Chapter 8 - The Photograph Behind the Wall
We entered Manhattan separately.
Dante went first.
Silvio disappeared into a network of old contacts he insisted still owed him favors.
Elena and Sophie traveled with Father Connors in a battered parish van.
I arrived last wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and a jacket from a gas station.
Sophie had laughed when she saw me.
“You look normal.”
“Insulting.”
“I mean normal normal.”
“Worse.”
Elena smiled.
It was the first full smile she had given me.
For a few seconds, none of us were hiding from armed men.
We were simply family teasing one another.
Then Dante's message arrived.
Building clear. For now.
The Chelsea address belonged to a five-story warehouse converted partly into art studios.
The third floor remained unfinished.
0317 was not an apartment number.
It was a combination.
Elena figured that out.
“Grandma used numbers for everything.”
We found a steel panel behind old drywall.
Sophie’s brass key opened the lock.
A keypad waited beneath it.
Elena entered 0317.
Click.
Inside was a small room.
No ledger.
Just a chair.
A table.
And photographs covering an entire wall.
My father.
Rose.
Elena as a baby.
Elena at five.
Nine.
Sixteen.
College graduation.
Sophie’s birth.
I walked slowly along the wall.
“He watched you.”
Elena looked sick.
“All these years.”
A photograph showed Elena repairing a truck outside the garage.
Another showed Rose pushing Sophie in a stroller.
One image showed my father sitting inside a parked car across the road from the garage.
Elena touched the photograph.
“He came more than once.”
Silvio entered behind us.
“Every year.”
Elena turned sharply.
“You said once.”
“I said he entered the road once while you were awake.”
“You lied.”
“I withheld.”
“That is lying with better grammar.”
I almost smiled.
Silvio deserved it.
Elena picked up another photograph.
There was a note on the back.
My Elena, age 12. Won science fair.
Her hands started shaking.
“He knew.”
Silvio nodded.
“He knew everything.”
“Then why?”
She slammed the photo onto the table.
“Why couldn't he walk twenty feet and say hello?”
No one answered.
Because there was no answer capable of making that less cruel.
Sophie moved toward the far wall.
“This one’s loose.”
Everyone turned.
Children had an extraordinary ability to discover things adults overlooked.
Behind a photograph frame was another opening.
Inside sat a black leather book.
Silvio inhaled sharply.
“The ledger.”
I took it.
Heavy.
Handwritten pages.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Companies.
I recognized judges.
Officials.
Businessmen.
Men who appeared on television and spoke passionately about law and order.
Some were dead.
Many were not.
Dante looked over my shoulder.
“This can destroy half the city.”
“More than that,” Silvio said.
Elena stared.
“This is why they want Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“Why not just destroy it?”
“Because whoever owns it controls everyone in it.”
I closed the book.
“I’m not using it.”
Silvio stared.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I'm not using it.”
“Adrian, this thing gives you leverage over—”
“I know exactly what it gives me.”
I had watched my father rule through fear.
Information.
Debts.
Secrets.
I had inherited much of his empire because men believed I had inherited his weapons.
Maybe it was time to stop.
Dante looked at me.
“What do you want to do?”
“Make copies.”
Silvio smiled.
“Now you’re thinking.”
“Then send them to federal prosecutors, state prosecutors, and three newspapers.”
Silvio's smile vanished.
“You can't.”
“I can.”
“You'll destroy your own organization.”
“Yes.”
Dante stared at me.
“Boss.”
“Some of our businesses are legitimate.”
“Some aren't.”
“I know.”
“You could go to prison.”
“I know.”
Elena stepped closer.
“You don't have to decide now.”
“Yes, I do.”
I looked at Sophie examining photographs of the grandfather she never met.
People had spent generations making decisions because they were afraid of losing power.
My father.
Silvio.
Luca.
Me.
Sophie deserved something better.
A buzzer sounded.
Dante drew his gun.
The freight elevator.
Someone was coming up.
“Back room,” I said.
Elena grabbed Sophie.
Silvio moved behind a pillar.
The elevator stopped.
Doors opened.
Luca Ferraro stepped out alone.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Fourteen years.
Thousands of meals.
Hundreds of nights working together.
He had once taken a bullet through the shoulder protecting me outside a restaurant in Brooklyn.
Now he looked at the gun in my hand and smiled sadly.
“You found it.”
“You sabotaged my car.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than a lie.
“You sent Anthony.”
“Yes.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“I tried to end a problem.”
“That what I am now?”
“You became one.”
I lowered the gun slightly.
“Why?”
Luca looked exhausted.
“Because you were changing.”
“Into what?”
“A man who thought he could turn a wolf pack into accountants.”
“The legal businesses make more money.”
“Money isn't everything.”
“Then what is?”
“Fear.”
There it was.
The religion of men like Luca.
Fear.
“You sound like my father.”
“No.”
Luca looked toward the ledger.
“Your father understood reality.”
A movement behind me.
Sophie stepped from the back room.
Elena tried to stop her.
Luca saw her.
Something changed in his face.
“That's the girl.”
I immediately raised the weapon.
“Do not look at her.”
“She's why all this happened.”
“No. You are.”
Luca shook his head.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand you betrayed me.”
“I saved this family for fourteen years.”
“You tried to murder a six-year-old.”
His face tightened.
“I never ordered that.”
“Your men shot at the SUV she was in.”
“I told them to take the key.”
“With bullets?”
Luca looked away.
That was answer enough.
Dante said, “You should leave while you can.”
Luca laughed.
“You think I came alone?”
Glass shattered.
Gunfire erupted.
We dropped.
Sophie screamed.
Luca ran behind cover.
He shouted toward the windows.
“Stop firing! The ledger is in here!”
The shooting ceased.
Silence.
Then a voice from outside came through a loudspeaker.
Carlo DeMarco.
“Adrian! Bring me the book and the girl walks out alive!”
I looked toward Sophie.
She stared at me, terrified.
Then Carlo added:
“Refuse, and your new little family dies before sunset.”
Luca looked at me.
For the first time since arriving, he seemed afraid.
Because Carlo had just revealed something even Luca had not expected.
May you like
He had never been Luca's partner.
Luca had always been expendable too.
