Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER WHO WAS ERASED
Dante did not move.
I thought I had misunderstood.
Everyone knew the basic Marino family tree.
Enzo Marino.
His wife Teresa.
One son.
Dante.
No siblings.
No exceptions.
Dante’s voice was barely audible.
“What did you say?”
Luca looked miserable.
“Your mother had another son.”
Dante laughed once.
There was no humor in it this time.
“That’s not possible.”
“It is.”
“What was his name?”
“Anthony.”
Dante turned away.
The room felt suddenly too small for everyone inside it.
“When?”
“Before you.”
“How much before?”
“Six years.”
“And I never knew.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Luca sat again.
“Because Enzo erased him.”
The word landed hard.
Not lost.
Not died.
Erased.
Anthony Marino had been Enzo’s first son.
Born when Enzo was twenty-three.
By eighteen, Anthony wanted nothing to do with the family business.
He hated the warehouses.
The bookmaking rooms.
The favors owed to union officials.
The men who appeared at the house at midnight and left without shaking hands.
Anthony wanted to study architecture.
He wanted to leave Chicago.
Enzo considered that betrayal.
“They fought constantly,” Luca said.
Dante stared toward the rain.
“Where was my mother?”
“Trying to keep peace.”
It did not work.
At twenty, Anthony disappeared from the family home.
Enzo told everyone his son had chosen strangers over blood.
Within a year, Anthony’s photographs were removed.
His name stopped being spoken.
Then Dante was born.
“A replacement,” Dante said.
Luca shook his head.
“Your mother never saw you that way.”
“My father?”
Luca did not answer.
That was answer enough.
“What does Anthony have to do with Clara?”
Luca rubbed his forehead.
“Years later he came back.”
“When?”
“Ten years ago.”
One year before Clara’s death.
“He wanted something?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Your mother was sick.”
Dante’s expression shifted.
Teresa Marino died ten years ago after a long battle with cancer.
“He came to see her?”
“Yes.”
“Did I see him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Enzo wouldn’t allow it.”
Dante’s mouth hardened.
“What happened?”
“Clara found out.”
Of course she did.
Clara had apparently spent the final year of her life discovering every secret the Marino family had buried.
“She contacted Anthony,” Luca continued.
“Why?”
“She thought you deserved to know him.”
Dante looked at the framed wedding photograph on his shelf.
“Clara knew I had a brother and said nothing.”
“She intended to tell you.”
“When?”
Luca’s eyes dropped.
“After she figured out why Anthony was afraid to come back.”
Dante turned.
“Afraid of whom?”
“That’s where Matthew Davis came in.”
My father.
I hated how naturally his name now belonged inside their secrets.
Luca explained.
Matthew had been working trucking routes that crossed several Marino-controlled warehouses.
He noticed unusual nighttime transfers.
Crates moved without manifests.
Drivers paid cash.
Routes that bypassed normal crews.
Anthony had been tracking the same thing.
Not because he wanted back into the family.
Because the shipments were moving through property still legally connected to him.
Dante frowned.
“What property?”
“Lake Street.”
I knew that warehouse.
Everyone did.
It was one of the Marino organization’s oldest holdings.
A massive brick structure near the river.
Now used for restaurant supply distribution and legitimate freight storage.
“Anthony owned part of it?”
“Your mother put twenty percent in his name when he turned eighteen.”
Dante’s face changed.
“Does he still?”
Luca nodded.
“If he’s alive.”
Dante turned.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“You told me he may know where Matthew is.”
“He did ten years ago.”
Dante stared at him.
“You people have spent my entire life giving me half a sentence.”
Luca accepted that.
“Yes.”
Dante looked at me.
“Find every record connected to Lake Street.”
“That could take days.”
“Start with Bellweather.”
I returned to my desk.
For the next four hours, I worked through archived payment records, insurance logs, warehouse schedules, trucking invoices, and union reimbursement accounts.
Dante stayed in his office.
Nobody entered.
Nobody joked.
Nobody even ordered lunch.
At 7:12 p.m., I found something.
Bellweather Transport had no trucks.
But it did lease one storage unit.
