Chapter 8 - Carlo’s Last Card
Carlo’s trial preparation should have been routine.
It was not.
Three days before Christmas, Agent Mercer called Roman at six in the morning.
“Carlo escaped.”
Roman sat upright.
Norah woke beside the bassinet across the room.
They were not sharing a bed.
Not yet.
She had fallen asleep in the guest room after Isabella’s midnight feeding, and Roman had taken the chair because leaving felt wrong.
“How?”
“Transport van.”
“Inside help?”
“Yes.”
Roman was already dressing.
Norah watched him.
Mercer continued.
“Two marshals injured. One driver missing.”
“Destination?”
“Unknown.”
Roman ended the call.
Norah said, “No.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t even know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, I do.”
She stood.
“You are putting on the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where everyone else becomes furniture.”
Roman almost objected.
Then stopped.
She was right.
“What do you suggest?”
Norah looked surprised.
“You’re asking?”
“I’m evolving.”
Despite fear, she smiled.
“Slowly.”
The FBI moved the family to a secure property near Lake Geneva.
Roman hated it.
Elena loved it.
She commandeered the kitchen, insulted federal coffee, and decorated a tree as if fugitives were a minor inconvenience.
For thirty-six hours, nothing happened.
Then Daniel’s pediatric monitor produced an alert.
Not medical.
A message.
HELLO, BROTHER.
Roman stared at the screen.
Carlo had compromised the device remotely.
Mercer’s cyber team disconnected the entire network.
Too late.
A second message appeared before the signal died.
MIDNIGHT. OLD UNION STATION. COME ALONE OR I RELEASE EVERYTHING YOUR FATHER HID.
Roman laughed.
Mercer did not.
“What?”
“He still thinks shame controls me.”
“What is he threatening to release?”
Roman looked at Norah.
“Records of my father’s crimes.”
Norah crossed her arms.
“Would they destroy you?”
“Some.”
“Then let him.”
Roman stared.
She continued.
“Secrets are leverage only if you keep carrying them like explosives.”
Mercer nodded.
“I like her.”
Roman did not.
At least not the implication.
By evening, Roman made a decision that would once have been impossible.
He called a press conference.
Norah thought he had lost his mind.
Maybe he had.
At eight o’clock, cameras crowded a hotel ballroom.
Roman stood behind a microphone.
No attorney beside him.
No Carlo.
No armor except truth.
“My name is Roman DeLuca.”
Every station in Chicago carried it live.
“My family has spent decades involved in businesses that operated outside the law.”
Reporters erupted.
Roman continued.
“I am cooperating with federal authorities regarding crimes committed by people inside my organization, including my former second-in-command, Carlo Bianchi.”
Questions flew.
“Mr. DeLuca, are you admitting criminal conduct?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Even Norah stared.
Roman went on.
“I have entered negotiations regarding my own liability. I will not discuss those negotiations tonight.”
He looked directly into the cameras.
“But I will discuss leverage.”
Carlo was watching somewhere.
Roman knew it.
“If Mr. Bianchi believes releasing my father’s records will force me to negotiate with him, he is wrong. Release them.”
Norah’s eyes filled.
Roman continued.
“My father did things I will not defend. So did I.”
That sentence cost him more than money.
More than status.
It cost the mythology he had spent half his life maintaining.
“I am done asking my children to inherit silence as loyalty.”
Then he stepped away.
At eleven forty, Carlo called.
Roman answered on speaker with Mercer listening.
“You embarrassed the family.”
Roman smiled faintly.
“No. I embarrassed you.”
“You think confession makes you clean?”
“No.”
That answer silenced Carlo.
Roman continued.
“I think it makes your threat boring.”
Carlo’s breathing changed.
“What do you want?”
“You called me.”
A long pause.
Then Carlo said, “Union Station. Midnight.”
“Why?”
“Because there is one thing you still won’t let me release.”
Roman’s face tightened.
“What?”
“A video from the night Norah left.”
Norah looked up.
Roman’s jaw flexed.
Carlo laughed.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Miriam wasn’t the first person Norah called.”
Norah went pale.
Roman looked at her.
Carlo continued.
“She called me.”
Silence.
Roman’s eyes moved to Norah.
She looked terrified.
Not guilty.
Terrified.
Roman forced his voice steady.
“Why?”
“Ask your wife.”
The call ended.
Roman turned.
Norah sat slowly.
“I did call him.”
His face became unreadable.
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know he was the threat yet.”
“You told him you were pregnant?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Norah’s eyes filled.
“I asked him if you had killed a man that night.”
Roman froze.
She continued.
“I saw the blood. You wouldn’t tell me whose it was. I called Carlo because I thought he was the one person who could tell me the truth.”
Roman remembered.
He had come home after punishing the enforcer who stole from widows.
He had refused to discuss it.
Not to protect Norah.
To control what she knew.
Carlo had used the silence.
“What did he tell you?”
“That you had killed someone innocent.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“But that’s why you believed the threat.”
“Yes.”
Roman sat.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Norah said, “I’m sorry.”
Roman looked at her.
“No.”
She frowned.
He continued.
“You asked someone else because I taught you asking me was pointless.”
The words surprised both of them.
Norah’s tears spilled.
Roman reached for her hand.
This time she took it.
Midnight came.
Roman did not go to Union Station.
Carlo waited anyway.
Federal agents were already there.
Miriam had predicted the location’s lower service tunnel, which Enzo Bianchi once used for cash transfers.
Carlo was arrested at 12:17 a.m.
No gunfire.
No hostage.
No final battle.
Just a tired man standing beneath fluorescent lights while agents closed in.
When Mercer called, Roman listened.
Then hung up.
Norah asked, “Is it over?”
Roman looked at his children sleeping near the Christmas tree.
“Yes.”
May you like
And for the first time, he believed it.
Norah watched Roman after Mercer’s call. He did not celebrate Carlo’s arrest. He did not ask where Carlo would be held or who would interrogate him first. He only checked the nursery monitor, saw both twins sleeping, and sat down. The absence of triumph told her more than any promise could have. Roman had spent his life believing victory had to look like another man losing. Tonight, victory looked like nobody else getting hurt.
