Chapter 7 - The Man Sitting at My Table
The account belonged to Anthony Rizzo.
My godfather.
He had held me at baptism.
He had taught me to box.
He had been beside me at my father’s funeral.
And he had quietly financed the sniper who fired into my home.
Marco put the evidence on the table.
“You sure?”
“Three transfers.”
I stared.
“Where is Anthony?”
“At the Hudson warehouse.”
Elena sat opposite us.
“You’re doing the face again.”
“What face?”
“The one where you decide murder is efficient.”
Marco looked away.
Traitor.
I leaned back.
“He fired at you.”
“And missed.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
She folded her arms.
“What happens if you kill him?”
“He stops shooting.”
“And everyone below him?”
I said nothing.
“Another Anthony appears.”
She was right.
Again.
Annoying.
“We take him alive,” I said.
Marco nodded.
Elena smiled.
“Growth.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
The Hudson warehouse had once stored imported furniture.
Now it held cash businesses Rizzo controlled.
We arrived after midnight.
Anthony waited.
No guards.
No weapon visible.
“I knew you’d come.”
I stopped ten feet away.
“Why?”
“Because you’re destroying Carlo’s legacy.”
“My father wanted out.”
Anthony laughed.
“That letter nonsense?”
“You knew?”
“Carlo always dreamed about becoming respectable after drowning everyone else.”
Elena appeared behind me.
Anthony’s face hardened.
“There she is.”
I moved slightly in front of her.
Elena pushed past.
“Don’t.”
Anthony smiled.
“You ruined him quickly.”
“I improved him.”
Despite everything, Marco coughed.
Anthony continued.
“You don’t belong here, girl.”
Elena’s face changed.
“I was born here.”
“You were supposed to stay gone.”
Silence.
I stared.
“You knew about Saint Gabriel’s.”
“Of course.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
My hands curled.
“Did you help Vincent?”
Anthony smiled.
“No.”
Relief lasted half a second.
“I helped Carlo.”
Elena stiffened.
Anthony explained.
After my father lost track of Elena, he secretly hired Anthony to locate her.
Anthony found the Carters when Elena was fourteen.
“What?”
Elena went pale.
“You knew where I lived?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you bring me home?”
“Carlo was dead by then.”
“So?”
Anthony shrugged.
“You weren’t useful.”
I hit him.
Once.
Hard.
He fell against a table.
Marco grabbed my shoulder.
“Dante.”
I stopped.
Elena looked at Anthony with more disgust than fear.
“You watched me grow up.”
“From a distance.”
“You knew my mother was dying?”
“Yes.”
Miriam had battled breast cancer when Elena was seventeen.
“You could have helped.”
“I wasn’t running a charity.”
That ended any hesitation.
Not murder.
But mercy did not require stupidity.
Anthony was arrested that night with financial records connecting him to the sniper.
Federal prosecutors already had enough.
As agents led him away, he turned.
“This organization will eat you alive without men like me.”
I looked at Elena.
“No.”
I finally understood.
“Men like you were the reason it was dying.”
The cleanup accelerated.
Captains chose.
Legal work or departure.
Most stayed.
Not because they loved reform.
Because legitimate salaries, pensions, and ownership stakes were better than prison.
Marco transformed security operations into licensed corporate protection.
I sold several clubs.
Closed gambling rooms.
Transferred properties.
It cost millions.
For the first time, I slept better.
Elena rented an apartment.
I hated it.
She knew.
“You have an armed doorman.”
“Yes.”
“Cameras.”
“Yes.”
“Marco installed panic buttons.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you pacing?”
“Because you live eleven minutes away.”
“Tragic.”
She hugged me before closing the door.
I still wasn’t used to that.
Six months passed.
The identity foundation identified eighty-three people whose adoption records had been manipulated.
Twenty-one found living relatives.
Maya found her brother.
He cried harder than she did.
Elena watched them reunite.
Later she called me.
“You know what hurts?”
“What?”
“They got fourteen years stolen.”
I knew.
“And they still looked happy.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe stolen years aren’t the same as a stolen future.”
I stared at Central Park from my office.
“No.”
She had changed me with sentences like that.
Then Graham Hale called.
“I need to meet.”
“Why?”
“My father left something.”
We met at a courthouse café.
Neutral territory.
He carried a metal case.
Inside were tapes recorded by Victor Hale.
One contained Vincent confessing to poisoning my mother.
Another contained something unexpected.
Anthony Rizzo discussing my father’s plane crash.
Rizzo had arranged it.
Vincent paid.
Moretti provided the mechanic.
Three men.
One murder.
Elena listened beside me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She took my hand.
I let her.
Hale watched us.
“You two are weirdly normal.”
Elena laughed.
“We’re trying.”
He pushed one final recording forward.
“This is why I called.”
My father’s voice played.
If Dante survives me, he’ll inherit everything. That terrifies me. He thinks strength means becoming harder. I hope Elena returns before he forgets softness entirely. She was always the stronger one.
I closed my eyes.
Elena cried.
Then laughed through it.
“He called you dramatic.”
“He called you stronger.”
“Correct.”
We left together.
Outside the courthouse, reporters waited.
The Valenti name had become public news.
One shouted:
“Mr. Valenti, are you still a mafia boss?”
I stopped.
Six months earlier I might have enjoyed the title.
Now it felt like clothing that no longer fit.
“No.”
“What are you?”
I looked at Elena.
She smiled.
May you like
I answered:
“Her brother.”
