Chapter 4 - ARTHUR’S SECOND MASTER
Arthur smiled into the phone.
Not kindly.
Not nervously.
The expression belonged to a man I had underestimated because he carried trays instead of guns.
“Hello, Emilia.”
Dante’s face became cold.
“Arthur.”
The butler looked past the camera.
“Toby is alive.”
My brother lifted his head.
His left eye was swollen.
His lip was split.
But he looked at me.
“Emmy.”
My knees almost failed.
“Toby.”
“I’m sorry.”
That was the first thing he said.
Of course it was.
I hated him for apologizing before explaining.
I loved him because he was alive.
Arthur continued:
“You have twenty minutes before Kowalski moves him.”
“Where are you?” Dante asked.
Arthur ignored him.
“Emilia, listen carefully.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“My brother first.”
“He is not being hurt while I’m here.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Something like approval touched his face.
Good.
I had no use for it.
“Why are you with them?”
“Because Isabella asked me to be.”
Silence.
Dante stared.
“What?”
Arthur’s smile disappeared.
“Three weeks before she died, Mrs. Moretti gave me instructions.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“You worked for me.”
“I worked for your house.”
“That is the same thing.”
“No.”
Arthur looked at him.
“That belief is why she did not trust you with the blue box.”
The words hit.
Dante did not move.
Vittorio said quietly:
“Arthur.”
The old butler’s eyes sharpened.
“You should not be in that room, Mr. Vittorio.”
Vittorio went still.
“Why?”
“Because this ends with you answering questions.”
My skin prickled.
Dante looked at his father.
Then back at the screen.
“What did Isabella ask you to do?”
“Keep the twins alive. Keep the blue box away from all Moretti men until one of two things happened.”
“What things?”
“One: the girls turned eighteen.”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“Or?”
“Lucia Russo’s blood returned to the house.”
Every eye turned toward me.
I laughed once.
“That sounds insane.”
“Yes,” Arthur said.
“Good.”
“But Isabella believed Lucia’s family carried the only copy of the cipher pattern not compromised by Moretti or Conti.”
I thought of the lullaby.
My grandmother humming it while washing dishes.
Toby and I making fun of the strange pause in the middle.
Something ordinary hiding a key.
“What does Toby have to do with this?”
Arthur looked toward him.
“Your brother found Lucia’s storage records.”
Toby closed his eyes.
I stared.
“You knew?”
He nodded.
“How long?”
“Three months.”
The debt timeline.
My anger climbed.
“You let me think you gambled away forty thousand dollars.”
“I did gamble.”
“Of course.”
“Not all of it.”
“Wonderful distinction.”
Arthur interrupted.
“Toby found a box of Lucia’s papers in a storage auction listing.”
“How?”
Toby looked ashamed.
“After Grandma died, I kept checking old addresses.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom said Grandma left something for us.”
I froze.
Our mother.
Dead two years.
Cancer.
Before she died, she had once told me:
Your grandmother carried a family before she carried us.
I thought she meant hardship.
Maybe she meant secrets.
Toby continued.
“A storage company sent a delinquency notice to Grandma’s old apartment. I found it after Mom died.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were working double shifts and paying Mom’s bills.”
“So?”
“So I wanted to do one thing without making it your problem.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You borrowed forty thousand dollars from criminals.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent independence.”
His face broke.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked away.
Arthur said:
“The storage unit contained Lucia’s journals. No blue box.”
“Then why did Kowalski want Toby?”
“Because they believed he found it.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
Toby shook his head.
“I found a key.”
My pulse jumped.
“What key?”
“A small brass one inside Grandma’s Bible.”
Everything in these families apparently lived behind false bottoms.
“Where is it?”
Toby looked at Arthur.
Arthur reached into his vest.
Held up a tiny brass key.
Dante’s hand moved toward his gun.
Arthur laughed.
“Do you plan to shoot the phone?”
Dante stopped.
Good.
Arthur continued:
“The key opens the blue box.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Isabella showed me.”
My stomach tightened.
“So you knew where the box was.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Arthur looked toward the twins’ nursery through the memory of another room.
“With the children.”
Dante stepped closer to the screen.
“We searched every inch.”
“No.”
Arthur’s voice softened.
“You searched as adults.”
That sentence bothered me.
Children hide things differently.
Not safes.
Not vents.
Inside toys.
Under beds.
Places with emotional meaning.
“Where did Isabella hide it?” I asked.
Arthur shook his head.
“She did not tell me.”
“But you think the girls know.”
“Yes.”
“Then why scare them for three years?”
His face tightened.
“I did not.”
Dante’s voice became lethal.
“My daughters pointed to your coat.”
Arthur looked at him.
“They pointed to a black coat.”
“You wear one.”
“So does every man your father employs.”
Vittorio said:
“Enough.”
Arthur’s eyes moved to him.
“No.”
The word carried decades.
“You taught this family that servants survive by stopping when a Moretti says enough.”
Vittorio’s face hardened.
Arthur continued.
“Isabella died because too many people stopped.”
Silence.
I felt Dante absorb that.
Arthur looked at me.
“You have the key now if I survive long enough to deliver it.”
“If?”
“Kowalski thinks I’m helping them.”
“You are on their video.”
“I am in their building.”
“Where?”
“Bridgeport.”
Dante immediately looked at Luca.
His brother was already on the phone tracing.
Arthur continued:
“I came because Toby would have been dead yesterday if someone inside had not convinced them the box was worth more than his body.”
“You saved him.”
“For now.”
“Why not call Dante?”
