Chapter 4 - The Uncle Who Never Left
Marco Bellini refused to speak for six hours.
Then Detective Lena Morales showed him the photographs, the videos, and the warrant tying him to surveillance around Mia’s daycare.
He changed.
Not enough to confess.
Enough to become afraid.
Vincent sat outside the interview room with me.
“This feels wrong,” I said.
“What?”
“You waiting.”
“I do it badly.”
“I noticed.”
He looked at me.
“You’re not afraid of me anymore.”
“I am.”
“That sounds insulting.”
“I’m afraid of what you can do. That’s different from being afraid to speak.”
He considered that.
“Better.”
Detective Morales emerged.
“He wants immunity.”
Vincent laughed without humor.
“For stalking a three-year-old?”
“He claims he has information about Luca.”
I stood.
“Alive?”
“He didn’t say.”
We entered.
Marco looked older than the photograph.
Gray hair.
A scar beneath one eye.
He stared at Vincent.
“You look like Carlo.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Don’t talk about my father.”
Marco smiled.
“Still sensitive.”
Morales interrupted.
“You asked to talk.”
Marco leaned back.
“Antonio ordered Sofia’s bombing.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“We know.”
“No, you know what Luca believed.”
Marco looked at me.
“Your husband survived longer than Antonio expected.”
My heart stopped.
“Survived what?”
“The meeting.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Where is Luca?”
Marco smiled slightly.
“You really don’t know.”
My nails dug into my palm.
“Is he alive?”
Marco looked at me.
“I drove him to a clinic in Pennsylvania after Antonio’s men beat him.”
I could barely breathe.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
The week Jason vanished.
“What happened after?”
“He woke up. Tried to leave.”
“And?”
“I helped him.”
Vincent stared.
“Why?”
Marco looked ashamed.
“Sofia.”
The name changed him.
“I was there the day she died. I didn’t know there was a bomb. Antonio told me to switch vehicles. Said Vincent needed a lesson.”
His voice broke.
“I saw that little girl get into the car.”
Silence.
“For twelve years I told myself I didn’t know.”
Vincent’s eyes went cold.
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
Marco lowered his head.
“When I realized Antonio intended to kill Luca too, I helped him escape.”
“Then why stalk Mia?”
“Because Luca contacted me.”
I stood.
“Recently?”
“Three months ago.”
The room tilted.
“What did he say?”
“He wanted proof Mia was safe.”
“Why didn’t he call me?”
“He thinks Antonio monitors you.”
“He let me think he abandoned us.”
Marco looked at me.
“He thinks you hate him.”
“I do.”
That surprised everyone.
Then I added, “And I love him. Both can exist.”
Vincent’s expression shifted.
Marco continued.
“Luca has been collecting evidence. He was supposed to meet me last week.”
“Where?”
“He didn’t show.”
Vincent asked, “Antonio knows?”
“I don’t know.”
Detective Morales leaned closer.
“Where was the meeting?”
Marco gave an address.
An abandoned marina on Staten Island.
Police searched it.
They found blood.
A broken phone.
One shoe.
And no Luca.
The DNA came back his.
Mia’s father was alive enough recently to bleed there.
That night I sat on the estate kitchen floor after everyone had gone to bed.
I did not hear Vincent enter.
He lowered himself beside me.
For a man with tailored suits and a terrifying reputation, he looked awkward sitting on tile.
“I hate him,” I whispered.
“Luca?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
“I spent two years telling Mia her father went away because grown-ups make bad choices.”
Vincent said nothing.
“I thought he chose another life.”
“He did choose.”
I looked at him.
“He chose to leave.”
“Yes.”
That honesty hurt.
Vincent continued.
“He may have believed it protected you. That doesn’t make the cost disappear.”
I stared at him.
“Why are you good at saying the thing I don’t want to hear?”
“Years of expensive lawyers.”
I laughed through tears.
He almost smiled.
Then Mia appeared in the doorway carrying Peanut.
“Why you on floor?”
Vincent answered, “Bad decisions.”
She nodded as if that made sense.
Then she crawled into my lap.
“Mommy sad?”
“A little.”
She touched my face.
“Daddy?”
I froze.
We had not told her anything.
“Why did you say Daddy?”
She shrugged.
“I dreamed him.”
Vincent and I looked at each other.
“What happened in the dream?” I asked.
“He was in a boat.”
My skin prickled.
“A boat?”
“Blue one.”
“Anything else?”
“He said cave.”
Vincent went still.
“What?”
Mia repeated, “Cave.”
The same word was written in one of Jason’s old birthday cards to her.
I had always thought it was nonsense.
For my little cave explorer.
I ran upstairs.
The box of old cards was in my suitcase.
I found it.
Inside the card, beneath the printed message, Jason had drawn three waves and a small anchor.
Vincent stared.
“Marina.”
“Or boat storage.”
Renzo searched Castalano-owned properties.
One result appeared.
Cavern Marine Holdings.
A shell company Luca had created twelve years earlier.
It owned an old boathouse near Cold Spring.
Police went before dawn.
This time they found someone.
Luca Castalano.
Alive.
Injured.
And chained to a radiator.
Antonio had found him first.
That afternoon, while police processed the boathouse, I sat with Mia on the estate’s back steps and watched her line up pebbles in perfect rows. She did not understand why so many adults suddenly whispered when she entered a room. I promised myself that whatever happened next, fear would not become the language of her childhood.
Vincent came outside carrying two juice boxes because he had apparently discovered that owning half the city did not automatically teach a man what three-year-olds drank. He sat beside us without speaking.
Mia handed him a pebble.
“What’s this?”
“A brave rock.”
He turned it over between his fingers. “How does it work?”
“You keep it.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Vincent slipped it into his pocket with complete seriousness.
I watched him and realized something uncomfortable. Power had always looked dangerous to me because every powerful person in my life had eventually used it to make someone smaller. Vincent was beginning to show me another possibility.
May you like
Power could also mean having the ability to take over—and choosing to sit quietly beside a frightened mother instead.
When Detective Morales called to say Luca was alive, Vincent’s hand closed around that ridiculous little pebble before he answered.
