Chapter 4 - The Price of Peace
Gabriel moved first.
He positioned himself between the staircase and Victor.
Victor pulled Elena and Daniel behind a stone support column.
Daniel was conscious but weak.
Blood spread across the side of his shirt.
“Gunshot?” Victor whispered.
Daniel shook his head.
“Knife.”
Elena pressed her hands against the wound.
“Who did this?”
Daniel looked toward the stairs.
“One of Bellandi’s men.”
Dominic’s voice came again.
“I know you’re down there.”
Victor glanced at Gabriel.
“How many?”
Gabriel checked his phone.
“Four vehicles. Possibly twelve men.”
Elena stared at Victor.
“What do we do?”
Victor looked at the old basement.
One exit through the stairs.
Possibly another through the renovation tunnels.
Gabriel whispered, “Caretaker mentioned an old sacristy passage connecting to the rectory.”
Victor nodded.
“Get Daniel out.”
Elena shook her head.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You are.”
“No.”
Victor stared at her.
Even frightened, she held his gaze.
“You said nobody gets to make decisions for me.”
That stopped him.
Of course she remembered.
He almost laughed at the absurd timing.
“Fine.”
Dominic descended two steps.
Victor walked into view.
“Stay there.”
Dominic stopped.
He wore a dark overcoat.
No visible weapon.
Two men stood behind him.
Dominic looked disappointed rather than angry.
“You could have married Sofia.”
Victor folded his arms.
“She doesn’t want me.”
“What my daughter wants changes daily.”
“That sentence explains why she looked terrified.”
Dominic sighed.
“You romanticize choice because you inherited power instead of building it.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“I’m beginning to notice everyone who steals choices has a speech prepared to justify it.”
Dominic looked past him.
“Daniel.”
Daniel emerged slowly.
Elena supported him.
Dominic’s face changed.
“So the ghost returns.”
Daniel answered weakly.
“I should have finished this nineteen years ago.”
“You should have stayed gone.”
Elena stiffened.
Victor shifted closer to her.
Dominic noticed.
His gaze became calculating.
“This is why you rejected my daughter?”
Victor said nothing.
Dominic looked at Elena.
“For the maid?”
“She has a name.”
Dominic smiled.
“You’ve known her for what? A year?”
“Long enough.”
Elena glanced at Victor.
The words affected her more than he expected.
Dominic continued.
“Give me the ledger. Daniel disappears again. The girl walks away. You keep your family.”
Victor almost admired the simplicity.
Almost.
“And if I say no?”
“Then Carlo loses everything.”
“Carlo made his choices.”
“Your businesses suffer.”
“Businesses can be rebuilt.”
“Your reputation?”
“I’ll survive.”
Dominic’s smile vanished.
“You think this is about money?”
Victor glanced at the metal case.
“What else?”
Dominic stepped down one more stair.
“Names.”
Daniel stiffened.
Dominic continued.
“That ledger does not merely implicate criminals, Victor. It contains politicians. Judges. Police officials. Union executives. Men who built careers believing those transactions were buried.”
Victor felt the situation expand around him.
Elena whispered, “Dad?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“I copied everything.”
Dominic laughed softly.
“He copied too much.”
Victor stared at Daniel.
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“And then?”
Daniel looked at Elena.
“Then I had a daughter.”
His voice cracked.
“I realized insurance was useless if using it got her killed.”
Elena’s face tightened.
“So you disappeared.”
“I thought they would leave you alone.”
“You thought wrong.”
“I know.”
“You let me bury you.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Victor stepped away to give them a small measure of privacy.
Elena’s voice trembled.
“Mom cried every night for years.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I watched from a distance.”
That hurt her more.
“You watched?”
Daniel nodded.
“I saw your school graduation.”
Elena stared at him.
“You were there?”
“Across the street.”
“My mother died believing you never came back.”
Daniel’s face collapsed.
“I came to the funeral.”
Elena slapped him.
The sound echoed through the basement.
Everyone froze.
Daniel accepted it.
Elena immediately looked horrified at herself.
Then angry again.
“You don’t get to protect someone by destroying them.”
Daniel whispered, “I know.”
Victor looked at Dominic.
The older boss appeared unmoved.
“Touching,” he said. “Now give me the ledger.”
Victor’s patience ended.
“No.”
Dominic’s men shifted.
Gabriel’s posture changed.
Victor raised one hand.
“Before you make another bad decision, understand something.”
Dominic waited.
“Copies exist.”
Daniel looked at Victor.
So did Gabriel.
Victor continued without blinking.
“Digital copies.”
