Chapter 2 - The Brother Who Refused to Stay Dead
For several seconds, nobody moved.
I had spent most of my adult life learning what fear did to men.
Some shouted.
Some lied.
Some reached for weapons.
I had never imagined what fear would do to me when a dead man said my name from ten feet away.
“Roman?”
The voice came again.
Weak.
Older.
But Anthony.
There was no doubt.
Vincent stepped in front of Mia automatically.
Catherine was crying behind me.
I pushed open the second door.
The smell hit first.
Medicine.
Sweat.
Old brick.
Then my flashlight found him.
Anthony sat against the far wall on a narrow cot.
My brother had once been six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, loud enough to command a restaurant without raising his voice.
The man in front of me looked twenty years older.
His dark hair had gone mostly gray. A beard covered half his face. One leg was braced in metal from thigh to ankle, and scars disappeared beneath the collar of a faded sweatshirt.
But his eyes were the same.
Duca eyes.
My eyes.
“Anthony.”
His mouth twisted.
“Still dramatic, little brother.”
I crossed the room before anyone could stop me.
I grabbed his shirt.
He flinched.
I almost hit him.
God help me, I wanted to.
Instead I dragged him partly upright.
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I carried your coffin.”
“I know.”
“Mother collapsed at your funeral.”
“I know.”
My voice dropped.
“You let us mourn you.”
Anthony’s expression cracked.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Everybody has a choice.”
“Not when your daughter is the price.”
Silence.
I released him.
“What daughter?”
Anthony looked past me.
Toward the doorway.
Toward Mia.
My stomach tightened.
“No.”
Catherine whispered my name.
I turned on her.
“No.”
She covered her mouth.
Anthony shut his eyes.
Mia stepped around Vincent before he could stop her.
The child stared at Anthony.
She did not look afraid.
She looked confused.
Anthony looked terrified.
“Mia,” he whispered.
She tilted her head.
“You know my name.”
Anthony’s eyes filled.
That frightened me more than everything else.
“How does he know her name?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
I looked at Catherine.
“How?”
“Roman—”
“How does my supposedly dead brother know Grace Harper’s daughter?”
Anthony spoke.
“Because I’ve known about her since before she was born.”
My chest tightened.
Mia frowned.
“Are you the knocking man?”
Anthony nodded.
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You didn’t.”
Of course she said that.
This little girl had ridden two buses through Boston after midnight with a baby on her back.
Apparently dead mafia heirs inside walls barely qualified as unusual.
She looked at Anthony’s leg.
“Does it hurt?”
His face folded.
“Yes.”
Mia considered that.
“Baby Lily cries when her teeth hurt.”
Anthony laughed once.
Then started crying.
Catherine turned away.
I had had enough.
“Vincent. Take Mia upstairs.”
“No.”
Mia immediately grabbed the doorframe.
“I want Mama.”
“You’re getting your mother.”
“Is she here?”
“Soon.”
She looked at Anthony again.
Something passed between them.
Something I didn’t understand.
Then she said quietly, “Mrs. Vale told me never to tell Mama about you.”
I turned.
Catherine went still.
“What?”
Mia pointed at her.
“She said it would make Mama sick.”
Catherine’s expression collapsed.
“Mia, I was trying to protect—”
“Upstairs,” I said.
Vincent lifted Lily carefully while Mia finally followed him.
When their footsteps disappeared, I closed the steel door.
Then I faced my family.
“Start talking.”
Anthony looked at Catherine.
She shook her head.
I noticed.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Catherine said.
“You’ve had five years of nothing.”
I dragged the chair across the floor and sat opposite my brother.
“Tonight, we’re trying something else.”
Anthony rubbed his face.
“The accident wasn’t an accident.”
I already knew which accident.
Five years earlier, Anthony’s Mercedes had gone through a guardrail north of Worcester and burned in a ravine.
Dental records identified him.
Closed casket.
Police report.
Funeral.
I had believed every piece.
“Who tried to kill you?”
“Our father’s old partners.”
“My father’s partners are dead.”
“Some.”
“Names.”
Anthony ignored me.
“They weren’t trying to kill me because of business.”
“Then why?”
“Because I found something Dad hid.”
My eyes moved toward the photographs.
