Chapter 2 - THE MAN MATTEO CALLED UNCLE
“Who is he?”
Daisy’s voice cut through the locker room.
Matteo never looked away from the silver-haired man.
“Vincent Romano.”
The name meant nothing to Daisy.
Then Matteo added quietly, “My father’s older brother.”
His uncle.
Vincent smiled.
“There. That wasn’t so difficult.”
Miller stood beside him with one hand beneath his jacket. Luca remained on Vincent’s other side.
Daisy looked at Luca.
“You were at the warehouse.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“You knew about Leo?”
“Yes.”
The answer hit harder than a denial.
Matteo turned his gun toward his cousin.
“You lied to me.”
“I kept things from you.”
“That’s called lying.”
Vincent sighed.
“Family arguments later.”
He held up the black notebook.
“You want to know why Carlo Romano paid your medical bills, Daisy?”
“Yes.”
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
Miller stepped forward.
Matteo raised his weapon.
“Take another step.”
Miller stopped.
Vincent seemed almost amused.
“You still think this is about a video?”
“What is it about?” Daisy demanded.
Vincent opened the notebook.
“Your father.”
Daisy’s chest tightened.
“Thomas Gallagher kept accounts for my brother twenty-five years ago.”
She stared at him.
“My father repaired heating systems.”
“After he left us.”
Daisy looked at Matteo.
He was watching Vincent with the expression of a man hearing pieces of his own childhood rearranged.
Vincent continued.
“Thomas was good with numbers. Better than anyone Carlo employed. He discovered money disappearing from several businesses.”
“You were stealing,” Daisy said.
Vincent’s eyes flickered.
“Your father believed I was.”
“Were you?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The admission surprised everyone except Miller.
Vincent didn’t sound ashamed.
“My brother and I built an empire from nothing. Then Carlo decided he wanted legitimacy. Restaurants. Construction. Campaign donations. Suddenly he developed principles.”
“And you didn’t,” Matteo said.
“I developed realism.”
Daisy pointed toward the notebook.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Vincent turned several pages.
“Thomas copied the transactions. Names. Dates. Payments to police officers. Judges. Union officials. People who would have destroyed us if Carlo exposed them.”
Miller’s face hardened.
Daisy understood.
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
“My father had it?”
“He created it.”
That answered one question.
And opened another.
“Then why did your brother pay my hospital bills?”
Vincent’s gaze shifted toward Matteo.
“Because Carlo owed Thomas Gallagher his life.”
Matteo frowned.
Vincent nodded toward him.
“More accurately, he owed Thomas yours.”
The room went silent.
Matteo lowered his gun slightly.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were seven.”
Vincent’s voice lost some of its mockery.
“There was a fire at the old Callowhill restaurant. Electrical. Upstairs apartment filled with smoke. Thomas went back inside after everyone else ran out.”
Matteo stared.
Daisy remembered the pale scar she had noticed near his shoulder when bandaging him.
“You were there?”
Matteo looked genuinely shaken.
“I remember a fire.”
“Do you remember who carried you out?” Vincent asked.
Matteo said nothing.
“Thomas Gallagher.”
Daisy’s anger faltered.
Her father had never mentioned it.
Not once.
Vincent closed the notebook.
“Carlo promised Thomas that if anything happened to him, his children would never go without medical care.”
“Children?” Daisy said.
“I only had Leo years later.”
“Carlo started with you.”
Daisy remembered her mother complaining that old hospital statements never made sense. Bills marked PAID when she couldn’t remember paying them.
For years, Daisy had assumed insurance had covered more than expected.
Matteo looked at Vincent.
“If my father made that promise, why did the payments stop when Daisy was five?”
Vincent’s expression changed.
Small.
But Daisy saw it.
“Because Thomas disappeared.”
“My father didn’t disappear.”
“He did from us.”
“He raised me.”
“Under instructions to stay away from the Romanos.”
“Whose instructions?”
Vincent looked almost pleased.
“Mine.”
Daisy took a step toward him.
“You threatened him.”
“I warned him.”
“About what?”
“The ledger.”
Behind Daisy, the cracked phone was still playing the warehouse recording.
A faint voice came through its damaged speaker.
Luca’s voice.
Everyone turned.
On the recording, Luca was arguing with Vincent.
“You said nobody gets hurt.”
Vincent answered from nine months in the past.
“Nobody important.”
Then Miller’s voice:
“The kid saw us.”
Leo.
Daisy’s stomach turned.
Luca on the recording moved toward Miller.
“He’s a delivery driver. Let him go.”
Miller laughed.
“He took the phone.”
Present-day Luca closed his eyes.
Daisy stared at him.
“You tried to stop them?”
Luca said nothing.
Vincent’s calm finally cracked.
“Enough.”
Miller lunged.
Not for Matteo.
For the phone.
Daisy grabbed it first.
Miller caught her wrist.
Matteo moved, but Luca was faster.
He slammed Miller against the lockers.
Metal thundered.
Miller stared at him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done nine months ago.”
Luca ripped Miller’s gun from his waistband.
Matteo’s weapon swung toward Luca.
“Explain.”
Luca handed Miller’s gun to Daisy.
“Not here.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“You ungrateful little bastard.”
Luca looked at him.
“You paid for my mother’s cancer treatment. You gave me a job when Matteo’s father wanted nothing to do with me. I spent fifteen years thinking that meant I owed you everything.”
His voice broke slightly.
“It didn’t mean I owed you a kid in a wheelchair.”
Daisy’s anger shifted.
Luca had betrayed Matteo.
But perhaps not in the way she believed.
Miller suddenly drove his elbow into Luca’s ribs.
Luca stumbled.
Vincent grabbed the cracked phone from Daisy.
Matteo fired.
The bullet struck the locker beside Vincent’s hand.
Vincent dropped the phone.
Miller kicked it across the wet floor.
Daisy dove.
So did Luca.
Luca reached it first.
Vincent shouted, “Don’t!”
Luca looked at Daisy.
Then he threw the phone to her.
“Run.”
Matteo seized Vincent by the coat.
Miller rushed through the exit.
Luca went after him.
Daisy held the phone against her chest.
Vincent stared at her.
“You still don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Vincent’s eyes dropped to Daisy’s neck.
For the first time, his confidence vanished.
“What happened to your necklace?”
Daisy instinctively touched her throat.
Nothing was there.
“I don’t wear one.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Thomas gave you a silver St. Christopher medal when you were born.”
Daisy froze.
She knew that medal.
Her father had kept it in a small wooden box for years.
After he died, she had given it to Leo.
Leo wore it every day.
Vincent’s face went pale.
“That medal isn’t jewelry.”
Matteo tightened his grip on his uncle.
“What is it?”
May you like
Vincent looked at Daisy.
“The only reason your brother is still alive.”