Dominic’s expression changed slightly.
Victor was bluffing.
But only three people knew it.
“If anything happens to Elena, Daniel, me, or anyone in this room, everything goes public.”
Dominic stared at him.
“You’re lying.”
“Try me.”
Long silence.
Then Dominic smiled.
“You sound like your father.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a warning.”
Dominic studied him for another moment.
Finally, he stepped backward.
“This isn’t finished.”
“No,” Victor said. “It isn’t.”
Dominic left.
His vehicles departed five minutes later.
Gabriel exhaled.
“You do realize there are no digital copies.”
“There will be within an hour.”
Daniel managed a weak smile.
“Anthony’s son.”
Victor looked at him.
“Don’t get sentimental.”
They moved Daniel to a private medical clinic controlled by one of Gabriel’s contacts.
The wound was serious but not life-threatening.
Elena stayed beside her father.
Victor stood outside the treatment room.
Carlo arrived forty minutes later.
“How is Daniel?”
Victor looked at him.
“You knew where Dominic was going.”
“No.”
“Did you tell him about the church?”
Carlo’s eyes narrowed.
“No.”
“Someone did.”
“I assumed it was you.”
Victor almost laughed.
Carlo lowered his voice.
“You need to understand something about the ledger.”
“I understand plenty.”
“No, you don’t.”
Carlo took out his phone.
He showed Victor an old scanned document.
A partnership agreement.
Anthony Russo.
Carlo Russo.
Dominic Bellandi.
Daniel Marlow.
Victor frowned.
“Daniel was a partner?”
“For six months.”
Victor looked toward the treatment room.
Carlo continued.
“He wasn’t merely an accountant.”
“Why didn’t he say that?”
“Because the ledger could destroy him too.”
Victor stared at the document.
“What did he do?”
“That is what you should ask.”
The treatment-room door opened.
Elena stepped out.
She had heard enough.
Her face was pale.
“Ask what?”
Victor looked at her.
Carlo handed her the phone.
Elena read the agreement.
Her eyes moved slowly across the signatures.
Daniel Marlow’s name sat at the bottom.
“No.”
Carlo said nothing.
Elena looked through the glass at her father.
Then she entered the room.
Daniel saw the phone in her hand.
His expression told Victor the document was real.
Elena closed the door behind her.
Victor watched through the glass as father and daughter argued.
He could not hear the words.
Then Daniel reached beneath his hospital blanket.
He removed something from around his neck.
A second key.
He pressed it into Elena’s palm.
Her face changed.
Daniel pointed toward Victor.
Elena turned.
Looked directly at him.
Then at the key.
She came out several minutes later.
“What did he say?”
Elena’s voice sounded hollow.
“There’s another box.”
Victor frowned.
“Where?”
“He wouldn’t tell me until I promised not to open it here.”
“Why?”
“He said the first ledger tells us what happened nineteen years ago.”
“And the second?”
Elena looked at the tiny key.
“The second tells us who has been watching me now.”
Victor felt his stomach tighten.
“Where is it?”
“My father said it’s already inside the Russo house.”
Carlo went still.
Victor noticed.
“Elena?”
She looked at him.
“He said your father hid it in the one room Carlo was forbidden to enter.”
Victor knew exactly which room.
His mother’s old bedroom.
Nobody had opened it since her death.
They returned to the mansion shortly after sunrise.
Victor led Elena upstairs.
Carlo followed despite Victor ordering him not to.
They reached the sealed bedroom.
Victor unlocked the door.
Dust floated through the sunlight.
His mother’s possessions remained exactly where she had left them.
Elena held the key.
They searched for almost twenty minutes.
Then Victor remembered his mother’s sewing table.
A narrow compartment sat beneath the drawers.
Elena inserted the key.
Click.
The panel opened.
Inside was a modern phone.
Not nineteen years old.
Modern.
Charged.
Still powered on.
Victor picked it up.
The screen displayed dozens of photographs.
Elena entering the house.
Elena leaving work.
Elena at her mother’s funeral.
Elena buying groceries.
Elena sleeping in Victor’s bed.
Victor scrolled.
Then stopped.
There was one photograph taken only ten minutes earlier.
It showed Victor and Elena entering his mother’s bedroom.
The photograph had been taken from behind them.
Inside the house.
Victor slowly turned toward the open doorway.
Nobody stood there.
Then the phone vibrated.
A new message appeared.
STOP TRUSTING GABRIEL.
Victor looked up.
May you like
Gabriel Costa was standing at the end of the hallway.
And there was blood on his cuff.
