Chapter 10 - The Family Table
Before going to the harbor, I made one call.
Every senior Rossi captain was ordered to the old social club in Queens.
No excuses.
No weapons inside.
By midnight, twelve men sat around the long walnut table where my grandfather had once divided neighborhoods with a pencil and a map.
My mother was not there.
Dante was.
He leaned back in his chair as if we were discussing quarterly earnings.
"You look terrible, Adrian."
Grace entered behind me.
Every face in the room changed.
Dante's most of all.
"Surprised?" she asked.
He recovered quickly. "Relieved. Vittoria told us you escaped in a disturbed state."
Grace laughed.
"Did she also tell you the chains escaped with me?"
I dropped the hospital bracelet, the transfer form, and Grace's notebook onto the table.
"My wife was imprisoned under our home. My son was taken from her minutes after birth. Anyone who helped hide that from me is finished tonight."
A captain named Rocco raised both hands.
"I knew nothing about a prison."
"Neither did I," another said.
Dante smiled.
"Very dramatic. But private family matters don't belong at this table."
Grace leaned toward him.
"Kidnapping is a private family matter now?"
"You don't understand this life."
"I'm an attorney. I understand men who use complicated words to hide simple crimes."
A few men looked down.
Dante's smile faded.
I played Grace's recording.
When my father's death was mentioned, the room went silent.
Rocco stared at Dante.
"V.R.-01?"
Dante shrugged. "Could mean anything."
Grace pulled a folded photocopy from her coat.
"It means Vittoria Rossi, authorization tier one. I found the code index before she locked me up."
Dante's eyes flicked to the paper.
There.
Fear.
"Where's the original?" he asked.
Grace smiled.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
His hand moved under the table.
Marco shouted, "Gun!"
The window behind Grace exploded.
I tackled her to the floor.
A bullet tore through the chair where she had been standing.
Men scrambled for cover.
Outside, an engine roared.
Marco ran to the shattered window and fired twice.
I looked at Dante.
He hadn't moved.
"You set this up," I said.
He raised his hands.
"If I wanted her dead, she would be dead."
Grace looked at the bullet hole in the wall.
Then at Dante.
"That's the first true thing you've said tonight."
From the street came the squeal of tires.
Marco's phone buzzed.
He checked the message and went pale.
"Pier Nine just lit up," he said.
May you like
"What do you mean?"
"The warehouse is on fire."
