Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO KNEW ABOUT THE BEAR
Nobody moved for three seconds.
Then the house changed shape around Dominic.
It happened without shouting.
That was Frank Mercer’s specialty.
Two men disappeared toward the front entrance. Another locked the interior doors leading toward the family wing. The security monitors came alive. The cook was told to keep the kitchen staff downstairs. Teresa took Lucy by the hand and tried to lead her toward the breakfast room.
Lucy resisted.
“I need Benny’s stuffing.”
“I’ll bring it,” Marisol said.
“No, you’ll stay here,” Dominic replied.
Marisol looked at him.
“I’m not leaving my daughter alone.”
“She won’t be alone.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Frank glanced between them.
Dominic recognized that expression. Frank was wondering whether Marisol had any idea how few people spoke to Dominic like that and remained employed.
Dominic ignored him.
“Fine. Teresa keeps Lucy in the library. You go with her. Door stays closed until I say otherwise.”
Marisol’s chin lifted. “And you?”
“I’m going to ask an old family friend why he knows about your daughter’s toy.”
“You don’t know that he does.”
Dominic held up the photograph.
“Your face says he does.”
Marisol stared at him, then looked away.
He understood something in that movement. Marisol had not come to work for him by accident.
Not completely.
That knowledge should have made him angry.
Instead it made him careful.
“Library,” he repeated.
She took Lucy’s hand.
Lucy looked back at Dominic.
“Can Benny come?”
“Yes.”
“Even though his guts fell out?”
Frank closed his eyes.
“Yes, Lucy.”
She nodded solemnly and carried the limp bear away.
Dominic watched until the library door shut.
Then he went to meet Anthony Bellini.
The old man waited in the formal parlor beneath a portrait of Dominic’s grandfather. He looked nearly the same as he had at Salvatore Caruso’s funeral: silver hair combed straight back, shoulders narrow but erect, cane resting between both hands.
He did not rise when Dominic entered.
“Your father would hate what you’ve done with the place,” Anthony said.
Dominic remained standing.
“My father hated anything he didn’t control.”
Anthony smiled faintly.
“True.”
Frank closed the doors behind them.
Vincent and two others stayed outside.
Dominic put the brass key on the coffee table.
Anthony’s smile disappeared.
That was enough.
“You recognize it,” Dominic said.
Anthony looked at him. “I recognize many things.”
“Try that one.”
The old man’s eyes dropped to the key again.
“Where did you find it?”
“In a teddy bear.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
Dominic placed the photograph beside the key.
For the first time, the old man looked genuinely shaken.
“Rosa,” he murmured.
Frank heard it.
Dominic did too.
“You knew she had this.”
“No.”
“You came to my gate forty minutes after it fell out of a toy.”
Anthony leaned back.
“Then perhaps I came for another reason.”
“At ten at night after nine years in Naples?”
Anthony studied him.
Dominic sat across from him.
“Let’s not insult each other. I’m too old for performance.”
“So am I.”
“Good. Who was Gabriel?”
Anthony looked toward the portrait over Dominic’s shoulder.
“Your uncle.”
“That’s genealogy, not an answer.”
“He was your father’s younger brother.”
“I know.”
“He was impulsive.”
“So was my father.”
“He was idealistic.”
“My father considered that a disease.”
Anthony’s eyes returned to him. “Sometimes idealism gets people killed.”
“And sometimes men who say that are the ones doing the killing.”
Silence.
Frank shifted slightly near the fireplace.
Dominic pushed the photograph across the table.
“My mother wrote that someone might erase Gabriel. Thirty years later, Rosa Vega hid this picture in a toy that belonged to me. Her daughter says Rosa was afraid of my father and someone else. Then you appear at my gate.”
Anthony’s hand tightened around the head of his cane.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth would be refreshing.”
The old man laughed once, without humor.
“Your family never paid people for truth, Dominic. It paid for loyalty.”
“That explains a lot.”
Anthony looked down.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed.
“Gabriel did not betray your father.”
The sentence entered the room softly.
Dominic felt nothing at first.
Then heat moved up the back of his neck.
“My father said Gabriel stole from the family.”
“He did not.”
“He said Gabriel gave names to federal agents.”
“He did not.”
“He said Gabriel disappeared because he was a coward.”
Anthony closed his eyes.
“He disappeared because your father ordered him to disappear.”
Frank stared.
Dominic sat perfectly still.
“Explain.”
Anthony took a breath.