Not in Chicago.
In Rockford.
The lease had been renewed every year.
The contact person was listed only as M. Davis.
My heart started pounding.
I printed the page.
Then another detail appeared.
Emergency contact.
A. Marino.
Anthony.
I carried the page into Dante’s office.
He read it.
“Rockford.”
“Yes.”
“When was the lease renewed?”
“Three months ago.”
His eyes lifted.
“So somebody is alive.”
“Or somebody has been maintaining it.”
He stood.
“We’re going.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“I have payroll at eight tomorrow.”
He looked at me.
“You are not coming.”
I stared.
“You just said ‘we.’”
“I meant my men.”
“No.”
He actually looked confused.
“My father’s name is on that lease.”
“That doesn’t make you useful in a warehouse.”
“It makes me extremely interested.”
“Emily.”
“You can fire me.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That is not the threat you think it is.”
“Then stop using my full name like I’m seven.”
A small sound came from the doorway.
Tommy.
Trying not to laugh.
Dante looked at him.
Tommy immediately became fascinated by the wall.
Dante turned back to me.
“You stay behind me.”
“I usually do. You walk faster.”
We left twenty minutes later.
No sirens.
No dramatic convoy.
Just three black SUVs.
Dante.
Luca.
Tommy.
Two soldiers.
And me.
Rockford was ninety minutes away.
The storage facility sat behind an auto-parts warehouse.
Nothing about it looked important.
Unit 214.
Tommy broke the old padlock.
Dante opened the door.
Inside were shelves.
Boxes.
A table.
A cot.
No person.
But someone had been there recently.
Coffee grounds in a trash can.
A half-full bottle of water.
A newspaper from three days earlier.
My hands started shaking.
I saw it before anyone else.
An old brown coat hanging from a nail.
The inside label had been sewn by hand.
M.D.
My father used to write his initials on everything.
Lunchboxes.
Tools.
Jackets.
Because when he was young, he had grown up with five brothers and apparently believed ownership depended on permanent marker.
I touched the sleeve.
“This was his.”
Dante looked at me.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
On the table sat a metal cashbox.
Inside were photographs.
Clara.
Anthony.
My father.
All three together.
One photograph was taken outside a diner.
Another near Lake Street warehouse.
Then I found one that made my throat close.
My father was holding Ethan.
My brother.
He could not have been older than six.
Which meant the photograph was taken after my father supposedly abandoned us.
I sat down.
“No.”
Dante picked up the picture.
“You said he left when Ethan was five.”
“He did.”
The back contained a date.
Six months later.
My father had come back.
He had seen Ethan.
Maybe more than once.
He just had not come home to me.
I wanted to hate him.
It would have been easier.
Then Tommy opened a second box.
Inside were medical receipts.
Residential care.
Neurology.
Physical therapy.
All paid by Bellweather Transport.
Every bill had Ethan’s name.
My stomach dropped.
I understood suddenly.
Eight thousand dollars a month.
The facility always claimed an anonymous foundation covered part of Ethan’s actual costs.
I had never questioned it.
I had been too grateful.
Dante looked at the receipts.
“Your father has been paying for your brother.”
“For nineteen years?”
“Maybe.”
A final envelope rested beneath them.
My name was written on the front.
EMILY.
I stared at it.
Dante did not touch it.
Neither did anyone else.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of me graduating college.
My father had been there.
Somewhere.
Watching.
Behind it were four handwritten words.
I COULDN’T COME HOME.
No explanation.
No apology.
Nothing else.
Then Tommy called from the back of the storage unit.
“Boss.”
We followed.
He had found a map.
Chicago.
Warehouse routes.
Trucking lines.
Union halls.
Red marks covered the South and West sides.
One red circle surrounded Lake Street.
Beside it was a name.
Not Rinaldi.
Not Marino.
Not Davis.
CARLO VITALE.
Dante stared.
Carlo.
One of his capos.
The man who had stood in his office that morning.
May you like
Under Carlo’s name, my father had written one sentence.
CLARA WAS RIGHT. CARLO KNEW ABOUT THE BOMB.
