Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN ANTHONY HID
Angela waited until we were inside my car before she spoke again.
“Dad knew about Jamie.”
I turned toward her.
The Little League field was still visible through the windshield.
Families were leaving.
Children dragged bats toward minivans.
The new lights over Anthony Santoro Field had just come on.
And ten-year-old Jamie Cole stood near the third-base dugout holding my dead brother’s glove.
“What do you mean Dad knew?”
Angela looked miserable.
“Exactly what I said.”
Our father, Giuseppe Santoro, had been dead seven years.
Three years before Anthony.
A heart attack in his sleep.
Sixty-four years old.
The man who built our family’s trucking business out of two borrowed trucks and enough questionable relationships to make half of Brooklyn pretend not to remember the seventies.
“He knew Jamie existed?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Angela stared at her hands.
“Because Jamie was his son.”
For a second, I heard nothing.
Not traffic.
Not children.
Nothing.
I looked back through the glass.
Jamie.
Ten.
Brown hair.
Serious eyes.
My father’s eyes.
No.
I rejected it immediately.
“That’s impossible.”
Angela laughed once.
“No, Matt.”
“It’s humiliating.”
“It’s ugly.”
“It’s unfair.”
“But it isn’t impossible.”
I turned fully toward her.
“Rachel?”
“Yes.”
My stomach twisted.
Rachel Cole had never been just Anthony’s housekeeper?
Angela continued before I could ask.
“She wasn’t working for Anthony when she met Dad.”
“Then what?”
“She was a bookkeeper at a medical-supply company in Bay Ridge.”
“Dad used the company?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“About a year.”
I closed my eyes.
An affair.
Our father had been married to our mother for almost forty years.
Carmela Santoro still wore his wedding ring on a chain around her neck.
“When was Mom told?”
“When Jamie was eight months old.”
“By who?”
“Dad.”
“And she didn’t kill him?”
Angela gave me a look.
“Not funny.”
No.
It wasn’t.
“What happened?”
“Dad wanted to acknowledge Jamie privately first.”
“What does that mean?”
“Help Rachel.”
“See the boy.”
“Tell us eventually.”
“Eventually.”
I hated the word.
Family secrets always lived inside eventually.
“Did Anthony know?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Almost from birth.”
I stared.
My brother had known I had another brother for ten years.
“He lied to me.”
Angela’s eyes filled.
“So did I.”
I turned.
“You knew?”
“Not at first.”
“When?”
“After Dad died.”
Seven years.
“Seven years?”
“I knew there was a child.”
“I didn’t know everything.”
“That distinction matters to you?”
“No.”
Good.
I started the car.
“Where does Rachel work?”
Angela grabbed my arm.
“Don’t send men.”
I looked at her.
“I didn’t say I would.”
“You were about to call Luca.”
She knew me too well.
Luca Ferraro had been my underboss for nine years.
If I told Luca to find somebody in New York, that somebody got found.
Quickly.
That was exactly what Rachel did not need.
I put the phone down.
“Where?”
Angela gave me an address in Long Island City.
A commercial office tower.
Night cleaning crew.
I went alone.
Mostly.
One car followed three blocks behind because my life did not allow completely alone anymore.
Rachel was pushing a gray cleaning cart through a law office at 7:46 p.m. when she looked up and saw me.
She stopped.
The spray bottle fell from her hand.
“No.”
Not hello.
No.
I stayed near elevator.
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Jamie was at Anthony’s memorial.”
Her face closed.
“I know.”
“He had Anthony’s glove.”
“Yes.”
“He had a scorebook.”
“Yes.”
“My mother told security to move him.”
Pain crossed Rachel’s face.
Not surprise.
She had expected exactly that.
“I told him not to go.”
“Why did he?”
“Because Anthony’s name was on the field.”
She swallowed.
“He wanted to see it.”
I looked at this woman more carefully.
Late thirties.
Maybe forty.
Dark hair tied back.
Cheap sneakers.
Hands red from cleaning chemicals.
My father had loved her?
Maybe.
Maybe love was too generous.
But he had made a child with her.
A child my family erased.
“Angela told me.”
Rachel closed eyes.
“Of course.”
“Is Jamie my brother?”
She leaned against desk.
“Yes.”
The word landed differently hearing it from her.
I sat.
Not because invited.
Because knees suddenly felt unreliable.
“Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“Did he see Jamie?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Not enough.”
Honest.
“Mom?”
