Chapter 10 - The Price of Becoming Free
Prison is quieter than people imagine.
At least federal holding cells are.
No dramatic shouting.
No constant violence.
Mostly doors.
Metal.
Fluorescent lights.
And time.
I had spent my life avoiding consequences through money, lawyers, fear, and influence.
Now I sat on a narrow bunk with none of those things.
My attorney, Samuel Price, arrived before sunrise.
“You should not have waived preliminary questioning.”
“I told the truth.”
He stared at me.
“Please never say that sentence again without me present.”
I almost smiled.
Samuel opened his briefcase.
“The government has enough to charge you with racketeering, financial crimes, obstruction from incidents going back fifteen years—”
“How long?”
“If convicted on everything?”
“Yes.”
“Decades.”
I nodded.
He looked irritated.
“You seem strangely calm.”
“I spent nine years wishing I had died with my family.”
Samuel stopped.
“Now?”
I pictured Maisie's duct-taped shoes.
Harper arguing with Mrs. Doyle.
Gabriel bleeding on my library floor.
“Now I would prefer not to.”
“Excellent. A reason to cooperate.”
Agent Hayes entered later.
She placed a folder down.
“Victor is talking.”
“Of course.”
“He's blaming you for everything.”
“Of course.”
“But Rebecca and Isabella's recordings make that difficult.”
“Good.”
Hayes studied me.
“Gabriel is talking too.”
My jaw tightened.
“He's cooperating?”
“He walked into our office voluntarily this morning.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“He confessed to crimes committed before he disappeared.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Maisie.
Gabriel wanted to stop running.
Hayes sat.
“We have a problem.”
“Only one?”
“Victor ordered Rebecca Lane's murder, Isabella Marchetti's murder, Daniel Lane's murder, attempted murder at the foundation, kidnapping, conspiracy, and enough trafficking charges to keep him imprisoned for several lifetimes.”
“Sounds less like a problem.”
“The problem is proving the network without a living witness from Victor's inner circle.”
“Caleb.”
“His lawyer says he remembers nothing.”
I laughed.
Hayes didn't.
“Victor's ledgers help, but defense will attack chain of custody.”
“Then use me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I was inside the organization.”
“You were not inside Victor's private operation.”
“No.”
I thought.
“Gabriel was.”
“Years ago.”
“He knows how Victor communicated.”
Hayes leaned forward.
“So?”
“So Victor had a rule.”
“What rule?”
“Never trust digital records.”
She waited.
“He kept originals.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Useful.”
“But my father did.”
Her expression changed.
“My father died twelve years ago.”
“So?”
“He left a private archive.”
Samuel looked at me.
“You've never mentioned an archive.”
“Because Victor and I were the only two people who knew about it.”
Hayes stood.
“Where?”
“Beneath the old family chapel.”
Hours later, federal agents opened a sealed stone room under a church my grandfather had built outside Pittsburgh.
Inside were sixty years of Marchetti history.
Business records.
Family agreements.
Photographs.
Weapons ledgers.
Bribes.
Names.
And a locked steel cabinet marked V.M.
Victor Marchetti.
Hayes opened it under warrant.
The contents ended him.
Rebecca's original financial reports.
Payments to the bomb maker.
Surveillance photographs of Isabella.
The order authorizing Daniel Lane's death.
And handwritten instructions concerning Gabriel.
One document stopped me.
It was dated nine years earlier.
“Rourke must survive initially. His disappearance will establish guilt.”
Victor had never intended Gabriel to die.
He wanted him blamed.
Another document concerned Rebecca.
“Child should remain leverage if needed.”
Maisie.
My stomach turned.
There was more.
A photograph of Rebecca holding newborn Maisie.
Victor had known about her from birth.
Gabriel's sacrifice had never hidden her.
Victor simply hadn't needed her until Rebecca found the records.
All those years Gabriel stayed away?
Meaningless.
When I told him during a supervised meeting, he broke.
“I left them for nothing.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“I abandoned Rebecca. I abandoned my daughter.”
“Yes.”
He flinched.
I continued.
“But you cannot repair eight years by hating yourself for the next eight.”
He looked at me.
“That sounds suspiciously healthy coming from you.”
“I've had time.”
“How much are they giving you?”
“Unknown.”
Gabriel looked toward the visitation glass.
On the other side, Harper and Maisie waited.
Maisie waved.
He waved back.
“I'll take whatever they give me.”
“So will I.”
He nodded.
For the first time, there was no hatred between us.
Only two men facing bills that had been waiting years to arrive.
My case changed quickly.
Not because I was innocent.
I wasn't.
But Victor's records separated the violent international network he had built from my businesses.
I had committed crimes.
Money laundering in my twenties.
Bribery.
Obstruction.
Illegal gambling interests years earlier.
Enough.
I pleaded guilty.
No tricks.
No bought witnesses.
No threats.
The judge seemed almost disappointed.
Sentencing was scheduled for March.
Until then, I was granted monitored release because of my injuries and cooperation.
I returned to the mansion wearing an ankle monitor.
Maisie stared at it.
“Is that jail jewelry?”
Harper nearly choked.
“Yes.”
“Can I decorate it?”
“No.”
Mrs. Doyle said, “Absolutely not.”
Maisie decorated it anyway.
Tiny fox sticker.
For three months, the house became something I hadn't known how to build.
A home.
Harper enrolled in community college.
Gabriel lived in a supervised apartment nearby while awaiting his own sentencing agreement.
He visited Maisie under Harper's rules.
Not mine.
Not his.
Harper's.
At first, Maisie allowed thirty minutes.
Then an hour.
Then she asked him to help with math.
Gabriel nearly cried over fractions.
Christmas arrived.
For the first time since Luca died, we used the eighteen-seat dining table.
Mrs. Doyle invited Reed.
Reed brought his wife.
Harper made pie.
Gabriel burned potatoes.
Maisie hung Blue November from the Christmas tree because, in her words, “He survived stuff.”
I went to Isabella and Luca's graves that morning.
The silver angel remained open.
I sat beneath the oak.
“I don't know what happens next,” I told them.
Snow moved through the branches.
“But I think I'm trying.”
I stayed there until my phone rang.
Samuel.
His voice was tense.
“Elias, where are you?”
“Cemetery.”
“Get back to the house.”
“Why?”
“Victor escaped transport.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Prison medical transfer. Vehicle hit near Route 28. Two guards injured.”
My blood froze.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
I called Reed.
No answer.
Harper.
No answer.
Gabriel.
No answer.
Then my phone buzzed.
A video.
The mansion.
Live.
Victor stood in my dining room.
Behind him, the Christmas tree glowed.
Maisie sat at the table.
Alone.
Victor placed one hand on her shoulder.
May you like
He smiled into the camera.
“Merry Christmas, Elias.”
