Chapter 3 - THE VOICE FROM THE FIRE
Lorenzo had stood beside me through three wars.
He had taken a bullet meant for me in Cicero.
He had buried men who betrayed me.
He had sat beside my mother's hospital bed when I was too exhausted to remain awake.
If there were five people on earth I trusted, Lorenzo Vale was one of them.
Which was exactly why Gabriel's reaction terrified me.
His grip tightened around my wrist.
“Don't answer him.”
Above us, Lorenzo took another step.
“Roman?”
He almost never used my first name.
Only when we were alone.
Or when something was wrong.
I raised my gun.
Beatrice whispered, “There's another way out.”
Gabriel turned toward her.
“The tunnel?”
She nodded.
I stared at them.
“What tunnel?”
“This church was connected to the old rectory,” Beatrice said. “There's a maintenance passage.”
Of course she knew.
Beatrice Gallagher, the quiet maid I had barely noticed six months earlier, apparently knew more secret routes through Chicago than half my soldiers.
“Go,” Gabriel whispered.
I didn't move.
Lorenzo reached the bottom stair.
His flashlight swept across the basement.
“Boss?”
I stepped into the beam.
His shoulders relaxed.
“There you are.”
He looked around.
“Jesus. What are you doing down here?”
“Following my maid.”
His gaze moved toward Beatrice.
She stood near the mattress.
Gabriel had disappeared behind a row of storage shelves.
Lorenzo noticed the spilled food.
Then the blankets.
Then the second pair of boots.
His expression barely changed.
But I had spent my life watching men lie.
The smallest muscles always told the truth.
His eyes tightened.
“She's living here?”
“No.”
“Someone else is.”
“Apparently.”
His right hand moved toward his coat.
Not enough to draw a weapon.
Enough to remind himself one was there.
“What did you find?”
I watched him carefully.
“Nothing.”
His eyes met mine.
“Nothing?”
“An old homeless man.”
Behind the shelves, complete silence.
Lorenzo smiled.
“Well, that explains the food.”
Beatrice stared at the floor.
I walked toward Lorenzo.
“What are you doing here?”
His smile weakened.
“Security called me.”
“I told them not to.”
“You disappeared from your own property without protection.”
“That happens.”
“Not lately.”
He looked past me again.
“Where's the homeless guy?”
“Ran.”
“Through what?”
“Back door.”
“There is no back door.”
Beatrice looked up.
Too fast.
Lorenzo saw it.
I stepped between them.
“Since when are you an expert on abandoned churches?”
“I grew up three neighborhoods away.”
That was true.
Lorenzo had grown up with us.
His father, Salvatore, was my father's younger brother.
We were cousins by blood.
Brothers by circumstance.
Gabriel had always hated him.
I remembered that suddenly.
Not open hatred.
Something quieter.
He never trusted Lorenzo.
I had always assumed it was because Gabriel considered him reckless.
Now I wondered.
“Let's go home,” Lorenzo said.
“I'll meet you there.”
“No.”
The word came too quickly.
I lifted one eyebrow.
He corrected himself.
“You shouldn't stay here.”
“Why?”
“This neighborhood isn't safe.”
I almost laughed.
Half the neighborhood paid me to keep it safe.
“I'll survive.”
Lorenzo stared at me.
For one terrible second, neither of us pretended.
Then he smiled again.
“Of course.”
He looked at Beatrice.
“She's fired, right?”
“No.”
That surprised him more than anything.
“She stole from you.”
“She took garbage.”
“Our rules—”
“My rules.”
His jaw tightened.
“Understood.”
He turned and climbed the stairs.
I waited until the church door shut.
Then another thirty seconds.
Gabriel emerged.
His face was pale.
“That was him.”
I kept my gun pointed at the stairs.
“Be certain.”
“I could hear that voice if I were buried alive.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Not here.”
I turned on him.
“Twelve years of silence gives you very little authority over how this conversation happens.”
His face hardened.
“You think I wanted this?”
“I don't know what you wanted.”
“I wanted to live.”
“So did Mom.”
The words landed.
Gabriel looked away.
Beatrice stepped between us.
“Enough.”
I stared at her.
She seemed to remember exactly who she was speaking to.
Fear flashed across her face.
Then disappeared.
“No,” she said. “You can fire me tomorrow. You can throw me out tonight. But you two have lost twelve years. Don't waste the first ten minutes trying to hurt each other.”
No one spoke to me like that.
Especially not employees.
Gabriel almost smiled.
“She always like this?”
“I've never heard her speak more than six consecutive words.”
Beatrice wiped her face.
“Maybe your house isn't very inviting.”
Despite everything, a laugh almost escaped me.
Almost.
Then Gabriel moved toward the shelves.
He pushed aside a broken wooden cabinet and exposed a narrow doorway.
“Come on.”
The maintenance tunnel was barely wide enough for one person.
We emerged fifteen minutes later behind an abandoned rectory.