“The room?”
“No.”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Grace.”
That name changed the air.
I stood.
“What about Grace?”
Anthony swallowed.
“She was never hired by accident.”
I stared at Catherine.
Her face confirmed it before Anthony continued.
“Dad arranged for her to be protected long before he died.”
“My father died three years before Grace came to work here.”
“Yes.”
“So how?”
“He left instructions.”
“For whom?”
“Me.”
Anger burned cleanly now.
“You hired Grace?”
“I made certain her application reached you.”
“Why?”
Anthony hesitated.
I leaned forward.
“If the next words out of your mouth are another lie, I will drag you upstairs myself and explain to a six-year-old why every adult in this house has been using her life like currency.”
That landed.
Anthony looked away.
“Grace’s father worked for Dad.”
“What was his name?”
“Samuel Harper.”
I knew the name.
Not personally.
From old ledgers.
Samuel had been an accountant for one of my father’s shipping companies in the nineties.
He disappeared in 1998.
Police assumed he had stolen money.
My father publicly condemned him.
Privately, I remembered something different.
My father drinking alone for three nights.
“What did Samuel do?”
“He found the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The real one.”
Catherine sat down heavily.
Anthony continued.
“Dad wasn’t the only power in the organization then. There were four families moving money through the port. Samuel discovered someone was laundering money through charities, construction contracts, even children’s foundations.”
“So?”
“The money wasn’t the important part.”
“What was?”
Anthony stared at me.
“Names.”
“What names?”
“Judges. Police. State officials. Federal agents. People who could destroy entire families.”
“And Samuel stole it?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He copied it.”
I felt the pieces moving.
“Where is the copy?”
Anthony looked toward the ceiling again.
“Grace doesn’t know.”
I stood slowly.
“But Mia does?”
His silence answered me.
“What does a six-year-old know?”
“She doesn’t know she knows.”
Catherine whispered, “Anthony.”
He ignored her.
“Samuel knew people were coming for him. Before he disappeared, he created a failsafe. Something that could only be located through a sequence he taught his daughter.”
“Grace?”
“Yes.”
“But you said she doesn’t know.”
“She was twelve.”
Anthony’s voice softened.
“Trauma changes memory.”
A car door slammed somewhere outside.
Then another.
Vincent’s voice came faintly through the passage.
Grace had arrived.
Anthony heard it too.
Panic flashed across his face.
“No.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What?”
“Don’t bring her down.”
“Why?”
“Roman.”
He tried to stand.
His injured leg buckled.
Catherine caught him.
“Please.”
My anger cooled into suspicion.
“You’re afraid of Grace.”
Anthony stared at me.
“I’m afraid of what she remembers when she sees me.”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Fast.
Then Grace’s voice.
“Mia?”
She appeared at the entrance to the hidden room wearing an old coat over pajamas.
Her face was pale from illness.
“Mia!”
“She’s safe,” I said.
Grace barely heard me.
Her eyes moved past my shoulder.
Found Anthony.
Everything inside her stopped.
She did not scream.
She did not faint.
She whispered one word.
“You.”
Anthony’s face broke.
“Grace.”
She stepped backward.
Catherine rose.
“Grace, please—”
“Don’t touch me.”
Grace’s voice shook violently.
I had never heard that tone from her.
Not once in eight years.
She stared at Anthony as if the dead had not returned.
As if a nightmare had.
“You were there.”
Anthony said nothing.
Grace backed into the brick wall.
“You were there the night my father disappeared.”
My blood went cold.
“Grace?”
She pointed at Anthony.
“I remember his face.”
Anthony closed his eyes.
Grace began crying.
“He was in our kitchen.”
I looked at my brother.
“What is she talking about?”
Grace’s breath hitched.
“My father was screaming at someone in the basement.”
She pressed a hand to her temple.
“I couldn’t remember before.”
Anthony whispered, “Grace, stop.”
“No.”
Her eyes widened as fragments returned.
“You had blood on your shirt.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
“You told me to hide.”
Catherine started crying again.
Grace stared at Anthony.
Then at me.
May you like
And finally said the sentence that changed everything I believed about my brother.
“Roman, the night my father vanished, Anthony Duca carried me out of my house while someone murdered my father downstairs.”
