Chapter 13 - The Enemy Who Waited
The photograph changed everything.
Elena and Mia were moved to temporary protective housing.
Antonio learned about it the following morning.
He nearly tore the phone from the wall.
“Who sent it?”
The federal agent across the glass shook his head.
“We don't know.”
“You had every name.”
“Apparently not.”
Antonio thought through twenty years of alliances.
People Vincent trusted.
People Damen knew.
People Marco paid.
Then one name surfaced.
Salvatore Costa.
The man whose movements at Red Hook had begun this entire chain.
Costa had never been charged.
The evidence against him concerned business crimes, not the attempted hit.
And during the chaos following the investigations, he had disappeared.
Antonio called Damen through their attorneys.
The answer arrived two days later.
Costa had funded Vincent.
Not followed him.
Funded him.
The old priest and Damen had been tools.
Salvatore Costa had wanted the Moretti organization weakened enough to absorb it.
Lorenzo’s death had accelerated Antonio’s descent into isolation.
Exactly as planned.
But Costa’s plan had failed when Antonio dismantled the organization himself.
Now Costa had lost millions.
And he blamed Antonio.
More importantly, he blamed Elena and Mia for starting the collapse.
Antonio's release was still ten months away.
He petitioned for protective measures.
The authorities increased security.
But Antonio knew men like Costa.
A fence was not protection.
A schedule was not protection.
Predictability was vulnerability.
Elena, however, refused to live frightened.
Mia began kindergarten.
Elena started work at a boutique hotel in Manhattan.
She took different routes.
Security remained nearby.
Life continued.
One September afternoon, Mia came home carrying a drawing.
Three figures.
Elena.
Mia.
Antonio.
Above them was a yellow house.
“What's this?”
“Our house.”
“We have a house.”
“No.”
Mia pointed.
“New house when Mister Antonio comes.”
Elena smiled.
“You have this all planned?”
“Yes.”
“Does Antonio know?”
“No.”
“Perhaps tell him before buying property.”
Mia frowned.
“You buy.”
“Excellent financial strategy.”
During their next visit, Mia pushed the drawing against the glass.
Antonio stared.
“Who is that?”
“You.”
“Why is my head enormous?”
“Because hair.”
Elena laughed.
Antonio pointed to the house.
“What is this?”
“Our house.”
He looked at Elena.
“She’s become aggressive.”
“Very.”
Mia continued.
“Garden. Biscuit room. Mommy room.”
“And me?”
Mia pointed.
“You Mommy room.”
Elena nearly dropped the phone.
“Mia!”
Antonio turned red.
Actually red.
Mia looked confused.
“What?”
Antonio began laughing.
The sound filled the visiting area.
That night, Antonio received a message through another inmate.
Costa says hello.
Antonio's amusement vanished.
He reported it.
The inmate was transferred.
But the warning was clear.
Costa could reach him inside.
A week later, Antonio was attacked in the recreation yard.
Two men.
Homemade blades.
Antonio survived.
One knife entered his side.
Elena received the call at work.
She drove to the prison hospital with shaking hands.
When Antonio finally appeared on a video call, pale but alive, she burst into tears.
“I’m okay.”
“Stop saying that!”
“Elena—”
“You were stabbed!”
“I noticed.”
“This isn't funny.”
“No.”
She wiped her face.
“I cannot do this again.”
Antonio's heart sank.
“What do you mean?”
“I cannot spend every day waiting for someone to tell me you’re dead.”
He nodded slowly.
She saw him retreat emotionally.
“No.”
“What?”
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Decide I'm leaving before I finish talking.”
Antonio looked at her.
“I cannot live afraid. So when you come home, we're done with this world. Completely.”
“Yes.”
“No favors. No old friends. No ‘one last thing.’”
“Yes.”
“No guns hidden under pillows.”
Antonio hesitated.
“Antonio.”
“Fine.”
“And therapy.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Elena—”
“Therapy.”
He stared.
She waited.
“Fine.”
“And you’re going to tell the therapist when you're lying.”
“This negotiation has become unreasonable.”
She laughed through tears.
Antonio smiled.
Then Elena became serious.
“Come home.”
“I will.”
Eight months later, Antonio’s sentence was reduced for cooperation and good behavior.
A release date arrived.
March 18.
Mia circled it in pink marker.
Thirty-seven days before Antonio’s release, Salvatore Costa was spotted in New York.
Twenty days before release, one of Antonio’s former warehouses burned.
Eleven days before release, Elena received another photograph.
This one showed Mia leaving school.
On the back were three words:
SEE YOU SOON.
And on March 18, as Antonio walked out of federal custody expecting to see Elena and Mia waiting—
May you like
the parking lot was empty.
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