Chapter 10 - FIVE MINUTES
“Bomb!”
The word ripped through the mansion.
Federal agents began shouting evacuation orders.
Men who had spent their lives pretending not to fear death suddenly ran for every available exit.
I grabbed Lorenzo.
“Where?”
He laughed.
“Four minutes fifty seconds.”
I slammed him against the table.
“Where are the explosives?”
“Everywhere.”
Gabriel hit him.
Hard.
Lorenzo fell.
“You're going to die too,” Gabriel said.
“Maybe.”
He spat blood onto my floor.
“But Roman loses the house.”
I stared at him.
The house.
Not the empire.
The mansion had belonged to our family for sixty years.
My mother had planted roses behind the east terrace.
Gabriel and I had hidden beneath the grand staircase as children.
My father had ruled Chicago from the study.
Lorenzo thought destroying it would destroy me.
Five years earlier, he would have been right.
“Everyone out,” I ordered.
An agent grabbed my arm.
“You too.”
“Beatrice.”
I looked around.
She was gone.
My blood turned cold.
“Where's Beatrice?”
Gabriel looked toward the service hallway.
“She was here.”
I ran.
“Roman!”
Three minutes forty seconds.
I moved through the kitchen.
Laundry hall.
Pantry.
“Beatrice!”
Nothing.
Then I heard pounding.
Basement.
I took the stairs two at a time.
The wine cellar door had been locked from outside.
I shot the lock.
Inside, Beatrice was kneeling beside an elderly woman.
Mrs. Alvarez, one of my cooks.
Her ankle was twisted.
“I found her down here.”
I lifted Mrs. Alvarez.
“Go.”
Beatrice supported her from the other side.
Two minutes fifty.
We reached the basement stairs.
Smoke filled the upper hallway.
Not from explosives.
Someone had started a fire.
Lorenzo's contingency.
Of course.
The servants' exit was blocked.
“We go through the garage.”
We turned.
A man stepped into the corridor.
One of Lorenzo's captains.
Nico Bell.
He raised a pistol.
I pushed Beatrice and Mrs. Alvarez behind the wall.
“Nico.”
“Sorry, Roman.”
“Are you?”
“My kids need me alive.”
“Then walk away.”
“Lorenzo said—”
“Lorenzo is being arrested.”
His face changed.
“He said agents were bluffing.”
“They aren't.”
One minute fifty.
Nico hesitated.
I lowered my gun.
“You can shoot me.”
I nodded toward the timer display mounted in the hallway.
“Then die in a basement for a man who is leaving without you.”
His gun lowered.
“Garage is clear.”
“Take Mrs. Alvarez.”
He did.
Beatrice and I ran after them.
One minute eleven.
We reached the courtyard.
Gabriel was waiting.
He grabbed Beatrice.
“Move!”
Federal agents were dragging Lorenzo toward an armored vehicle.
He looked at me.
Then at the house.
Forty seconds.
Thirty.
We reached the outer gate.
I turned back.
The mansion stood against the snowy sky.
All that power.
All those secrets.
All that blood hidden behind stone.
Gabriel stood beside me.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Probably.”
At twelve seconds, the east wing exploded.
Glass lifted into the night.
Then the study.
Then the central hall.
Flames rolled through windows.
The shockwave knocked us backward.
Beatrice fell against me.
Gabriel covered her.
Snow and ash rained together.
When I opened my eyes, half the mansion was burning.
Lorenzo was laughing.
Agents forced him to his knees.
He looked at me across the snow.
“Now you have nothing!”
I stood.
My ears rang.
Blood ran from a cut above my eye.
Beatrice held one arm.
Gabriel stood on my other side.
I looked at Lorenzo.
Then at the burning house.
And realized he was wrong.
For the first time in my life, almost everything that mattered was standing outside it.
I walked toward him.
An agent warned me back.
I stopped six feet away.
“You spent twelve years teaching me people were weaknesses.”
Lorenzo smiled.
“They are.”
“No.”
I looked at Gabriel.
“At least not the way you thought.”
His smile faded.
“You lost.”
“So did you.”
“I can rebuild.”
“No, Lorenzo.”
I pointed toward the federal agents.
“You can't.”
He stared at me.
“And you think they'll let you walk?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
I continued.
“I sent them everything.”
His face changed.
“Your crimes too?”
“Yes.”
“You'd destroy yourself?”
“I destroyed the empire.”
“Same thing.”
“Maybe to you.”
Agents pulled him away.
He began shouting.
“Roman!”
I turned.
