Chapter 6 - THE MAN THEY LEFT ALIVE
~1,100 words
“My father.”
Isabella stared at the initials as if they could still change.
T.C.
Thomas Crane.
Adrian looked at her.
“Why would Thomas take something Nicholas left for me?”
“I don’t know.”
Vittorio did.
We all saw it.
Adrian turned toward him.
“Tell us.”
Vittorio rubbed a hand over his face.
“Thomas believed Nicholas was dead.”
The room became completely still.
“You said he walked out of Lake Street.”
“He did.”
“Then why would Thomas think he was dead by eight the next morning?”
Vittorio didn’t answer.
Adrian slammed his palm against the table.
“Enough.”
The sound made all of us jump.
“You have spent fourteen years deciding how much truth everyone else was allowed to survive.”
His voice shook now.
“I’m done asking twice.”
Vittorio looked at him.
For the first time, the older man seemed smaller than his nephew.
“Thomas and I followed Nicholas.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“To where?” Adrian demanded.
“East.”
“How far?”
“Indiana.”
My stomach dropped.
Vittorio continued.
“Nicholas was hurt from the fight.”
“You said he walked out.”
“He did.”
“That doesn’t mean he was fine.”
“No.”
Vittorio looked toward Thomas’s pocket watch.
“Thomas wanted to take him to a hospital.”
“And you?”
“I wanted the red book.”
Of course.
Always the book.
The proof.
The thing more important than the injured man carrying it.
“We caught up with Nicholas near the Skyway.”
Adrian’s face went pale.
“He still had the book?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He wouldn’t give it to me.”
Vittorio paused.
“I grabbed him.”
“You fought again?”
“Yes.”
“Nicholas fell?”
Vittorio’s eyes lowered.
“He was already weak. He collapsed.”
Adrian whispered, “And then?”
Silence.
Isabella spoke.
“My father tried to help him.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Thomas got on his knees in the snow and begged me to let him take Nicholas to a hospital.”
Her face crumpled.
“What did you do?”
Vittorio didn’t answer.
She stepped closer.
“What did you do?”
“I told him no.”
That one word changed the room.
Adrian sat down slowly.
Marco looked toward the floor.
Even I forgot how to breathe.
“You left him there,” Adrian said.
“I thought he was unconscious.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I thought he would wake up.”
“That isn’t an answer either.”
Vittorio’s voice rose for the first time.
“I was trying to protect all of us!”
“From a dying man?”
“From what he carried.”
“There it is.”
Adrian stood again.
“The truth.”
Vittorio looked furious.
“You think the DeLuca name you inherited came from clean hands?”
“No.”
“I protected your father.”
“You protected yourself.”
Vittorio said nothing.
That silence answered.
Isabella gripped her father’s watch.
“What happened to the red book?”
“I took it.”
Adrian moved closer.
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Carlo.”
“And my brother?”
Vittorio looked away.
“Thomas and I drove away.”
Isabella slapped him.
The sound cracked through the library.
Nobody stopped her.
“You made my father leave him?”
Vittorio touched his cheek.
“Yes.”
“You threatened us if he didn’t?”
“Yes.”
She raised her hand again.
Adrian caught her wrist gently.
“Not for him.”
She looked at Adrian.
“For you.”
His voice softened.
“Don’t carry what he did.”
Isabella pulled away and cried silently.
I looked at Vittorio.
“How long was Nicholas alive?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
There was one way to find out.
The details were old, but not impossible.
A man abandoned near the Indiana side of the Chicago Skyway in December.
No wallet.
No ring.
Approximately twenty-eight.
Likely injured.
Marco began making calls to people who could search archived public records.
Not to bury them.
This time, to uncover them.
It took until almost three in the morning.
A faxed copy arrived from an old county medical file.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE.
Found December 18.
11:42 p.m.
I looked at the date.
“Twenty-four hours later?”
Vittorio shook his head.
“That can’t be right.”
Marco read closer.
The man had been found by a truck driver beside an access road.
Alive.
Barely.
He was taken to St. Catherine’s Hospital.
He died at 1:07 a.m.
Adrian gripped the paper so tightly it tore at one corner.
Description:
White male.
Late twenties.
Dark hair.
Six foot one.
Old surgical repair left shoulder.
Adrian’s knees almost buckled.
“Nicholas broke his shoulder playing hockey at sixteen.”
Vittorio closed his eyes.
“No.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“He was alive.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You left him alive.”
Vittorio suddenly looked sick.
I believed that part.
He had spent fourteen years telling himself Nicholas was already dead because the alternative was harder to live with.
The autopsy summary was worse.
Internal bleeding.
Exposure.
Trauma consistent with a fall and repeated physical struggle.
Likely survival possible with earlier medical treatment.
Isabella sat down.
Her hand covered her mouth.
Adrian kept reading.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
I asked.
He pointed to the personal effects inventory.
The unidentified man had almost nothing.
A shirt.
Trousers.
One shoe.
A broken chain.
And one silver Saint Christopher medal.
Adrian closed his eyes.
“My mother gave Nicholas one when he turned thirteen.”
Vittorio whispered, “Adrian…”
“Don’t.”
That single word silenced him.
There was one final page.
Burial information.
The unidentified man had been placed in a municipal cemetery outside Gary.
Plot 317.
Fourteen years.
No name.
No family.
Adrian sat alone for a long moment.
Then I noticed another line in the file.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at me.
The truck driver hadn’t found Nicholas by accident.
Dispatch received an anonymous call at 11:31 p.m.
The caller gave the exact mile marker.
Isabella stood.
“My father.”
Vittorio shook his head.
“You don’t know that.”
She reached for the watch.
I understood before she spoke.
“Dad told me once he drove back.”
Vittorio stared at her.
“What?”
“He said there was one night he spent his entire life driving back toward.”
Tears ran down her face.
“He didn’t explain.”
She looked at the report.
“But if he called for help—”
“Then Thomas didn’t simply abandon Nicholas,” I said.
“He tried to save him after Vittorio was gone.”
Adrian looked at Vittorio.
“Did Thomas leave you that night?”
Vittorio seemed to search his memory.
“After we returned to Chicago.”
“What time?”
“Ten thirty. Maybe eleven.”
The anonymous call came at 11:31.
Isabella whispered,
“He went back.”
Adrian nodded.
“But too late.”
That should have been the worst thing we learned.
It wasn’t.
Marco turned the medical report over.
A handwritten note had been stapled to the back.
FOUND IN COAT POCKET AFTER TRANSFER.
He read it aloud.
One folded paper bearing name: Adrian DeLuca.
Adrian’s eyes lifted.
“What paper?”
Marco scanned the property record.
Then his face changed.
“Transferred to Chicago Police liaison at family request.”
Adrian stared at Vittorio.
“Family request?”
Vittorio looked genuinely confused.
“I never knew about a note.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“Then someone else did.”
He looked toward his father’s old study.
May you like
“Which means Carlo knew Nicholas was found.”
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