Chapter 7 - THE FATHER DANTE BURIED
St. Agnes Hospice occupied three quiet floors above an old Catholic hospital in Brooklyn.
Room 14 held a man who looked nothing like the photographs newspapers still used whenever they wrote about the Castellano family.
Carlo Castellano had once been enormous.
Broad shoulders.
Thick black hair.
A presence that made rooms reorganize themselves.
Cancer had reduced him to bones, gray skin, and eyes that remained unmistakably sharp.
Dante stopped in the doorway.
His father looked up.
Neither spoke.
Then Carlo said, “You took your time.”
Dante laughed.
One ugly sound.
“I buried you seven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You let me.”
“Yes.”
“You let Luca go into the ground believing you were dead.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dante stepped toward the bed.
Marco stayed near the door.
I stayed farther back.
This was theirs.
“You don’t get to say yes like that makes it honest.”
“No.”
Carlo looked at his son.
“It makes it late.”
Dante’s jaw trembled.
I had never seen him look young before.
Now he did.
Angry and abandoned and thirty-three going on seventeen.
“Why?”
Carlo breathed slowly.
“I had pancreatic cancer.”
“You still do.”
“Yes.”
“The doctors gave me a year.”
“You had seven.”
“A miscalculation.”
Despite everything, Dante almost laughed.
Carlo continued.
“I was also being investigated federally. Anthony convinced me disappearing would let you and Luca separate the legitimate businesses.”
“Luca died.”
Pain crossed Carlo’s face.
“I know.”
“You knew Victor killed him.”
“Yes.”
“And did nothing.”
“No.”
Carlo’s voice hardened.
“I tried to kill Victor.”
“Apparently you failed.”
“Yes.”
That honesty had become a strange pattern among men who had run out of years to protect their image.
I stepped closer.
“Did Victor work for you?”
Carlo looked at me.
His eyes narrowed.
“Daniel’s girl.”
My skin prickled.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“Did you order Victor to use the shipping routes?”
“No.”
“Did you know?”
“Eventually.”
“Who was above him?”
Carlo looked at Dante.
That glance answered before his words did.
“Anthony.”
Dante froze.
“No.”
I felt the same shock.
Anthony had been presented as the man who turned good.
The one hiding money.
The one who helped Dad.
Carlo shook his head.
“Not in the way you think.”
Another half-answer.
Dante snapped.
“Then say what you mean.”
“Anthony created the original network.”
Silence.
“He believed our family needed an operation that didn’t depend on street crews.”
“Fraud.”
“Insurance manipulation.”
“Weapons?”
“No.”
Carlo’s face tightened.
“Never weapons.”
“Victor added those.”
“Yes.”
“And Anthony tried to stop him.”
“Yes.”
Dante stared.
“So Anthony built the machine, then lost control of it.”
“Yes.”
That was complicated enough to be believable.
“What happened to Luca?”
Carlo closed his eyes.
“Luca discovered Anthony’s signature on the original network.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“So Anthony killed him.”
“No.”
“Victor killed him to protect Anthony?”
“No.”
Dante slammed one hand against the wall.
“Then stop giving me pieces!”
Carlo looked at him.
“Anthony told Luca everything.”
Silence.
“He wanted Luca’s help dismantling it.”
“Then why did Victor kill him?”
“Because Luca found the person funding Victor’s expansion.”
There.
The man behind him.
The face in the photograph that looked like Carlo.
“But the photograph shows you.”
Carlo frowned.
“What photograph?”
Dante put it on the bedside table.
Carlo stared.
Then laughed weakly.
“That isn’t me.”
“It is your face.”
“It is my coat.”
“What?”
Carlo pointed.
“Look at the left hand.”
We did.
A gold wedding ring.
Carlo lifted his own thin left hand.
His ring finger ended at the first knuckle.
Old accident.
The man in the photograph had all ten fingers.
Dante stared.
“Who looked enough like you to pass?”
Carlo’s face changed.
“My brother.”
I felt cold.
“Lucia had another brother?”
“No.”
Carlo looked toward Dante.
“Half brother.”
A name nobody had mentioned.
“Matteo Castellano.”
Marco whispered, “I thought Matteo died in Sicily.”
“So did everyone.”
Of course.
Apparently nobody in this world stayed dead unless paperwork was involved.
Carlo continued.
“Matteo was older than me. Illegitimate. Our father never recognized him publicly.”
“What did he want?”
“What men denied a name often want.”
“Money?”
“Belonging.”
Carlo looked tired.
“And revenge.”
Matteo had built relationships with port unions and offshore brokers.
Anthony unknowingly used some of those contacts when he created the fraud network.
Victor discovered Matteo.
Matteo discovered how useful Victor’s anger was.
“Why anger?” I asked.
“Victor blamed the Castellanos for his father’s death.”
Marcus’s grandfather.
Another inherited grievance.
“So Matteo funded the weapons route.”
“Yes.”
“And Victor worked for him.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Matteo?”
Carlo looked toward Dante.
“I don’t know.”
“Anthony does?”
“Yes.”
“Where is Anthony?”
Carlo’s face softened.
“Probably doing what he always does when terrified.”
“What?”
“Hiding somewhere expensive and complaining about the food.”
Dante almost smiled.
Then Carlo coughed.
Blood appeared on the cloth.
He waved away the nurse.
“There is something more important.”
His eyes moved to me.
“Daniel knew Matteo’s identity.”
“Then why not name him in the recording?”
“He wanted proof.”
“What proof?”
“A signet ring.”
I frowned.
“Jewelry?”
“The original Castellano seal.”
Carlo pointed toward Dante’s right hand.
Dante wore a black onyx ring stamped with a C.
“Mine is a copy.”
Carlo continued.
“The original has a fracture through the C. Matteo stole it from our father before leaving Italy.”
The man in Dad’s Polaroid wore a dark ring.
I looked closer.
A thin diagonal crack ran through the C.
Proof.
Not absolute.
But significant.
Then Carlo’s voice dropped.
“Daniel took it from Matteo.”
My heart kicked.
“Where is it?”
“He gave it to Anthony.”
“So Victor wanted Anthony because—”
“Anthony has the only object tying Matteo to the network.”
Dante paced.
“We find Anthony.”
Carlo caught his sleeve.
“No.”
Dante looked down.
“Why?”
“Because Anthony left Montreal months ago.”
“How do you know?”
“He came here.”
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
The same time he disappeared.
“What did he want?”
“To tell me Matteo had returned to New York.”
The room chilled.
Carlo looked at me.
“And that Victor Hale had finally found Daniel’s daughter.”
I swallowed.
“Me.”
“Yes.”
“Why does Matteo care about me?”
Carlo’s eyes filled with something I didn’t understand.
“Because Daniel did more than document his crimes.”
“What?”
“He stole something from him.”
“A ring?”
“No.”
Carlo looked toward my bruised face.
“His money.”
I frowned.
“How much?”
“Thirty-two million dollars.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“I’m a waitress.”
“Exactly.”
Carlo’s mouth twitched.
“Daniel hid it where nobody would look.”
“Where?”
“He put it under your name.”
The room went silent.
My father had apparently left me thirty-two million dollars.
May you like
Money stolen from the man behind Victor.
And I had spent that morning worrying whether I could afford to miss a restaurant shift.