“You'll regret this!”
“No.”
“You belong in that house!”
I looked at the flames.
“No.”
He screamed my name until they put him inside the vehicle.
By sunrise, Chicago knew.
News helicopters circled the ruins.
Federal warrants were executed at twenty-three Vale-connected properties.
Northstar accounts were frozen.
Police officials were arrested.
Two judges resigned before breakfast.
Dr. Elias Crane was taken into custody while trying to cross into Canada.
Marco surrendered voluntarily.
So did I.
Beatrice stood outside the federal building when they placed me in handcuffs.
Gabriel was beside her.
Agents had agreed to protect him as a witness.
Beatrice looked upset.
“Roman.”
I smiled faintly.
“Don't start stealing food while I'm gone.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You're joking?”
“Apparently prison has improved my personality already.”
“You haven't entered yet.”
“Give it time.”
Gabriel hugged me.
At first, I didn't know what to do.
We were not a family that hugged.
Then I put my arms around him.
For twelve years, I had imagined his body inside a coffin.
Now I could feel him breathing.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For not finding you.”
Gabriel pulled back.
“You didn't know.”
“I should have.”
“That is exactly the kind of stupid guilt Mom used to yell at you about.”
I laughed.
He did too.
Then he whispered:
“You found me now.”
Agents led me inside.
The investigation lasted nine months.
I expected decades in prison.
Instead, cooperation changed everything.
So did evidence proving how thoroughly Lorenzo had manipulated parts of the organization.
That did not erase my crimes.
I never pretended it did.
I pleaded guilty to conspiracy, financial crimes, and obstruction connected to operations I had knowingly authorized.
I gave prosecutors names.
Accounts.
Properties.
Everything.
The sentence was serious.
But not life.
And before sentencing, something unexpected happened.
Families affected by Northstar began receiving money.
Not charity.
Restitution.
Every legitimate Vale property I owned was sold.
Hotels.
Restaurants.
Investment buildings.
Hundreds of millions went into a court-controlled fund.
One morning, my attorney visited.
“There is one property you didn't sell.”
“What?”
He placed a deed in front of me.
St. Agnes Church.
I stared.
“You bought it six years ago through a shell company.”
I had forgotten.
“Sell it.”
“Beatrice asked you not to.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“She wants to restore it.”
“For what?”
“A community kitchen and shelter.”
I laughed softly.
Of course she did.
I signed the deed over.
Sixteen months later, after serving part of my sentence and qualifying for supervised release because of cooperation, I walked out of a federal facility carrying one bag.
Nobody waited in a limousine.
No soldiers.
No black SUVs.
Just an old blue sedan.
Beatrice stood beside it.
Gabriel sat behind the wheel.
I stopped.
Beatrice smiled.
“Need a ride?”
I looked at the car.
“This thing looks unsafe.”
Gabriel leaned across the passenger seat.
“You've survived bullets, explosions, and prison. Get in.”
I did.
They drove me to St. Agnes.
I barely recognized it.
New windows.
Restored stone.
Warm lights.
A sign outside read:
THE PATRICK GALLAGHER COMMUNITY KITCHEN
My throat tightened.
Beatrice watched me.
“He deserved his name back.”
“Yes.”
Children were eating inside.
Families collected groceries.
Volunteers carried boxes.
No men with guns.
No whispered threats.
No security cameras hiding secrets.
Gabriel touched the doorway.
“Mom would like this.”
I nodded.
We entered.
Near the kitchen, a woman was packing leftover roast beef into containers.
I stopped.
Beatrice noticed.
“What?”
I smiled.
“Nothing.”
For months, I had believed the night I caught Beatrice stealing food was the moment my empire began collapsing.
I had been wrong.
That was the night I finally saw what the empire had made invisible.
Hunger.
Fear.
Grief.
Decency.
And my brother.
But our story was not finished.
Because that evening, after the kitchen closed, Gabriel found an envelope beneath the church door.
No stamp.
No return address.
Only my name.
ROMAN VALE.
Inside was a photograph.
My father.
My mother.
Salvatore.
And a fourth person I did not recognize.
On the back, someone had written:
LORENZO WAS NEVER THE ONE IN CHARGE.
Gabriel read it twice.
Beatrice stared at me.
“What does that mean?”
I looked at the photograph.
Then at the date printed in the corner.
It had been taken thirteen years ago.
One year before Gabriel's supposed death.
May you like
And the unidentified man standing beside my parents was wearing a ring I had seen only once before.
On the hand of the federal prosecutor who had negotiated my release.