Rachel’s face changed.
“Your mother saw him once.”
“When?”
“He was eleven months.”
“What happened?”
“She told me never to bring him near the Santoro family again.”
I stared.
“What did Dad do?”
“He fought with her.”
“For me?”
“For Jamie.”
“And?”
“He rented us an apartment in Queens.”
“Paid daycare.”
“Visited Saturday mornings when he could.”
Saturday.
Same day Anthony later coached him.
Pattern.
“Then Dad died.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to you?”
Rachel laughed without humor.
“Everything stopped.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
“Visits obviously.”
“Yes.”
“Anthony?”
Her expression softened.
“He came three days after funeral.”
“What did he say?”
“That his father made him promise.”
“To what?”
“Make sure Jamie was okay.”
“So Anthony hired you.”
Rachel nodded.
“Housekeeping wasn’t a favor.”
“I needed work.”
“He needed me somewhere he could see us without your mother asking why he was visiting.”
That hurt.
My brother had built an entire false arrangement around a child because our mother made truth impossible.
“And me?”
Rachel looked at me.
“Anthony wanted to tell you.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“Your father asked him to wait.”
“For what?”
Rachel’s mouth tightened.
“He thought you’d confront your mother.”
“He was right.”
“He thought you’d confront him too.”
“Also right.”
“And there was already trouble at the docks.”
That changed tone.
“What trouble?”
She looked toward hallway.
Suddenly nervous.
“Rachel.”
“Anthony said your family had enough enemies without giving them another child to use.”
There it was.
Mafia logic.
Protection through secrecy.
The same poison in different bottle.
I looked at her.
“What happened before Anthony died?”
She went pale.
So there was more.
I had known.
“Rachel.”
“Three nights before he died, he came home around midnight.”
“His townhouse?”
“Yes.”
“He was furious.”
“About?”
“You.”
My chest tightened.
“What about me?”
“He said your ambush wasn’t random.”
Five years earlier.
Red Hook.
A route I had changed at the last minute.
An SUV boxed us near a warehouse entrance.
Shots.
My driver wounded.
I took one through side.
Surgery.
Eleven days hospitalized.
Anthony died while I was still recovering.
“What did he know?”
Rachel looked at me.
“He said somebody in the family gave your route away.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because he said he needed proof before you woke up.”
I felt cold.
“Then?”
“The next day, Anthony took Jamie to baseball.”
“After practice he gave him the glove.”
“He told him to keep it safe.”
“And the scorebook?”
“Same day.”
Rachel’s eyes filled.
“He came home that night and told me if anything happened to him, I was supposed to get Jamie away from Brooklyn.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him he was scaring me.”
“What did he say?”
Her voice broke.
“He said, ‘Good. Scared people survive longer than proud ones.’”
That sounded exactly like Anthony.
“Who was he afraid of?”
Rachel looked at me.
Then away.
“Your uncle.”
My stomach tightened.
“Victor?”
Victor Bellini.
My mother’s younger brother.
My father’s consigliere for eighteen years.
Then mine.
A man who had stood beside me at Anthony’s funeral.
“Why Victor?”
Rachel whispered:
“Because I heard them arguing in Anthony’s study.”
“When?”
“The night before Anthony died.”
“What did Victor say?”
She swallowed.
“He told Anthony, ‘Matteo should have stayed out of Red Hook.’”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“And Anthony?”
“He said, ‘When Matt gets out of that hospital, I’m telling him who sold the route.’”
I stood.
“What happened next?”
“Victor left.”
“Anthony followed an hour later.”
“Where?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“And then?”
Rachel looked at the floor.
“Anthony never came home.”
Silence.
My brother’s official death:
Single-car collision on the Belt Parkway.
Wet road.
Late night.
No witnesses.
I had been too medicated and too weak to question anything.
My mother told me he had been traveling upstate.
Then three days after discharge, she sat beside my bed and said Anthony was gone.
Rachel continued:
“Your mother came the next morning.”
I froze.
“What?”
“To Anthony’s townhouse.”
“Before I knew he was dead.”
My chest tightened.
“What did she say?”
Rachel’s face filled with old fear.
“She told me to take Jamie and disappear.”
“Why?”
“She said Victor had already buried one Santoro son.”
My blood went cold.
May you like
Then Rachel looked directly at me.
“And she said if I wanted him to live long enough to become a man, I had to make sure nobody ever found out Jamie was another one.”
