be trusted.”
My father had been trying to save us.
I had spent twelve years believing he failed.
Perhaps he had succeeded in ways I never understood.
Vincent opened a drawer.
Inside was another letter.
I recognized my father's handwriting.
Matteo,
If you ever find Vincent, listen before you act.
He may be guilty.
He may be selfish.
But he knows where the second ledger is.
I looked at my uncle.
“Where?”
Vincent pointed to the basement.
We descended.
Behind a concrete wall was a vault.
Inside sat the second ledger.
I opened it.
The evidence was worse than anything in the first.
Names of senators.
Judges.
Police commanders.
International financiers.
The North Star Group had been operating for decades.
Vincent had built it.
But then Clara noticed something.
A list of names.
Children.
Witnesses.
People who had disappeared.
One name stood out.
Beatrice Gallagher.
I looked at her.
She was stunned.
“Why is your name here?”
Her voice shook.
“My mother.”
Her mother had not been a random hospital cleaner.
She had been an informant.
She had helped investigators gather evidence against North Star.
That made Beatrice a target before she ever entered my house.
Vincent smiled.
“Her mother died because she knew too much.”
Beatrice stepped forward.
“You killed her.”
Vincent said nothing.
That was enough.
Lorenzo looked at him.
“My daughter.”
“She was collateral.”
Lorenzo drew his gun.
Vincent sighed.
“This is why you were never meant to lead.”
Lorenzo raised the weapon.
I stopped him.
“No.”
“He killed innocent people.”
“Yes.”
“Then why stop me?”
“Because that's what he wants.”
Vincent smiled.
Exactly.
He had spent decades creating violence and making other people carry it out.
I understood the final piece.
North Star didn't merely control money.
It controlled reactions.
People killed each other for them.
Families destroyed themselves.
Enemies became monsters.
And Vincent stayed clean.
I lowered my weapon.
“You lose.”
He laughed.
“Do I?”
I raised the second ledger.
“You built your empire on secrecy.”
“So?”
“Now everybody sees it.”
I called Evelyn Hart.
She sent federal agents.
Vincent was arrested.
But just before he was taken away, he whispered something.
“Matteo.”
I looked back.
“You still haven't found the last page.”
“What last page?”
He smiled.
“The page with the name of the person who started everything.”
I turned to the ledger.
The final section had been cut out.
We had been chasing the wrong ending.
Someone had removed the most important page.
And the only person who knew where it was...
Was dead.
Or so we thought.
Richard Hale looked at me when I returned.
“There is one person.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
“Where?”
“In Ireland.”
An eighty-three-year-old man named Richard was suddenly speaking about his father as though he were still alive.
But then Evelyn interrupted.
“That's impossible.”
Richard shook his head.
“Nothing in this family has been impossible for years.”
He smiled sadly.
“The last page was never in Chicago.”
“Where is it?”
“Dublin.”
Clara looked at me.
“You're not going alone.”
I smiled.
“I wasn't planning to.”
Beatrice stepped forward.
“Neither was I.”
I stared at her.
“This isn't your fight.”
She looked at me.
“My whole family has been fighting this fight without knowing it.”
She took my hand.
May you like
“So yes. It is.”
For the first time, I didn't argue.