I sent a coded message to a man named Marco DeSantis, the one soldier I trusted who did not report through Lorenzo.
Twenty minutes later, Marco arrived with an unmarked SUV.
He stared at Gabriel exactly three seconds.
Then crossed himself.
“Holy Mother of God.”
Gabriel gave a tired smile.
“Nice to see you too.”
Marco had been seventeen when Gabriel disappeared.
He had worshiped my brother.
“Boss…”
“Not a word.”
Marco nodded.
I took them to a property nobody in the organization knew I owned.
Not even Lorenzo.
A small house outside Oak Park purchased through four shell companies after an assassination attempt three years earlier.
By two in the morning, Gabriel sat at the kitchen table with coffee.
Beatrice had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.
I remained standing.
“Talk.”
Gabriel stared into the cup.
“The last thing everyone knows is that I went to Warehouse Fourteen.”
“December eighteenth.”
He nodded.
“Our father sent me.”
“He said you were meeting suppliers.”
“I was meeting an accountant.”
“Whose?”
“Ours.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Because money was disappearing.”
“We always had leakage.”
“Not millions.”
He looked at me.
“Someone was taking money from our legitimate companies and moving it through charities, construction firms, and city contracts.”
“Lorenzo?”
“I didn't know then.”
“What did the accountant give you?”
“A ledger.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
Gabriel rubbed his temple.
“The accountant left. I stayed behind because I wanted to photograph everything. Then someone hit me.”
“Who?”
“I woke up tied to a chair.”
His breathing changed.
Beatrice reached toward him.
He pulled away.
“I smelled gasoline. My head was bleeding. Lorenzo was standing near the door with two men.”
My chest tightened.
“What did he say?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“He said he was sorry.”
I said nothing.
“He told me I should have ignored the money.”
“Did he admit taking it?”
“No.”
“He was twenty-four.”
“So was I.”
“Lorenzo was practically a kid.”
Gabriel looked at me sharply.
“He had a gun against my head, Roman.”
I stopped defending him.
“What happened?”
“Another man arrived.”
“Who?”
“I couldn't see him clearly.”
“Voice?”
“Older.”
“Father?”
Gabriel hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me more than an answer.
“I don't know.”
“What did he say?”
Gabriel looked down.
“He told Lorenzo not to shoot me in the face.”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
I felt nothing.
That was worse than anger.
“He said the body had to be recognizable enough to close the investigation but damaged enough that nobody would look too closely.”
My voice came out low.
“How did you escape?”
“That part is broken.”
He touched the scar on his temple.
“Bits and pieces. A siren. Someone shouting. A man cutting the ropes.”
“Who?”
“Patrick.”
Beatrice's face changed.
I looked at her.
“Patrick who?”
She answered quietly.
“My husband.”
I stared.
“You told the agency you were widowed.”
“I am.”
“When did he die?”
“Eleven years ago.”
One year after Gabriel supposedly died.
Gabriel continued.
“Patrick Gallagher was an EMT. He had been called to a vehicle accident nearby. He saw smoke from the warehouse and went inside before the fire department arrived.”
“He saved you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was a body found?”
“I don't know.”
Beatrice sat down.
“Patrick brought Gabriel to an unused apartment owned by his cousin.”
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
“When did you find out?”
“Seven months ago.”
I turned on her.
“You have been feeding my dead brother for seven months?”
“Yes.”
“While working in my house?”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
Gabriel slammed his palm against the table.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“She couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because Patrick tried telling someone.”
Beatrice began crying.
Gabriel's voice became quieter.
“Eleven years ago, Patrick called a man inside the Vale organization and said he had information about the warehouse fire.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who did he call?”
Beatrice reached inside her coat.
She removed an old folded piece of paper.
A phone record.
One number was circled.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to my father's private office.
Gabriel looked at me.
“Patrick was dead forty-eight hours later.”
Beatrice's tears fell onto the table.
“Police called it a robbery.”
I looked at the number again.
My father's number.
The man who had ordered half of Chicago to search for Gabriel.
The man who had cried at his funeral.
The man who had sworn to me that our enemies murdered my brother.
A horrible possibility opened inside my mind.
“What did Patrick tell my father?”
Beatrice swallowed.
“I don't know.”
Then she reached into her purse again.
“But three weeks before Patrick died, he mailed something to himself and hid it in a bank deposit box.”
She placed a small brass key on the table.
Gabriel stared at it.
I did too.
“What's inside?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“I never had the courage to look.”
I picked up the key.
A number was engraved on its side.
Before I could speak, Marco rushed into the kitchen.
His phone was in his hand.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“You need to see this.”
He showed me the security feed from my mansion.
Lorenzo stood in my study.
Alone.
He opened the hidden cabinet behind my father's portrait.
A cabinet only three people knew existed.
Myself.
My father.
And Gabriel.
Lorenzo removed a folder.
May you like
Then he walked directly toward the fireplace.
And began burning it.
