Chapter 9 - Return to the Fire
The warehouse had been rebuilt twenty years earlier.
Dante had never entered it.
Not once.
The original structure had burned almost completely, but Salvatore Rosselli had reconstructed the building on the same foundation.
Dante always thought that decision was cruel.
Now he wondered whether his father had rebuilt it because something remained underneath.
Paul had landed in Chicago three hours earlier.
Victor’s people were moving too.
Dante decided to go.
Lena insisted on joining him.
Again.
“You have a very poor instinct for self-preservation,” Dante told her aboard the private jet.
Lena folded her arms.
“I learned from the Rossellis.”
Dante looked at her.
Then, despite the grief still hollowing his face, he almost smiled.
Leo remained at the estate with Rosa under doubled protection.
Leaving him was painful for both of them.
Dante checked the live security feed every ten minutes.
Lena noticed.
“You’re a good father.”
Dante looked away.
“I wasn’t a good husband.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“That sentence will destroy you if you keep repeating it.”
He stared at her.
Lena returned to Gabriel’s letters.
She had brought them with her.
“Your brother wrote that you feel too much.”
Dante groaned.
“He really wrote that?”
“Yes.”
“Burn the letters.”
“Never.”
“He was insufferable.”
“He sounds smarter than you.”
Dante looked offended.
For a moment, they were simply uncle and niece.
Two people discovering a family relationship decades too late.
Then the jet landed.
Chicago welcomed them with gray skies.
The warehouse stood near an old rail yard.
Abandoned.
Matteo’s men surrounded it.
No visible movement.
Dante approached the entrance.
Lena stopped.
Her mother had nearly died here.
Her father had died here.
Every instinct told her not to cross that threshold.
Dante noticed.
“You can stay outside.”
Lena shook her head.
“No.”
She entered.
The smell hit first.
Not fire.
Oil.
Dust.
Cold concrete.
Yet Lena imagined smoke anyway.
They found Paul in the basement.
He was sitting alone in a chair.
Waiting.
Dante raised his weapon.
Paul looked older than he had yesterday.
Almost relieved.
“Hello, son.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Paul nodded.
“Fair.”
Lena stood beside Dante.
Paul looked at her.
“You have Elena’s face.”
Lena felt disgust.
“You watched me for twenty-seven years?”
“Protected.”
“You murdered my mother.”
Paul’s eyes moved toward Dante.
“No.”
“Victor did.”
“Yes.”
“You helped him.”
Silence.
Lena stepped closer.
“Why?”
Paul looked at her.
“Because your father was going to destroy everything.”
“My father was trying to stop trafficking.”
“Your father was idealistic.”
“He was right.”
“Right gets people killed.”
Lena’s face hardened.
“So does cowardice.”
Paul flinched.
Dante watched.
“Why Sofia?”
Paul closed his eyes.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Dante crossed the room so quickly Matteo barely reacted.
He grabbed Paul by the collar.
“You had my wife killed.”
“No!”
Paul’s voice cracked.
“I told Victor she was asking questions. I did not tell him to kill her.”
“And you knew afterward?”
Paul looked away.
Dante’s grip tightened.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then you helped cover it.”
“I was trying to protect Leo.”
Dante threw him against the wall.
“Do not speak my son’s name.”
Paul coughed.
Lena stepped between them before Dante could strike again.
“Wait.”
Dante looked at her.
“He came here for a reason.”
Paul smiled faintly.
“Smart.”
Lena hated him.
“What is beneath this warehouse?”
Paul looked toward the floor.
Dante slowly released him.
Paul pointed toward an old steel support beam.
“There’s a hatch.”
Matteo found it.
A hidden staircase descended beneath the foundation.
Dante stared into the darkness.
“My father built this.”
Paul nodded.
“He rebuilt the warehouse around it.”
They descended.
At the bottom was a room.
Small.
Concrete.
Dry.
Untouched.
A desk stood against one wall.
On it was a tape recorder.
Dante approached.
Beside it was an envelope.
DANTE.
His father’s handwriting.
Dante stared at it.
Salvatore Rosselli had been dead nine years.
With shaking hands, Dante pressed play.
Static.
Then his father’s voice.
“If you’re hearing this, I failed to tell you while I was alive.”
Dante closed his eyes.
Salvatore continued.
“Gabriel was right.”
Lena looked at Dante.
“I was not brave enough to admit it when he needed me.”
The tape hissed.
“I thought I could control Victor.”
Paul lowered his head.
“I was wrong.”
Dante’s hand tightened around the recorder.
“Paul Rainer betrayed Gabriel.”
Paul began crying silently.
“But not for money.”
Everyone looked at him.
Salvatore’s voice continued.
“Paul betrayed him because Victor had his daughter.”
Dante turned.
Paul’s face collapsed.
Lena whispered, “You had a daughter?”
Paul nodded.
“She was sixteen.”
“What happened?”
“Victor took her.”
His voice broke.
“He told me Gabriel had to die or Emily would.”
Lena felt the ground shift again.
The villain became more complicated.
Not innocent.
Never innocent.
But human.
“What happened to her?”
Paul whispered, “He killed her anyway.”
Silence.
Dante looked away.
Salvatore’s recording continued.
“I should have killed Victor then.”
Dante’s father coughed.
“But by the time I understood what he had become, the Brotherhood had infected police, unions, banks, courts.”
A pause.
“I left evidence in three places.”
Matteo moved closer.
“One with Elena.”
Lena held page 88.
“One with Isabella.”
Isabella, back in New York, possessed the second.
“And one…”
Salvatore’s voice weakened.
“With Sofia Rosselli.”
Dante stopped breathing.
The tape clicked off.
Lena whispered, “Sofia had evidence.”
Dante looked toward Paul.
“What did she find?”
Paul shook his head.
“I never knew.”
“You said she was investigating Elena.”
“She was.”
“Why?”
Paul looked at him.
“Because Sofia believed Leo was in danger before he was even born.”
Dante’s blood ran cold.
“From whom?”
Paul whispered, “Victor.”
Before anyone could say more, an explosion shook the warehouse above them.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Matteo shouted into his radio.
No response.
Another explosion.
Paul looked upward.
“He found us.”
Dante grabbed Lena.
“Move!”
Smoke began pouring down the staircase.
May you like
Twenty-seven years after Gabriel Rosselli died in a warehouse fire, Victor Valenti had come to finish what he started.
---
