Chapter 7 - THE FATHER WHO CHOSE ONE CHILD
Gabriel DeLuca lived in a house overlooking the Atlantic.
Not a mansion.
Not anymore.
A weathered gray home above a rocky stretch of coastline north of Boston.
Adrian drove.
I sat beside him.
Rourke and Eleanor followed in another car.
Celeste came too.
Adrian had given her the choice.
“You can stay at the mansion under guard, or you can come answer for what you know.”
She chose the second.
The drive was nearly silent.
Then Adrian said, “You don’t have to call him your father.”
I watched headlights sweep across the highway.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
A few seconds passed.
“You also don’t have to call me your brother.”
I looked at him.
“That one sounds stranger.”
His mouth almost curved.
“Agreed.”
It was the first normal moment we had shared all night.
Then it was gone.
Gabriel was waiting on the porch.
He was older than the photograph.
Much older.
White hair.
Heavy shoulders bent slightly by age.
A cane beside his chair.
Unlike Eleanor, he actually needed his.
When he saw me, he stood anyway.
His eyes moved to the birthmark beneath my ear.
Then he looked away.
“Rachel.”
I hated that he knew my name.
Adrian stopped ten feet from him.
“You erased her.”
Gabriel nodded.
No denial.
No polished speech.
“I did.”
“You signed the transfer.”
“Yes.”
“You let records show she died.”
“Yes.”
I expected Adrian to explode.
He didn’t.
He became still.
“You had thirty years to fix it.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“That answer has changed depending on which year you ask about.”
It was the first thing he said that sounded truthful.
We went inside.
No guards appeared.
No hidden men.
Just an old house smelling of coffee and salt air.
On the mantel stood two framed photographs.
One of Adrian as a boy.
One of me.
My high-school graduation.
I walked toward it.
“You were there?”
“No.”
“Then where did you get this?”
“Rourke.”
I turned toward him.
“You’ve been collecting photographs of me.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make you a father.”
“I know.”
Again.
No defense.
Somehow that made the anger harder to aim.
Gabriel sat.
“The night you were born, a man named Carlo Ventresca had already tried twice to reach our family through Adrian.”
Adrian frowned.
“Nobody ever told me that.”
“You were a baby.”
Gabriel continued.
“When the twins were delivered, Victor told me two visible heirs doubled the targets.”
“So you hid me.”
“For forty-eight hours.”
Eleanor looked away.
Gabriel’s voice roughened.
“That was the agreement.”
“What changed?”
“Victor brought me Margaret’s trust documents.”
There it was.
“Money,” I said.
Gabriel shook his head.
“Control.”
“Same thing.”
“No. Worse.”
At least he understood that.
Margaret’s trust owned the legitimate businesses that allowed the DeLuca organization to become something other than crime.
If divided while Gabriel was fighting rivals, he believed the family would fracture.
He convinced himself another month of hiding me was necessary.
Then another.
Victor falsified more records.
More people had to be paid.
Every day made the truth more dangerous.
“You could have stopped,” Adrian said.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Because you liked having everything.”
Gabriel looked directly at him.
“Yes.”
That answer wounded Adrian more than an excuse would have.
Gabriel turned to me.
“Margaret never forgave me.”
“Good.”
A strange expression crossed his face.
Almost relief.
“Yes.”
He told us Margaret had spent years trying to undo the lie without exposing me to the enemies who still watched the family.
She worked with Eleanor.
Lillian.
Rourke.
She created copies.
The red book became her record of every payment, every altered document, every decision Gabriel made.
“She wanted leverage,” Gabriel said.
“She wanted accountability,” Eleanor corrected.
Gabriel accepted that.
Then Adrian placed the red book on the table.
“Why summon us?”
Gabriel stared at it.
“Because I am tired.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“You don’t get to make this noble because you got old.”
“No.”
Another answer without defense.
“I called Rourke three days ago and told him I wanted the book.”
Rourke nodded.
“I assumed he wanted to destroy it.”
“So you removed it from the piano,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And locked Room Fourteen?”
Rourke hesitated.
“No.”
We all looked at him.
“Then who did?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“I did.”
Adrian turned.
She faced us.
“I used the wall control.”
“Why?”
“To delay you.”
“You trapped us underground.”
“There was ventilation.”
“You knew?”
“My father showed me the plans years ago.”
Her hands tightened.
“I needed time to get the photograph from the wall and reach the piano before you did.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought the red book was still there.”
“And you intended to destroy it?”
Celeste looked at Gabriel.
“No.”
That surprised him too.
“I wanted to read the last page.”
“What last page?” I asked.
Celeste looked at me.
“My father tore it out.”
Gabriel’s head lifted.
“You knew that?”
“I watched him do it.”
The entire room shifted.
“What was on it?” Adrian asked.
“I never saw.”
Gabriel stood.
“I did.”
Everyone faced him.
His hands trembled.
“The last page was Margaret’s final estate instruction.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“What did it say?”
“That if Rachel was ever found, the trust was not to be divided.”
I frowned.
“Then what?”
Gabriel looked at both of us.
“It all goes to Rachel.”
I stared.
Adrian did not react for several seconds.
Then he asked, “Why?”
“Because Margaret believed you would inherit my empire.”
His voice broke.
“And Rachel would inherit everything clean.”
I stood.
“I don’t want an empire.”
Gabriel almost smiled sadly.
“Neither did your mother.”
Adrian walked toward the window.
For one terrible second, I wondered whether this was the point when blood finally outweighed kindness.
Half the DeLuca fortune had been a shock.
All of Margaret’s legitimate holdings was different.
I had known Adrian fourteen months.
He had spent his life believing those companies were his mother’s legacy to him.
I said quietly, “Adrian.”
He turned.
“I’m not angry at you.”
Simple.
Immediate.
“You should be.”
“No.”
“You’d lose—”
“Rachel.”
His voice stopped me.
“You were declared dead so people could steal from you before you knew how to speak. I’m not going to become another person who punishes you because someone wrote your name into an inheritance.”
My eyes burned.
Gabriel lowered his head.
Perhaps because his son had just done in one sentence what he had failed to do for thirty years.
Choose the person before the property.
Celeste sat on the edge of a chair.
“My father kept the last page.”
“Where?” Gabriel asked.
“He put it inside something Margaret carried that night.”
“What?”
Celeste looked toward the mantel.
At an old framed photograph of Margaret wearing a dark coat.
Her hand rested over her chest.
A rosary wound through her fingers.
Eleanor whispered, “The rosary.”
Celeste nodded.
“My father took it from her purse after the crash.”
Gabriel’s face went pale.
“He gave it to me before he died.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
Celeste began crying.
“I put it back.”
“Back where?”
She looked at Adrian.
May you like
“Inside Margaret’s coffin.”
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