Chapter 8 - THE PERSON BEHIND THE FIRE
“ISABELLA!”
Octavio ran into the snow.
I followed because apparently self-preservation had officially left my personality.
The office windows were burning.
Daniel appeared behind one of them, smashing a chair against the glass.
Octavio grabbed a steel pipe.
“Back!”
He swung.
The window shattered outward.
Heat rolled over us.
Daniel pushed Isabella through first.
She landed in Octavio’s arms.
For one second he simply held her.
Then he remembered she hated being held when she was angry.
She shoved him.
“You took your time.”
He stared at her.
“You’re insulting me?”
“I’ve had a difficult evening.”
I laughed from pure relief.
Daniel climbed out coughing.
“Romantic elopement,” he said. “Highly recommend it.”
Another gunshot cracked across the yard.
Marco shouted.
“MOVE!”
We ran behind a concrete barrier.
The shooter wasn’t aiming randomly.
Every shot tracked Octavio.
Not Isabella.
That changed everything.
“They’re after you,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
Fireworks exploded over Chicago.
Midnight.
The entire skyline erupted while somebody tried to murder Octavio Conti under the cover of celebration.
Marco crawled toward us.
“Vehicle entered through the south gate using Conti credentials.”
“Whose?”
“I’m checking.”
Isabella pulled something from beneath her coat.
A folded page.
My missing blue drawing.
I stared.
“You stole my sketchbook?”
“I borrowed it.”
“Someone destroyed my apartment!”
“That wasn’t me.”
She handed over the page.
“I only took this one.”
“Why?”
“Because Cesare recognized your father’s drafting marks.”
I looked toward him.
Cesare remained behind the steel desk with Bianca and Adrian.
“So you really trusted him.”
“I still do.”
My expression must have said enough.
Isabella looked at Cesare.
“He did something terrible, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Her face fell.
“But he also spent fifteen years trying to undo part of it.”
“How?”
“He blocked Falcone transfers. Protected Octavio when your father died. Helped me when I found the forgery.”
Cesare heard us.
He called across the yard.
“That doesn’t erase Michael.”
“No,” I said.
“It doesn’t.”
He lowered his eyes.
Another bullet struck concrete.
Daniel examined the blue page.
“What’s that?”
At the bottom, beneath my father’s map, was a tiny charcoal symbol I had assumed was a smudge.
A circle divided into four sections.
Octavio recognized it.
“Security command.”
Marco frowned.
“That symbol belongs to old Conti executive protection.”
“Who still uses it?”
Marco’s face changed.
“One person.”
A voice came from the darkness behind us.
“Me.”
Everyone turned.
An older man emerged from the neighboring bay.
Carlo DeSantis.
Octavio’s head of executive security.
I had seen him at dinner.
Quiet.
Polite.
Always standing behind Octavio.
Always scanning rooms clockwise.
Exactly like his boss.
Octavio’s expression hardened.
“Carlo.”
The older man held a pistol loosely.
Not aimed.
Yet.
Marco whispered, “He trained me.”
Carlo looked almost disappointed.
“And poorly, apparently.”
Octavio stepped forward.
“You installed the tracker.”
“Yes.”
“Ordered the sniper.”
“Yes.”
Isabella stared.
“Why me?”
Carlo looked at her.
“You were never the target.”
My heart stopped.
“The threats?”
“Pressure.”
“The garage?”
“Staged.”
Octavio understood before I did.
“You wanted me to react.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Carlo laughed once.
“Because Cesare was right about one thing. You’ve been dismantling this family for years.”
Octavio’s face revealed nothing.
Carlo continued.
“Closed the gambling rooms. Cut the narcotics routes. Stopped protection collections. Turned warehouses legitimate. Sold half the clubs.”
“You make that sound bad.”
“To men who spent thirty years bleeding for those businesses?”
Carlo’s voice rose.
“Yes.”
There was the motive.
Not greed alone.
Abandonment.
A soldier watching the organization he built his identity around become something that no longer needed him.
“You wanted a war with the Falcones,” Octavio said.
“I wanted you to become your father again.”
“My father wanted out too.”
“Near the end.”
Carlo’s jaw tightened.
“And look what happened. Michael Hayes poisoned his thinking. Cesare weakened him. Bianca panicked. Everything started breaking.”
I stared.
“You knew my father.”
Carlo’s eyes moved to me.
“I drove Enzo to the warehouse the day after Michael died.”
“Did you know the fire was coming?”
“No.”
He glanced at Bianca.
“If I had, Michael would have lived.”
Unexpected.
Even he carried regret.
“But you’re willing to kill Octavio now.”
“I’m willing to save what’s left.”
Octavio took another step.
“By making Isabella think I ordered her into a marriage.”
“She would run.”
“And I would blame the Falcones.”
“Yes.”
“Bianca would retaliate.”
“Yes.”
“A war starts.”
“Yes.”
“And my men demand I become what you miss.”
Carlo’s expression softened almost proudly.
“There’s the boy Enzo raised.”
Octavio looked at him for a long moment.
Then shook his head.
“No.”
Carlo’s face changed.
“No?”
“I’m not that boy.”
His gun lifted.
Marco moved.
Cesare shouted.
Everything happened at once.
Carlo fired.
Cesare stepped directly into the line.
The bullet struck him high in the chest.
He fell.
Octavio tackled Carlo.
The pistol skidded across the snow.
Marco kicked it away.
Adrian helped restrain Carlo while Isabella ran to Cesare.
I dropped beside him.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“Pressure,” I said.
Isabella pressed both hands against the wound.
Cesare coughed.
“You always were dramatic, bambina.”
“Don’t talk.”
“I spent thirty years talking. Hard habit.”
His eyes found Octavio.
“Tavio.”
Octavio knelt.
Cesare reached into his coat with shaking fingers.
He removed a small brass key.
“No more locked doors.”
Octavio frowned.
“What is this?”
“Enzo’s final box.”
“Where?”
Cesare swallowed.
“Federal courthouse.”
Everyone went still.
“What?”
“He deposited evidence before he died.”
Octavio stared.
“My father was cooperating?”
Cesare nodded faintly.
“With Michael.”
The truth crashed through all of us.
Michael Hayes hadn’t merely discovered the family crimes.
He and Enzo Conti had been trying to expose them together.
Cesare coughed again.
“Your father wanted you out, Tavio.”
Octavio’s face broke.
“He wanted both children out.”
Cesare looked at Isabella.
“All of you.”
Sirens approached beyond the gate.
Carlo struggled beneath Marco’s knee.
“You open that box, you bury your own name!”
Octavio looked at him.
Then at Isabella.
Then at me.
Finally, he looked at the blue drawer containing my father’s handwriting.
“No.”
He closed his hand around the key.
“I bury what the name became.”
Carlo stopped struggling.
And for the first time all night, Octavio looked afraid.
Not of prison.
Not of enemies.
May you like
Of the decision in his hand.
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