Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER ADRIAN THOUGHT HE KNEW
~1,100 words
“Because Nicholas believed one of us might not leave that depot alive.”
Adrian stared at his uncle.
“And you let me believe he ran.”
Vittorio’s face hardened.
“Your father made that decision.”
That was the first time Adrian looked afraid.
Not of Vittorio.
Of a dead man.
Carlo DeLuca had died seven years earlier.
Half the men in Chicago criminal circles still lowered their voices when they said his name.
Adrian had spent his adult life living beneath it.
“What did my father know?”
“Enough.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means Nicholas planned to destroy everything Carlo built.”
“Maybe it deserved to be destroyed.”
Vittorio laughed once.
Bitterly.
“You say that now.”
Adrian took a step toward him.
“What did Carlo know?”
Vittorio remained silent.
Isabella picked up her father’s watch.
“My father was involved too.”
“No.”
Vittorio’s answer came immediately.
She looked at him.
“No?”
“Thomas was weak.”
Her face tightened.
I saw Adrian react too.
Vittorio corrected himself.
“Not weak like a coward. Weak where his family was concerned.”
“That’s called loving people,” I said.
His eyes flicked toward me.
This time Adrian didn’t have to defend my right to speak.
Vittorio sighed.
“Thomas worked for Carlo. He knew what happened to people who betrayed the family.”
Isabella’s voice shook.
“Did you threaten us?”
Vittorio looked at her.
She understood before he answered.
“Oh my God.”
“I told Thomas to think about his wife. His daughters.”
“You threatened my mother?”
“I told him what was at stake.”
“That is a threat.”
“Yes.”
He finally said it without dressing it up.
Isabella looked sick.
For years she had believed her father might have hurt Nicholas.
Now we knew he had been trying to survive men who knew exactly which fear to use.
Adrian’s anger changed direction.
“After the fight, what happened?”
“Nicholas gave Thomas the ring and told him that if anything happened, he was to make sure you got it.”
“Why didn’t Thomas give it to me?”
Vittorio’s mouth tightened.
“Because I told him not to.”
“You had a gun?”
“No.”
Adrian looked almost disappointed.
“You didn’t need one.”
“No.”
Vittorio glanced at Isabella.
“I had his family.”
That honesty made me dislike him more.
And understand him better.
He didn’t think of himself as cruel.
He thought fear was a tool.
That was more dangerous.
Adrian walked away and stood before the dark windows.
“What did Nicholas say to me through Thomas?”
Vittorio hesitated.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He didn’t have time.”
“But he gave Thomas the ring.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Vittorio’s silence told us there was more.
Isabella went into her bag again.
This time she removed a small folded piece of paper.
Adrian turned.
“What is that?”
“My father’s handwriting.”
“You had more?”
“Yes.”
His expression became wounded again.
She looked close to tears.
“I didn’t know how to show you.”
She handed him the paper.
It wasn’t a confession.
It was three lines.
N. gave me the ring.
Red book still with him.
V says Adrian must never know.
Adrian read it twice.
Then looked at Vittorio.
“Why?”
Vittorio’s answer was almost gentle.
“Because Nicholas loved you.”
Nobody expected that.
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“What does that have to do with hiding it?”
“Nicholas believed the red book would bring down your father.”
“So?”
“And you.”
Adrian turned.
“Why me?”
“You had just taken over three companies that Carlo used.”
“For legitimate operations.”
“Nicholas didn’t know what prosecutors would believe.”
Vittorio rubbed his temples.
“He thought if he disappeared quietly, he might still get the book to authorities without dragging you into it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It made sense to a twenty-eight-year-old who thought he could control what happened after betraying Carlo DeLuca.”
A long silence followed.
Then I asked the question nobody else had.
“If Nicholas wanted Adrian protected, why disappear without telling him anything?”
Vittorio looked at me.
“He didn’t intend to disappear.”
That stopped everyone.
Adrian turned slowly.
“What?”
Vittorio stared at the cufflink.
“He planned to meet Adrian the next morning.”
“Where?”
“Union Station.”
Isabella suddenly looked toward the old photograph from her bag.
Nicholas.
Adrian.
Thomas.
A car.
She grabbed it.
“My father kept this beside something else.”
She turned the photograph over.
Nothing.
Then she peeled the old cardboard backing away from the frame insert.
A narrow paper ticket slipped out.
Union Station baggage claim.
Locker 214.
Dated the morning after Nicholas disappeared.
Adrian stared.
“He left something there.”
“Probably the red book,” Marco said.
Vittorio shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Thomas went to the locker.”
Isabella’s voice sharpened.
“When?”
“The morning after Lake Street.”
“What was inside?”
Vittorio looked away.
“A coat.”
Adrian frowned.
“Nicholas’s?”
“Yes.”
“And the book?”
“Gone.”
“Anything else?”
Vittorio said nothing.
Isabella stepped forward.
“What did my father find?”
Vittorio’s voice lowered.
“A train ticket to Cleveland.”
I felt a chill.
“Cleveland?”
He nodded.
“Nicholas had been there before. To Samuel Bennett.”
My father.
Adrian looked at me.
“Why would my brother go back to your father?”
I stared at the gold band.
At Dad’s ledger.
At the note Nicholas had left about the ring.
Then I remembered something from my childhood.
My father kept photographs of expensive restoration jobs.
Not for customers.
For insurance.
“Dad had a camera.”
I looked toward my storage boxes.
“I haven’t checked the photo albums.”
Twenty minutes later, I found it.
A Polaroid taped inside the back cover of an old repair book.
Nicholas DeLuca stood inside Bennett & Son Jewelers.
My father was reflected faintly in the display glass.
Nicholas was smiling.
On his wrist was a steel watch.
In his hand was the signet ring.
But it wasn’t the photograph that made Adrian sit down.
It was what my father had written beneath it.
Customer returned privately.
Asked me to hold sealed envelope for his brother Adrian until December 18.
I stared at the date.
“That was the morning after Nicholas disappeared.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Where’s the envelope?”
I turned the page.
My father had added one more note.
Envelope collected December 18, 8:12 a.m.
Not by Nicholas.
Not by Adrian.
My breath caught.
Adrian stepped closer.
“Who took it?”
Dad had written only two initials.
T.C.
Isabella whispered,
May you like
“My father.”
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