Chapter 8 - Paulie’s Last Lie
Vincent did not speak during the drive back to New York.
That frightened Nora more than anger would have.
The recording had captured Paulie telling Thomas to “finish the job before Vincent inherits a war.” It did not prove murder. It did prove Paulie knew far more than he had admitted.
Samuel insisted there was context.
Vincent heard only betrayal.
“Paulie raised me after my father died.”
Nora sat beside him.
“Then ask him before you decide what the sentence means.”
“You think he deserves that?”
“I think you do.”
Paulie was waiting in the Russo library when they arrived.
No guards.
No weapon on the table.
He poured himself a drink.
“You found Samuel.”
Vincent closed the door.
“You knew he was alive.”
“Yes.”
Nora exhaled sharply.
Vincent stared at the man he had trusted with every war, every funeral, every vulnerable thing.
“Why?”
“Because your father made me swear.”
“You’re fond of dead men’s orders.”
“Dead men don’t change them.”
Vincent slammed both palms onto the desk.
“What job was Thomas supposed to finish?”
Paulie looked tired.
“Leaving.”
Vincent blinked.
Paulie explained that Thomas planned to surrender evidence against the Gallow network, sell the criminal businesses, and move Camila out of New York. Anthony opposed him. Paulie urged Thomas to act quickly before Vincent inherited the conflict.
“I wasn’t telling him to kill anybody,” Paulie said. “I was telling him to get you out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me after he died?”
“Because you were twenty-nine and furious. You wanted revenge. If I told you Anthony helped kill your father, you would have murdered your own uncle before sunrise.”
Vincent’s silence confirmed it.
Paulie continued.
“I chose the lie that kept you alive.”
Nora said quietly, “Everybody in this family has that excuse.”
Paulie looked at her.
“Yeah. It gets old.”
Samuel entered behind them.
For the first time in eighteen years, he and Paulie faced each other.
“You look terrible,” Samuel said.
Paulie snorted. “You look dead.”
“Good disguise.”
The tension broke enough for everyone to breathe.
Then Samuel revealed the trap.
Beatrice believed the original ledger was incomplete. She needed Samuel’s recording to identify every participant in the property scheme. If they announced that Nora had inherited the evidence, Beatrice would move to recover it.
Vincent rejected the idea immediately.
Nora accepted before he finished objecting.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“We have had this conversation.”
“You’re not bait.”
“I already was bait. At least this time I know it.”
They staged a private meeting at an old Russo hotel scheduled for renovation. Federal investigators Samuel trusted were brought in quietly. Nora carried a fake drive. Vincent remained in an adjoining room with officers.
Beatrice arrived alone.
Or appeared to.
She wore black this time.
“No red dress?” Nora asked.
Beatrice smiled.
“Sentimentality is expensive.”
“You drugged Camila.”
“I kept an unstable woman calm.”
“You hit me.”
“You survived.”
“You tried to use me to find my father.”
Beatrice’s smile disappeared.
“That was the plan.”
Nora placed the fake drive on the table.
“Tell me why.”
“Because Samuel stole something that belonged to people more important than him.”
“Evidence?”
“Leverage.”
“Same thing when you’re guilty.”
Beatrice moved closer.
“You think Vincent will protect you forever? Men like him protect what they own.”
Nora held her gaze.
“He doesn’t own me.”
Behind the wall, Vincent almost smiled.
Then Beatrice said the sentence investigators needed.
“Give me Thomas’s recording and the old woman gets to keep what mind she has left.”
Nora’s expression hardened.
“You’re still threatening Camila.”
“I am explaining consequences.”
A door opened behind Beatrice.
Carmine entered with a gun.
Nora had not expected him.
Neither had Beatrice.
“You talk too much,” he told his wife.
Beatrice’s face changed.
“Carmine?”
He pointed the weapon at her.
“You were supposed to retrieve the evidence, not confess to ten years of stupidity.”
The adjoining door burst open.
Vincent hit Carmine from the side before he could turn the gun. The weapon skidded across the floor. Carmine struck Vincent in the jaw. Vincent answered with one hard blow to the stomach and drove him against the wall.
Federal agents flooded the room.
Carmine went down under three men.
Beatrice stood perfectly still.
Nora looked at her.
“For once,” she said, “nobody is kneeling for you.”
After Beatrice and Carmine were taken away, Nora stayed in the empty hotel room while officers collected evidence. Her knees began shaking only after the danger was over.
Vincent noticed.
“You all right?”
“No.”
He waited.
She appreciated that he did not immediately tell her she was safe. People used that word too easily.
“I knew there were agents behind the wall,” she said. “I knew the drive was fake. I knew you were ten feet away. And I was still scared.”
“That would be the normal response to a gun.”
“Normal is inconvenient.”
“Yes.”
She sat on the edge of the table. “When you hit Carmine, I thought you were going to keep going.”
“So did I.”
“But you stopped.”
He looked toward the doorway where agents had dragged Carmine away. “I’m trying not to inherit every reflex my family handed me.”
Nora studied him. “That might be the first intelligent thing you’ve said all week.”
“High praise.”
She held out her hand. His knuckles were bleeding slightly.
“Sit down, tough guy. You’re getting antiseptic.”
He obeyed, which shocked them both.
The fake-drive plan required Nora to rehearse one thing she hated: asking for help. Federal agents showed her the panic button sewn into her jacket lining and made her practice using it. Vincent insisted on a second transmitter in her shoe.
“This is absurd,” she said.
“It’s redundant.”
“It’s paranoid.”
“Same family.”
Nora rolled her eyes, but she kept both devices.
Before she entered the hotel room, Samuel stopped her in the corridor.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“I’m not.”
“To Vincent?”
“No.”
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“Then why are you doing it?”
Nora looked through the glass at Beatrice waiting inside. “Because she built her whole life around the idea that poor people, old people, and frightened people will stay quiet. I want her to be wrong at least once where she can hear it.”
