Chapter 4 - My Own Underboss Had Been Waiting for Proof I Was Dead.
My new attorney was named Miriam Cole.
Fifty-two.
Former federal prosecutor.
No ties to Santoro Holdings.
No patience for my surname.
Perfect.
She entered my hospital room with one legal pad and said:
“Before you tell me anything, I represent you personally. Not your companies. Not Rafael. Not any organization.”
“Good.”
“If your memory returns and you disclose ongoing crimes, privilege has limits depending future conduct.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
She almost smiled.
“Better answer.”
Good.
I told her everything I remembered.
Which was not much.
Farm.
Hannah.
Flashes.
Marco.
The sentence about children and debt.
Miriam listened.
Then:
“You need a plan for three separate problems.”
“Assassination.”
“Yes.”
“Federal exposure.”
“Yes.”
“The children.”
She looked at me.
“The children are not your legal problem.”
That hurt.
Then she clarified:
“They are people you care about. Different category.”
Good.
“Do not mix them into your criminal strategy.”
I nodded.
No using sympathy.
No redemption children.
“Can I contact Hannah?”
“Through Maya Chen only.”
Good.
“Do that.”
Miriam called.
Maya allowed one supervised phone call the next day because Hannah requested it first.
Important.
The emergency foster home belonged to a couple named Denise and Carl Harmon.
Licensed.
They had two spare rooms.
All three siblings remained together.
Good.
Hannah came on video.
She looked furious.
“You look terrible.”
“So do you.”
She almost smiled.
Then didn’t.
“Where are you?”
“Hospital.”
“Are you going to jail?”
Children.
Direct.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you do bad things?”
I looked at Miriam.
She said nothing.
My answer.
“Probably.”
Hannah’s face changed.
Not fear exactly.
Disappointment.
Good.
“Probably?”
“My memory is incomplete. The investigators say I led a criminal organization. I remember enough to believe I made decisions that hurt people.”
There.
Lucas’s face appeared over her shoulder.
“So you are mafia.”
“I think that word is doing too much work.”
“You are.”
“Probably.”
Lucas said something rude and left.
Fair.
Hannah asked:
“Are the people who shot at the house yours?”
“No.”
“Were they because of you?”
“Yes.”
Good.
She looked down.
Then:
“They found Aunt Rebecca.”
My chest loosened.
“What?”
“Maya found her.”
“Where?”
“Eugene.”
“Does she want you?”
Wrong phrasing.
Hannah flinched.
I corrected immediately.
“Did she agree to talk?”
“Yes.”
Good.
“She didn’t know Mom died.”
There.
Of course.
“How?”
“They hadn’t spoken in six years.”
“Is she coming?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Do you want that?”
“I don’t know.”
Good.
Then Hannah said:
“I hate you for calling the sheriff.”
There.
I swallowed.
“Okay.”
“Don’t say okay.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
Good.
Neither did I.
So I said:
“You can hate me and still call if Maya says it’s safe.”
She looked.
“Do you hate me?”
“For what?”
“Finding you.”
My chest broke.
“No.”
“Because everything got bad.”
“Hannah.”
I leaned closer to screen.
“Everything was already bad.”
There.
“You were twelve, hiding your mother’s death, feeding two children, and hoping no one noticed.”
Her eyes filled.
“You finding me did not create that.”
“It brought shooters.”
“Yes.”
“That part is mine.”
Good.
“But you did not cause my old life. You did not cause the crash. You did not cause the men outside.”
She wiped face angrily.
“I should have left you in the mud.”
“No.”
I said.
Then stopped.
Was that too much?
I corrected.
“You had every right to get an adult instead of saving me yourself.”
There.
“You should never have had to decide.”
Hannah cried then.
Quiet.
I stayed.
No advice.
No gratitude.
After a while, she said:
“Aunt Rebecca has a dog.”
“Important.”
“Emily likes dogs.”
“Good.”
“Lucas says he won’t go.”
“Also information.”
She nodded.
Then Maya ended call.
Good.
I did not ask for another.
Rebecca Keene arrived in Eugene the next day.
Maya told Miriam only what children authorized me to know.
Rebecca was forty-one.
High-school librarian.
Married to a paramedic named Jonah.
No children.
Had not spoken to Sarah because their last fight ended with Sarah saying:
“Stop trying to run my life.”
That phrase seemed to follow families.
Rebecca had sent birthday cards for two years.
Returned.
Then stopped.
She had searched social media occasionally.
Sarah used little.
Rebecca did not know Sarah became ill.
Did not know she died.
When Maya called, Rebecca vomited in the staff bathroom.
I knew this only because Hannah later told me and found it funny.
Good.
The children met her at supervised center.
No instant adoption.
Lucas refused to speak first hour.
Emily hugged the dog when Rebecca brought him later.
Hannah asked thirty questions.
Where would we sleep?
Same school?
Can Lucas keep tools?
What happens to farm?
