Chapter 7 - THE BETRAYAL THAT NEARLY DESTROYED EVERYONE
“GET DOWN!”
Carmine's voice thundered through Nell's phone just as the window exploded.
Glass scattered across Emmett Fontaine's hospital room.
Nell threw herself over her father's bed.
A second shot struck the wall above them.
Emmett cried out.
Nell held his head against her chest, shielding him with her body.
“Papa, don't move!”
The telephone remained connected.
Carmine had answered her earlier call, and she had barely managed to tell him about the black car before the first shot.
Now he could hear everything.
“Nell! Answer me!”
“Someone's shooting!”
“Stay down. I'm coming.”
Across the street, the black sedan accelerated away.
Hospital alarms began sounding.
Nurses screamed for security.
Nell kept her arms around Emmett until two officers reached the room.
Only then did she realize a piece of broken glass had cut her forearm.
Blood stained her sleeve.
But her father was breathing.
He was alive.
That was enough.
Carmine arrived eleven minutes later with three security vehicles.
He pushed through the hospital doors, ignoring the startled looks from patients and staff.
When he saw Nell sitting beside Emmett's bed, holding a bandage against her arm, his expression changed.
He stopped.
For one terrible moment, he seemed unable to speak.
Then he crossed the room.
“Are you hurt?”
“Just a cut.”
He looked at the blood.
“That's more than a cut.”
“Papa's fine.”
Carmine turned toward Emmett.
The older man was frightened but unharmed.
A doctor confirmed that Nell's injury required several stitches, though it was not serious.
Carmine listened carefully.
Then he looked back at her.
“I told you this was dangerous.”
Nell raised her eyes.
“And if I'd left him alone?”
He had no answer.
She swallowed.
“Your grandmother was in that car.”
Carmine's face hardened.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Traffic cameras caught the vehicle.”
“Then find it.”
“We are.”
Nell grabbed his sleeve.
“Carmine, they were using her to lure us into the open. The shots came from another direction. They knew I'd be looking at the car.”
He stared.
“You're saying they wanted you at the window?”
“Yes.”
A deliberate distraction.
A calculated attack.
Carmine turned toward his men.
“Lock down every route in and out of this hospital. Coordinate with the police and make sure nobody approaches Mr. Fontaine without authorization.”
Then he faced Nell again.
“I'm moving you both somewhere safer.”
She shook her head.
“You can't hide us forever.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“But I can keep you alive long enough to end this.”
At the estate, the atmosphere had changed.
Armed security guarded the gates.
Palmira's favorite chair remained empty.
And Lawrence Voss had stopped answering Carmine's calls.
Benny was gone.
Carmine had dismissed him hours earlier, but no one had seen him leave the city.
Nell stood in the library with Father Michael's photocopied receipt.
“My father said Rosa changed the book's cover to red,” she explained.
Carmine studied the paper.
“Then Voss may have taken the wrong book.”
“Or he knew the original wasn't there.”
“Why would he keep looking?”
“Because he doesn't know where Mama hid it.”
Carmine reached for his phone.
“We need to search the church again.”
Before he could dial, the library doors opened.
Benny walked in.
Two security guards immediately stepped forward.
Carmine turned.
“I told you to leave.”
Benny held up both hands.
“I did.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I know where your grandmother is.”
Silence filled the room.
Carmine approached slowly.
“Talk.”
Benny placed a small recording device on the desk.
“Voss contacted me after you dismissed me. He thought I'd be angry enough to work for him.”
“And were you?”
“I was angry. I was also determined to find out what he was planning.”
Benny pressed a button.
Lawrence Voss's voice filled the room.
Orsini is sentimental. His grandmother is the weakness. The girl is the problem. Once we have the ledger, both disappear.
Carmine's face turned cold.
Another voice spoke.
Conrad Bellarose.
And what about the old baker?
Voss answered.
He should have died eight years ago.
Nell gripped the table.
Benny stopped the recording.
“There's more.”
He placed a photograph beside the device.
It showed an abandoned riverfront warehouse.
“Warehouse Seventeen. It used to belong to Crescent Hospitality before being sold through a shell company.”
“She's there?” Carmine asked.
“Yes. I followed Voss's driver.”
“Why didn't you call me?”
“Because I needed proof before you trusted me again.”
Carmine stared at his old friend.
“You put yourself in their hands.”
Benny's jaw tightened.
“I put myself where I could help.”
Nell stepped forward.
“Is Palmira alive?”
“I saw her through a loading bay window. She was sitting upright.”
Carmine picked up the photograph.
“We move now.”
Warehouse Seventeen stood beside a dark stretch of the Mississippi River.
The old building had been abandoned for years.
Benny had also recorded Voss ordering an armed team to leave before midnight, apparently believing Carmine was still searching the city.
That gave them a narrow opportunity.
Carmine refused to allow Nell near the warehouse.
“You stay in the vehicle with the driver.”