“In 1989, Salvatore was buying waterfront property through three shell companies. Your grandfather had forbidden it. Too exposed. Too much attention. Gabriel discovered Salvatore had been moving money from a family trust to finance the purchases.”
“What trust?”
“A fund established by your grandmother for the children of Caruso employees killed on the job.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
His father had done cruel things. Dominic had known that.
Stealing from dead men’s children felt different.
“Gabriel confronted him,” Anthony continued. “He threatened to tell your grandfather.”
“And?”
“Salvatore struck first. He created records making it look as though Gabriel had moved the money. Then he convinced your grandfather that Gabriel intended to cooperate with prosecutors.”
Dominic glanced at the key.
“Where does my mother fit?”
“She found out.”
“How?”
“Your mother handled charitable accounts in those years. Quietly. Nobody gave her credit because your father preferred people to think wives chose curtains and menus.”
Dominic almost heard Alessandra’s voice correcting his posture at dinner, then balancing an entire household budget at midnight.
“She found duplicate transfers,” Anthony said. “She went to Rosa because Rosa’s husband worked maintenance at the old Lakeside storage building.”
“Number 214,” Dominic said.
Anthony nodded.
The key suddenly weighed a hundred pounds.
“What’s in 214?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic gave him a look.
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Start making it a habit.”
Anthony’s mouth tightened.
“Your mother intended to preserve proof. She believed Salvatore would eventually destroy every paper inside the house.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Gabriel?”
Anthony’s eyes became distant.
“He left Chicago.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“Anthony.”
“I don’t know because I was not told.”
“You were my father’s closest adviser.”
“That is why I was not told.”
Dominic stared.
Anthony looked at the photograph.
“I helped him frame Gabriel.”
Frank’s hand flexed at his side.
Dominic’s voice flattened.
“You did what?”
“I signed documents I knew were false.”
“Why?”
“Because your father had enough on me to put me in prison for twenty years.”
“So you sacrificed Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was uglier than an excuse.
Dominic rose.
Frank shifted closer.
Anthony did not move.
“You came here to confess?” Dominic asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Anthony’s gaze moved toward the hallway.
“Because this afternoon, someone asked me whether Rosa Vega was still alive.”
Dominic went still.
“Who?”
“Victor Caruso.”
The room changed.
Victor was Dominic’s cousin. Salvatore’s sister’s son. Family in the way old dynasties defined family: blood first, trust later, never fully.
He sat on the board of two legitimate Caruso companies and controlled half the union relationships at the waterfront.
Dominic had known him all his life.
“Why would Victor ask about Rosa?”
Anthony looked at the key.
“Because someone knows your mother’s records survived.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know enough to fly from Italy.”
“I was already in New York.”
“For what?”
Anthony hesitated.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“Say it.”
“A funeral.”
“Whose?”
Anthony looked directly at him.
“Gabriel’s.”
Dominic forgot how to breathe.
Frank whispered, “Jesus.”
The old man reached inside his coat slowly.
Frank’s hand went toward his jacket.
Anthony stopped.
“An envelope,” he said.
Dominic nodded once.
Anthony removed a cream envelope and placed it on the table.
Across the front, written in shaky blue ink, were two words.
For Dominic.
Dominic recognized the handwriting from old birthday cards preserved in his mother’s desk.
Gabriel.
His uncle had been alive all these years.
Alive while Dominic believed him a thief.
Alive while his father’s story hardened into family history.
Alive until four days ago.
Dominic opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Nico,
If you are reading this, then either Anthony finally grew a conscience or death made him afraid of meeting God with unfinished business.
Your mother was braver than any of us.
Rosa was braver too.
Trust the bear.
The first thing you find is not the most important thing.
And whatever you do, do not let Victor open locker 214 before you.
Your brother deserved better from us all.
— Gabriel
Dominic read the last line again.
Your brother.
He looked up.
“I don’t have a brother.”
Anthony’s face told him otherwise.
From the hallway came a crash.
Then Lucy screamed.
Dominic was moving before the sound finished.
He reached the library in seconds.
The door stood open.
Teresa was on the floor beside an overturned lamp, conscious but stunned.
Marisol held Lucy behind her.
The window at the far end of the room was broken.
Cold air blew rain across the carpet.
Benny the bear lay on the floor.
His torn stomach gaped wider than before.
The stuffing had been pulled out completely.
Someone had searched him.
And in the center of the rug, pinned beneath the black button that had once been Benny’s eye, was a note.
Dominic crossed the room and picked it up.
May you like
Three words.
Where is 214?
