Chapter 5 - THE MAN BESIDE HIM
Ignatio did not reach for his weapon.
That was the first reason Danica became frightened.
An innocent man accused at gunpoint usually reacted.
Anger.
Shock.
Confusion.
Ignatio became perfectly still.
Valerio looked between the two men.
“Veto.”
“I saw him leave the coat-room corridor.”
Ignatio laughed.
“You saw a man in a tuxedo leave a hotel corridor. Congratulations.”
“I saw you.”
“No.”
“You changed jackets before you returned to Valerio.”
“That is a lie.”
Danica’s memory snapped into place.
The ballroom.
Ignatio standing beside Valerio.
His jacket had been buttoned.
Later, near the service elevators, it had been open.
That meant nothing.
Except—
She looked at his sleeve.
“Ignatio.”
He turned toward her.
“Where is your cuff link?”
Everyone looked.
His left cuff was bare.
The right still held a square black onyx link.
Danica remembered something else.
Oswaldo lying behind the coats.
His right hand had been closed.
She had assumed he was clutching fabric.
But when she tried to help him, something small and hard had fallen from his fingers.
She had left it beside him.
Black stone.
Silver edge.
Ignatio saw recognition in her face.
“No.”
Valerio spoke.
“What did you just remember?”
Danica answered quietly.
“Oswaldo was holding a cuff link.”
Ignatio’s eyes closed.
Only for a second.
Then he drew.
Valerio moved at the same moment.
The first shot struck a metal pillar.
Veto fired.
Ignatio ducked.
Danica dropped behind a concrete bench.
Chaos exploded across the platform.
One of Veto’s men went down with a shoulder wound.
Valerio moved toward Ignatio.
“Stop!”
Ignatio fired again.
This time Veto jerked backward.
Blood spread across his lower side.
“Veto!”
Valerio hesitated.
That hesitation gave Ignatio the opening he needed.
He vaulted the platform rail and dropped to the gravel beside the tracks.
Valerio could have fired.
He did not.
Ignatio looked up at him from the darkness.
Twenty years of loyalty stood between them.
So did Oswaldo’s blood.
“Why?” Valerio asked.
Ignatio’s face changed.
For the first time, the careful enforcer disappeared.
What remained was a tired man carrying something older than hatred.
“You want to know why?”
“Yes.”
“Ask your father.”
“He is dead.”
“Then ask what happened at the Halstead warehouse in 1998.”
Valerio froze.
Ignatio saw it.
“You remember.”
“I remember a fire.”
“My mother was inside.”
Danica looked at Valerio.
His face had gone pale.
Ignatio backed into the darkness.
“Patrick Felicity lost his brother that night.”
Valerio said nothing.
Ignatio’s voice carried upward.
“Your father lost nothing.”
Then he disappeared.
Veto collapsed.
Valerio reached him first.
The bullet had passed through his side.
Painful.
Bloody.
But survivable.
“You always did need attention,” Valerio muttered.
Veto gave a strained laugh.
“Good to know attempted fratricide has improved your sense of humor.”
Danica knelt beside them.
“We need to move him.”
Veto grabbed Valerio’s wrist.
“Do not go after Ignatio yet.”
“You expect me to let him walk?”
“I expect you to understand what Oswaldo died trying to tell us.”
Veto’s breathing became shallow.
“The coup isn’t about tonight.”
Danica leaned closer.
“What is it about?”
“Cleaning the entire family out.”
Valerio looked at him.
“Meaning?”
“Captains. properties. accounts. Everyone still loyal to you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Danica unfolded the ledger page again.
One corner contained a small handwritten symbol.
A cross inside a circle.
She had seen it before.
“Wait.”
She reached for Oswaldo’s rosary.
She had taken it from beside him before leaving the hotel, an instinctive act she had barely remembered.
The small silver crucifix bore the same symbol on the back.
Veto stared at it.
“Oswaldo wore that every day.”
Danica examined the centerpiece.
“It opens.”
Valerio frowned.
“What?”
A tiny hinge ran along one side.
She pressed gently.
The medal opened.
Inside was a sliver of paper folded many times.
Valerio carefully unfolded it.
Not a confession.
Not a letter.
An old newspaper clipping.
HALSTEAD WAREHOUSE FIRE KILLS SIX.
November 14, 1998.
Among the dead:
Elena D’Amato.
Ignatio’s mother.
Sean Felicity.
Patrick Felicity’s younger brother.
Danica read the rest.
The warehouse had been owned by a labor contractor.
No criminal connection was ever established.
The investigation blamed faulty electrical wiring.
But someone had written across the margin.
A.C. ordered doors chained.
Danica felt sick.
“A.C.”
Valerio did not need her to say it.
Antonio Castellion.
His father.
Veto stared at the clipping.
“Oswaldo knew.”
Valerio looked at the cold tracks below.
“He knew everything.”
Danica watched him.
There was grief in his face now.
Not for Antonio.
For the possibility that the foundation beneath his entire life had been rotten.
“You were seventeen,” she said.
Valerio’s head turned toward her.
“You didn’t do this.”
“My name paid for it.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“To the dead, it may be.”
That answer told Danica more about him than anything he had said before.
They carried Veto toward the service road.
Halfway there, he stopped.
“Wait.”
He reached beneath his shirt and removed a thin chain.
Hanging from it was a small brass key.
“Oswaldo gave me this with the watch.”
“What does it open?” Danica asked.
“My father’s old ledger cabinet.”
Valerio looked at him.
“At Halstead?”
“No.”
Veto’s expression tightened.
“At the river office.”
Danica understood.
“The archive we just left?”
Veto shook his head.
“Different room.”
Valerio’s eyes narrowed.
“What room?”
“The office Father locked after the fire.”
May you like
Veto pressed the key into his brother’s hand.
“And whatever is inside, Oswaldo believed it could destroy every story our father ever told us.”
