Chapter 17 - Wear Red Again
The Moretti mansion was beautiful in the way old weapons can be beautiful.
Stone walls. Tall windows. Dark wood polished until it reflected the chandeliers. Family portraits watched us from every hall.
One showed Stefano at twenty, unsmiling beside Paula at thirteen. She had the same defiant tilt of her chin I remembered from high school.
"You kept her picture," I said.
"He kept everything," Stefano replied. "Possession was my father's favorite form of love."
We were led to the library by two men who searched Stefano and took his gun. They searched me less carefully. Apparently red dresses remained underestimated.
Mrs. Delaney had sewn the small brass key into my sleeve.
Salvatore waited beside the fireplace.
In person he seemed smaller than the myth around him, which somehow made him worse.
"Nora Bennett," he said. "Ruth's daughter."
"You hit my mother."
He smiled faintly. "Straight to the point."
"Did you kill Paula?"
Stefano inhaled beside me.
Salvatore looked almost offended. "Paula killed herself the day she turned against her blood."
"That's not an answer."
"Then yes. I authorized the correction."
Stefano moved.
Four guns appeared around the room.
I grabbed his hand.
Salvatore smiled. "There. Still emotional. I spent years trying to cure you of that."
"You failed," Stefano said.
"In many ways."
A side door opened.
Vincent entered with Claire.
My sister's lip was split, but she was walking on her own.
"Sorry I'm late," Vincent said. "Traffic."
Salvatore's eyes narrowed.
The two men hated each other enough to bend the air.
Vincent wanted the ledger. Salvatore wanted the tape. Stefano wanted Claire. I wanted all of them to keep talking until federal agents arrived.
So I gave them something to fight over.
"The ledger is not here," I said.
Vincent smiled. "Of course it is."
"No. It is already with federal prosecutors. So is the tape. If Stefano and I don't check in, everything goes public. Names. dates. accounts. all of it."
Salvatore's face changed.
Vincent's changed more.
"You stupid woman," he whispered.
"People keep saying that right before their plans collapse."
Claire almost laughed.
Then the first gunshot came from the hallway.
Nobody in the library had fired it.
One of Salvatore's guards fell through the door.
Marco's voice thundered from outside.
"Federal agents at the gate!"
Vincent grabbed Claire.
Salvatore reached for a hidden pistol beneath the desk.
Stefano lunged toward his father.
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And I saw Teresa step into the doorway behind all of them, holding a gun with both hands.
She aimed it at Stefano.
