Chapter 4 - Someone Inside Costello’s House Wanted Him Dead
Vincent wanted me to leave Chicago.
I refused.
He suggested New York.
I said no.
Miami.
No.
Toronto.
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not Toronto?”
“I don’t like hockey.”
“That is not a survival strategy.”
Neither was staying in a bakery that had already been broken into.
I understood that.
I simply refused to let the people who stole my father’s truth steal the rest of his life from me too.
Vincent compromised.
Which apparently meant moving three armed guards into the apartment above my bakery without asking.
I discovered them when I went upstairs carrying laundry and found Luca Marino making coffee.
I almost hit him with the basket.
“What are you doing?”
“Protecting you.”
“From my coffeemaker?”
He looked offended.
“It was complicated.”
“You press one button.”
“Your machine is from 1987.”
“It belonged to Dad.”
Luca became quiet at that.
I studied him.
Thirty-eight.
Dark hair.
Scar over one eyebrow.
Vincent trusted him completely.
Dad’s ledger showed money from Carlo to Luca when Luca was nineteen.
I decided to ask.
“Did you know Carlo DeLuca?”
The cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He was my uncle.”
Wonderful.
“Your uncle?”
“My mother’s brother.”
“And you never thought mentioning that might matter?”
“To what?”
I showed him a photograph of the ledger entry.
His face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father.”
Luca sat.
“That payment isn’t what you think.”
“What is it?”
“College tuition.”
I stared.
“What?”
“My father died when I was seventeen. Carlo paid for community college.”
“Out of a secret account?”
“I didn’t know it was secret.”
Possible.
“Why work for Costello?”
“Vincent gave me a job after I dropped out.”
“Did Carlo arrange it?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was alive?”
Luca looked genuinely shaken.
“No.”
I believed him.
Maybe that was stupid.
Maybe intuition.
That evening, Vincent brought me to his family estate because police had found evidence someone planned another attack on the bakery.
I hated the mansion instantly.
Too much marble.
Too quiet.
Too many men pretending not to carry guns.
Vincent showed me a guest room.
“I’m not sleeping here.”
“You are.”
“Was that a request?”
“No.”
“Then my answer is extra no.”
His eyes narrowed.
Mine did too.
Luca whispered from behind him:
“This is my favorite thing that has ever happened.”
Vincent turned.
“Leave.”
Luca left smiling.
I stayed.
Not because Vincent ordered me.
Because someone shot through my bakery window twenty minutes later.
The bullet struck an empty display case.
Message received.
Inside Costello’s estate, we studied Dad’s ledger.
Vincent’s attorney, Rebecca Sloan, helped trace companies.
Several led to Carlo.
Some led to Vale.
One led somewhere unexpected.
Costello Children’s Foundation.
Vincent frowned.
“My mother created that charity.”
“Could Carlo have used it?”
“Maybe.”
Rebecca dug deeper.
A series of payments from the foundation had gone to a medical center in Milwaukee.
One patient number appeared repeatedly.
No name.
Twenty-six years of payments.
Vincent stared.
“Gavin?”
Perhaps Antonio had supported his secret son through charity accounts.
Then Rebecca opened the newest payment.
Made three months earlier.
Someone was still using the account.
Antonio was dead.
Carlo supposedly dead.
“Who authorized this?” I asked.
Rebecca looked pale.
“Your mother.”
Vincent went still.
“Impossible.”
His mother, Sofia Costello, lived in Sicily.
According to Vincent.
Had for eight years.
Rebecca checked.
The digital signature came from her credentials.
Vincent called.
No answer.
Then security reported something worse.
Sofia had not been seen at her Sicilian villa in three months.
Her staff claimed she had left for a private retreat.
No destination.
Vincent’s face became colder with every sentence.
“Find her.”
That night, I could not sleep.
At 2:14 a.m., I wandered downstairs.
Vincent sat alone in the kitchen.
No suit jacket.
Sleeves rolled.
Whiskey untouched.
“You bake when you can’t sleep?” he asked.
“How do you know?”
“You’re holding flour.”
I looked down.
I was.
“Your kitchen is depressing.”
“It cost six hundred thousand dollars.”
“Still depressing.”
I made bread.
Vincent watched.
Eventually he asked:
“Why did you step into the alley?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
I kneaded dough.
“My father used to say the worst moment in somebody’s life is when everyone decides helping is someone else’s job.”
Vincent became quiet.
“I saw twelve guns.”
“Yes.”
“And decided helping was your job?”
“I decided I couldn’t watch.”
“You could have died.”
“I know.”
His voice sharpened.
“Do you?”
I stopped.
There was fear under his anger.
Not control.
Fear.
“Vincent.”
“You walked into twelve armed men.”
“And you were standing there alone.”
“I am not your responsibility.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“But neither was my mother when your father helped her.”
He stared.
That settled something.
Before he could answer, Luca entered.
“Boss.”
Vincent stood.
“What?”
“We found Sofia.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
Vincent froze.
“Where in Chicago?”
Luca hesitated.
“A private nursing facility.”
“Why?”
“She was admitted three months ago.”
“By who?”
Luca looked at me.
Then Vincent.
“Carlo DeLuca.”
The supposedly dead traitor had Vincent’s mother.
We drove there before sunrise with police-friendly attorneys and enough security to start a small war.
Sofia Costello was alive.
Weak.
Drugged.
Confused.
But alive.
When she saw Vincent, she cried.
“My boy.”
He knelt beside her.
“Who did this?”
She touched his face.
“Carlo.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“Why?”
“He wanted the ledger.”
My heart stopped.
“What ledger?”
Sofia looked at me.
Recognition appeared.
“Joseph’s girl.”
I stepped closer.
“You knew my father?”
She began crying.
“He died because of us.”
Vincent took her hand.
“Mother, listen. Who is Carlo working with?”
Sofia’s eyes filled with terror.
“Not Gavin.”
“What?”
“Gavin thinks Carlo works for him.”
“Then who?”
She looked toward the door.
Before she could answer, alarms erupted.
A nurse screamed.
Security ran.
The lights went out.
Vincent pulled me behind the bed.
When emergency lights returned, a man lay unconscious in the hallway.
Carlo had escaped through a service entrance.
But he left something behind.
A photograph slipped beneath Sofia’s door.
It showed Vincent at eight years old.
Beside him stood Marco, his younger brother.
And behind both boys was a third child.
Blond.
Gavin.
On the back:
THREE SONS. ONE EMPIRE. ASK SOFIA WHICH ONE ANTONIO REALLY CHOSE.
Vincent stared at his mother.
She closed her eyes.
“There’s more,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Gavin was not the secret your father feared.”
She looked at me.
May you like
“Your father discovered something worse.”
And before she could say it, her monitor alarm began screaming.