Do you drink?
Does Jonah yell?
Why did you stop calling Mom?
Rebecca answered.
Sometimes badly.
Good.
She admitted anger.
Pride.
Assumptions.
No saint.
By end, the children agreed to a weekend trial visit.
Then another.
Child welfare pursued emergency kinship placement.
Good.
The farmhouse remained in Sarah Miller’s estate.
Mortgage nearly paid but property taxes behind.
No secret disaster yet.
Rebecca and an estate legal-aid attorney began sorting.
I offered nothing.
Hard.
Miriam said:
“Good.”
“Stop grading.”
“Then stop behaving like a student.”
Good.
Meanwhile, my assassination case moved.
Rafael met with me under Miriam’s supervision.
The first time I saw him inside room, he stood as if I were still his boss.
“Sit.”
I said.
He did.
Old reflex.
I hated that too.
“Tell me about Marco.”
Rafael looked at Miriam.
She nodded.
“Facts you personally know.”
Good.
Rafael explained.
Before crash, I had spent eighteen months changing Santoro organization.
Not because conscience woke overnight.
Because federal pressure increased?
Partly.
Because a collections crew put a sixteen-year-old boy in hospital over his father’s debt.
There.
That was memory trigger.
A boy.
Restaurant kitchen.
My own man saying:
He was just there.
I had fired the crew leader.
Paid the family medical bills secretly.
Then realized secrecy preserved system.
So I ordered debt operation closed.
Marco opposed.
I moved legitimate holdings to audited boards.
Marco called it surrender.
I commissioned vendor audit after money went missing.
Then I planned to remove Marco as underboss.
He knew.
Three days before crash, I told Rafael to increase route security.
“Why didn’t it work?”
I asked.
His face tightened.
“The driver was compromised.”
My driver.
Dead.
“Compromised how?”
“His brother owed Marco’s people money.”
There.
Again.
Debt.
Leverage.
The driver agreed to alter route and leave one security vehicle behind.
Did he know assassination?
Rafael believed no.
He thought intimidation.
A forced meeting.
Then rival contractors rammed us off road.
My driver died.
I survived and apparently crawled downhill into drainage.
Searchers found blood but storms erased trail.
A trucker later picked me up forty miles north.
Hospital record.
Then I wandered.
“How did I reach Oregon?”
“Bus receipts under fake names. shelters. day labor. You moved north over months.”
Makes sense.
Amnesia plus instincts.
“What evidence on Marco?”
Vendor transfers.
Driver brother testimony.
Today’s armed men.
One arrested attacker now cooperating.
He said job was confirm my identity and seize me if possible.
Not kill at farmhouse because police presence changed instructions.
Who ordered?
A contractor claimed Marco’s chief aide.
Good.
Not direct yet.
“Can federal agents arrest him?”
Miriam said:
“Do not strategize law enforcement.”
Rafael stopped.
Good.
Then I asked:
“What would old me do?”
Rafael’s face changed.
“Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“Bring Marco to a room.”
No need more.
I understood.
“And you?”
He looked down.
“Six months ago, I would have helped.”
There.
“What about now?”
Rafael looked at hospital door.
“At the farm, you called sheriff.”
“Yes.”
“I thought head injury had made you stupid.”
I almost laughed.
“And?”
“Then no one died.”
There.
Good.
He looked ashamed.
“I don’t know what I think.”
Perfect.
Neither did I.
Then Special Agent Park brought news.
A grand jury had authorized charges against Marco Vieri and two associates for conspiracy connected to my attempted abduction and attempted homicide, plus financial offenses uncovered through vendor audit.
They would move soon.
I asked:
“Do you need me?”
“Eventually as witness if memory and competency support.”
“And my own crimes?”
Park did not blink.
“Separate.”
Good.
No deal assumed.
I asked Miriam:
“Can I cooperate on Marco without bargaining away my own responsibility?”
She looked at me.
“Yes.”
There.
“Do that.”
Rafael stared.
“Gabriel.”
“What?”
“If you testify, men will call you informant.”
Old world.
Labels.
I looked at him.
“Are they wrong?”
He had no answer.
I continued.
“Someone used a child’s debt to compromise my driver. Someone sent armed men to a house with three kids.”
My voice stayed calm.
“I don’t care what they call me.”
That surprised both of us.
Then memory came.
Marco across my table.
“You remove me, half the men walk.”
My answer:
“Then let them.”
He leaned close.
“You built your name on fear, Gabriel. You don’t get to decide you’re done with it because it suddenly bothers you.”
And I had said:
“Watch me.”
The memory ended.
I sat back.
Maybe that was the last full conversation before crash.
Maybe old Gabriel had already crossed a line he could not uncross.
Marco had been waiting for proof I was dead because my death did more than remove a boss.
It stopped a dismantling.
Now I was alive.
May you like
The question was whether I would return to finish the job as a boss—
or finish it by refusing to be one.
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