She crossed her arms.
“Palmira knows me.”
“And that's why I need you safe.”
“Carmine—”
“Please.”
The word surprised her.
He was a man who gave orders.
He rarely asked.
Nell finally nodded.
“Bring her back.”
“I will.”
Carmine and Benny entered with a small security team.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
Then Nell heard shouting.
A loud metallic crash echoed through the building.
She gripped the door handle.
“Stay here,” the driver warned.
Nell stared toward the dark entrance.
Another crash.
Then footsteps.
Carmine appeared carrying Palmira in his arms.
Benny followed, supporting an injured security guard.
Nell jumped from the vehicle.
“Mrs. Orsini!”
Palmira opened her eyes.
“My dear girl.”
Nell rushed forward.
Carmine carefully lowered his grandmother into the waiting ambulance.
She had bruises on her wrists and was exhausted, but she was alive.
A paramedic examined her.
Carmine bent beside her.
“Grandma, did they hurt you?”
Palmira touched his cheek.
“Not as badly as they intended.”
Carmine closed his eyes.
For a moment, he was no longer a feared Mafia boss.
He was simply a grandson who had almost lost the woman who raised him.
Then Palmira gripped his hand.
“Listen carefully.”
“What?”
“Voss isn't acting alone.”
“I know. Bellarose.”
She shook her head.
“There are others. Someone inside our organization helped them with the charity accounts.”
Carmine frowned.
“Who?”
Palmira's eyes filled with tears.
“Your father knew. That's why he tried to destroy the old trust.”
Before she could explain, her breathing became uneven.
The paramedic urged them to let her rest.
Nell stepped back.
Her happiness at seeing Palmira safe was suddenly mixed with dread.
The ledger might expose more than Conrad Bellarose and Lawrence Voss.
It might destroy the Orsini organization itself.
By dawn, Carmine's attorneys had identified something disturbing.
Eight years earlier, the storm-recovery fund had purchased nearly thirty properties through Crescent Hospitality.
Several purchases were financed using guarantees from an Orsini charitable trust.
Those guarantees had never been canceled.
Worse, the new restaurant distribution agreement would transfer the trust's remaining assets into a partnership controlled by Bellarose.
If Carmine signed, Bellarose would gain legal leverage over warehouses, transportation contracts, and several Orsini properties.
If he refused, Voss intended to release selective documents making Carmine appear responsible for the old fraud.
“He planned both outcomes,” Carmine said.
His new attorney, Rebecca Shaw, nodded.
“The contract is a trap. It gives him control if you sign and ammunition against you if you don't.”
“Can we stop him?”
“With the original records and credible witnesses, we may be able to expose the fraud and challenge the guarantees.”
Carmine looked toward the window.
“Then we find those records.”
That afternoon, Nell and Father Michael searched the storage rooms beneath St. Agnes.
They found old photographs, donation receipts, and Christmas decorations.
But no red ledger.
Finally, Father Michael remembered something.
“Your mother helped organize a Christmas pageant the year before the fire.”
Nell looked up.
“Yes?”
“She donated a large wooden manger. We still use it.”
He led her into the church hall.
The manger stood behind a row of folded tables.
Nell knelt beside it.
A tiny brass plate was attached to the bottom.
In gratitude, Rosa Fontaine.
Beneath the plate was a shallow compartment.
Inside sat a red leather book wrapped in cloth.
Nell's hands began shaking.
She opened it.
The first pages contained ordinary recipes.
Pecan pie.
Bread pudding.
Buttermilk biscuits.
Then, halfway through, handwritten columns of financial transactions appeared.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Property addresses.
And references to accounts connected to powerful people across New Orleans.
Nell turned another page.
She stopped breathing.
There was a handwritten statement from Rosa.
If anything happens to me, the signatures on these pages will prove who stole the money and who ordered the fire.
Nell whispered, “Mama.”
She took photographs of several pages and sent them to Carmine and Rebecca Shaw.
Then she turned to the final section.
A name appeared repeatedly beside suspicious withdrawals.
L. Voss.
Another appeared beside unauthorized property purchases.
C. Bellarose.
But one entry made Nell freeze.
It listed a transfer to an Orsini-controlled account.
The recipient was identified only as:
C.O. — AUTHORIZED BENEFICIARY.
Nell stared.
Carmine Orsini.
Had he benefited personally from the stolen money without knowing it?
Before she could read further, the lights went out.
Father Michael called from the hallway.
“Eleanor?”
Nell stood.
“Father?”
A door slammed.
Heavy footsteps approached.
Then Lawrence Voss's voice emerged from the darkness.
“You look so much like your mother.”
Nell backed against the manger.
Voss stepped into the narrow beam of an emergency light.
A pistol hung at his side.
“Give me the book, Eleanor.”
She held it tightly.
“No.”
He smiled.
“Your mother said exactly the same thing.”
May you like
Then he raised the gun.
“And look what happened to her.”
