Chapter 4 - PIER 16
Nobody reached for the bracelet.
It lay between Roman and Lily like a line neither knew how to cross.
Lily spoke first.
“My mom told me my father died before I was born.”
Anthony’s voice softened.
“He did.”
Roman turned sharply.
“You knew?”
“I knew enough.”
“How long?”
“Since the beginning.”
Roman’s face went blank again.
That terrible controlled blankness.
“Seventeen years.”
Anthony exhaled.
“Roman—”
“Seventeen years you let me raise my sister’s daughter without telling me who her father was.”
“It kept her safe.”
Lily bent down and picked up the bracelet herself.
Roman immediately looked ashamed.
That affected me more than anything else.
Here were two powerful men arguing about protecting her while the girl at the center of it had to pick up her own broken world from the floor.
I walked to Lily.
“Come sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
She looked at me.
“Neither do you.”
Fair.
We sat near the oven.
Roman stayed standing.
“What happened at Pier 16?” he asked.
Anthony rubbed a hand across his jaw.
“Luca Bellucci and Elena were going to leave Chicago.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
“My brother Carlo found out,” Anthony continued. “He believed the Belluccis had used Luca to get close to Elena.”
“Had they?” Roman asked.
“No.”
That answer came from Sophia.
Everyone turned toward her.
She stared at Lily.
“They loved each other.”
Lily looked almost angry.
“You knew my dad?”
“Yes.”
“What was he like?”
Sophia’s voice cracked.
“Too charming. Too stubborn. Terrible taste in shirts.”
Lily’s lower lip trembled.
Sophia smiled sadly.
“He made your mother laugh.”
That broke something.
Not dramatically.
Lily simply lowered her head.
I put a napkin beside her.
She wiped her eyes once.
Roman watched helplessly.
Then his attention returned to Anthony.
“What was Thomas’s role?”
“He drove Elena to the docks,” Anthony said. “Luca was supposed to meet her there.”
“And then?”
“Carlo’s men arrived first.”
“Because you told him.”
Anthony looked at him.
“Yes.”
Roman stepped closer.
“You betrayed her.”
“I stopped a war.”
“You betrayed my sister.”
“I was twenty-seven years old and Carlo told me if Elena disappeared with a Bellucci, every alliance we had would fracture by morning.”
Anthony’s composure finally slipped.
“You remember those years. The unions were split. The Marinos wanted Cicero. Bellucci trucks were moving south. One bad week and half the city could have gone up.”
Nobody argued.
Because apparently that part was true.
Anthony looked at Lily.
“I believed bringing Elena home was better than letting men on both sides decide what her pregnancy meant.”
Lily’s voice was quiet.
“So you saved me?”
Anthony looked pained.
“I thought I did.”
“And my mom hated you.”
“Yes.”
That honesty silenced us.
Roman lifted the photograph.
“Why frame Thomas?”
Anthony’s expression changed.
“I didn’t.”
Roman laughed once.
Cold.
“Try again.”
“Carlo did.”
Sophia stood.
“Anthony.”
“It’s time.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“No. Apparently nobody should’ve been deciding anything seventeen years ago.”
Anthony looked at me.
“Your father didn’t sell routes.”
I already knew that in my bones.
Still, hearing it nearly knocked the breath from me.
“Carlo needed a reason to explain why Elena had been at Pier 16 with a Duca driver. Thomas was convenient.”
Roman stared at him.
“You let me believe it.”
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me when I ordered suppliers to stop doing business with him.”
My chest tightened.
So that was why my father had struggled his first years.
Why sacks of flour disappeared from promised deliveries.
Why vendors suddenly required cash.
I remembered nights when he thought I was asleep.
I remembered him counting bills at the kitchen table.
Roman looked at me.
Whatever he saw in my face made him stop.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“You didn’t ask.”
He didn’t defend himself.
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
Enzo cleared his throat.
“There’s someone else.”
Roman turned.
“A man named Frank Delaney. He ran night crews at Pier 16.”
Anthony’s eyes sharpened.
“He’s retired.”
“He’s alive,” Enzo replied. “And he called me after Elena’s funeral.”
Roman looked at him.
“You never told me.”
“He refused to speak unless Anthony was present.”
Anthony stared.
“Why?”
Enzo buttoned his coat.
“I think we should ask him.”
Forty minutes later, I was in Roman Duca’s sedan despite repeatedly explaining that riding with Mafia bosses was not part of my Thursday schedule.
Lily refused to stay behind.
Roman refused to leave her alone.
Sophia came because none of the men trusted her not to follow.
We ended up at an old union hall near the river.
Frank Delaney was seventy-three and built like someone who had spent most of his life lifting things heavier than he should.
He looked at Roman.
Then Anthony.
Then me.
“You’re Tommy Bennett’s girl.”
I hated how many strangers knew that before I knew them.
“Clare.”
He nodded.
“Your old man saved a lot of people grief.”
Roman spoke.
“What happened at Pier 16?”
Frank leaned back.
“Your sister showed up crying but mad enough to spit fire. Bennett was driving.”
Anthony looked away.
“Luca Bellucci never arrived.”
“Why?”
Frank’s gaze settled on Anthony.
“Because somebody sent him to Pier 9.”
Anthony frowned.
“I didn’t.”
“I know.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Who did?”
Frank stood and walked to an old metal locker.
He opened it and removed a red shipping tag.
The paper was faded.
Stamped with the Duca crest.
A handwritten number remained visible.
9.
“Carlo changed the meeting point,” Frank said.
Sophia whispered, “Why?”
“To separate them.”
Frank returned to the table.
“Then he sent Thomas away with Elena before Bellucci men realized what happened.”
Roman stared at him.
“My father protected them?”
“For about six hours.”
Anthony’s face changed.
Frank continued.
“Then Carlo panicked. Bellucci people started asking questions. He needed the story buried.”
I swallowed.
“So he blamed my father.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Thomas tell anyone?”
Frank looked at me with something close to pity.
“Because Carlo made him a promise.”
“What promise?”
Frank reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a small black-and-white photograph.
A newborn wrapped in a hospital blanket.
Elena held the baby.
My father stood beside her.
And beside my father stood Carlo Duca.
Roman’s father.
On the back were six words in my father’s handwriting.
THE GIRL LIVES IF I LEAVE.
Lily took the photograph.
“That’s me.”
Frank nodded.
“Thomas agreed to carry the blame if Carlo kept the truth about you out of the streets.”
Roman went pale.
Anthony sat down.
For seventeen years, both men had thought they knew what Thomas Bennett had done.
They had both been wrong.
Then Frank looked at Roman.
“There’s something else.”
Roman’s eyes lifted.
“Your father didn’t keep the deal.”
The room tightened.
“What do you mean?”
Frank tapped the red shipping tag.
“Three months after Lily was born, Carlo sent a man to find Thomas.”
“Why?”
Frank looked at Clare.
“Because Carlo learned Thomas had kept proof of what really happened.”
Roman’s voice dropped.
“Who did he send?”
Frank looked straight at Anthony.
May you like
“Your father sent you.”
And every eye in the union hall turned toward him.