Arthur almost laughed.
“Because one of Dante’s secure lines reports to the man who killed Isabella.”
The room went cold.
Dante’s face emptied.
“Name.”
“No.”
“Arthur.”
“I do not have proof.”
“Name.”
“That is how you lost her.”
Dante stopped.
Arthur’s voice changed.
“She would tell you a suspicion. You would send men. Men would report back. The suspected person would know.”
Dante looked down.
No defense.
Arthur continued.
“We do this her way.”
“What does that mean?”
“Listen to the girls.”
My pulse shifted.
“What do they know?”
“Enough.”
“About the bombing?”
“Yes.”
“Who killed their mother?”
Arthur’s face tightened.
“They saw who switched the car.”
Silence.
Dante stared.
“What?”
“The vehicle that exploded was not supposed to carry Isabella.”
Vittorio stepped forward.
Arthur’s eyes sharpened.
“You know that.”
Dante turned toward his father.
Vittorio’s face became stone.
I whispered:
“What car was she supposed to use?”
No one answered.
Arthur did.
“Black armored sedan.”
“And the red car?”
“A decoy.”
Dante frowned.
“Isabella’s car was black.”
Arthur nodded.
“The girls remember red because a red service vehicle blocked the garage while the cars were switched.”
The memory fragment.
Red car comes.
Mommy sings.
Boom.
Dante looked at Vittorio.
“Who controlled the garage?”
Vittorio said nothing.
“Father.”
“Security.”
“Which security?”
His silence answered.
Moretti family security.
Dante’s own.
Arthur continued:
“Isabella noticed the plate change after leaving the garage.”
“How do you know?”
“She called me.”
Dante’s head snapped toward screen.
“She called you.”
“Yes.”
“Not me.”
“You were in a meeting with your father.”
Dante went still.
Vittorio looked away.
Arthur continued:
“She told me she thought the car had been switched. I told her to pull over.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Because she saw another vehicle following.”
“The red one?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Black SUV.”
Dante’s face changed.
“Whose?”
Arthur whispered:
“Moretti plates.”
Silence.
Vittorio said:
“This is nonsense.”
Arthur laughed.
“Then why did you have the garage footage erased?”
Dante turned slowly.
Vittorio’s face hardened.
“I did not.”
“Your authorization code.”
“Codes can be copied.”
“True.”
Dante looked between them.
He wanted certainty.
He had none.
I understood that feeling.
Arthur said:
“Emilia.”
“What?”
“Go back to the penthouse.”
“We’re coming to Toby.”
“No.”
“I am tired of that word.”
“If Dante sends men here now, Kowalski moves Toby or kills him.”
“So we wait?”
“You find the blue box.”
“And then?”
“You decode the letter inside.”
“How do you know there is a letter?”
“Because Isabella put one there for Lucia’s family.”
My throat tightened.
“For my grandmother?”
“No.”
Arthur looked directly at me.
“For you.”
I stopped breathing.
“That is impossible.”
“She wrote it three years ago.”
“She did not know me.”
“She knew your name.”
No one moved.
I stared at the screen.
“How?”
“Lucia kept track of Maria’s descendants. Maria kept track of Lucia’s.”
Dante looked at me.
I could not look back.
Arthur continued:
“Isabella found you two months before she died.”
My skin went cold.
“Found me where?”
“Working at a diner in Rogers Park.”
I remembered a woman.
Dark hair.
Elegant coat.
Came in three times.
Ordered coffee.
Watched me.
Never spoke beyond thank you.
No.
My stomach turned.
“Did she come see me?”
Arthur nodded.
“She could not decide whether bringing you into Moretti danger was worse than leaving you outside it.”
My breath caught.
Dante whispered:
“She knew Emilia.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“Yes.”
Pain crossed his face.
Again.
Another secret from the woman he loved.
Arthur said:
“She was preparing to.”
The video suddenly jerked.
Someone shouted off-screen.
Arthur looked toward the door.
“Toby.”
My brother’s eyes widened.
Arthur shoved the brass key into Toby’s hand.
Then the feed shook.
A man yelled:
“What the hell are you doing?”
Arthur looked at camera one last time.
“Find the blue box.”
The screen went black.
I shouted his name.
Nothing.
Toby’s number disconnected.
Dante was already moving.
“Luca.”
“Trace locked. Thirty-fifth near Morgan.”
“Men?”
“Federal or ours?”
Dante froze.
That question mattered.
Old instinct against new reality.
I looked at him.
“My brother is in there.”
“I know.”
“If you send your men and shooting starts—”
“I know.”
He clenched his jaw.
Then called Chicago police organized crime task force through an attorney contact.
Not his soldiers.
Not a private war.
Vittorio stared at him.
“You are involving police over Kowalski.”
Dante looked at his father.
“Yes.”
“You have lost your mind.”
“No.”
His eyes went cold.
“I lost my wife.”
Silence.
He continued.
“I’m not losing more people because men in this family are afraid of witnesses.”
Vittorio’s face changed.
Not pride.
Fear.
I saw it.
So did Dante.
He stepped closer.
“What are you afraid they will find, Father?”
Vittorio did not answer.
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Then at us.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice said one sentence loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Bring Lucia’s granddaughter to St. Gabriel’s by midnight.”
My blood went cold.
Then:
“Or we send the twins their uncle one piece at a time.”
Dante looked at me.
“Uncle?”
Luca stared.
Not Toby.
Not Arthur.
Someone else.
May you like
The caller laughed.
“Ask Vittorio which brother never made it out of Sicily.”
