Chapter 9 - THE TRAITOR AT MY TABLE
Salvatore DeLuca taught me how to drive.
He gave me my first watch.
When my father died, Salvatore stood beside the coffin and promised no one would ever challenge my right to lead the family.
For five years, he had sat at my table every Sunday.
He had kissed Elena's cheek on birthdays.
He had called me son.
Now I was staring at seven years of bank transfers proving he had helped Vittorio Bellucci manufacture a war.
Marco scrolled.
"Payments through offshore accounts."
"Amounts?"
"Thirty-eight million total."
Elena stared.
"For what?"
"Information. Routes. Shipments. Meetings."
I felt sick.
Forty-two dead men.
Some deaths I'd blamed on Vittorio.
Some Vittorio had blamed on me.
Maybe Salvatore had orchestrated both.
"Where is he?" I asked.
Marco called the house.
No answer.
Another man tried Salvatore's apartment.
Empty.
His car had left Manhattan an hour earlier.
Sophia stood beside me.
"What does the last message mean?"
I looked at her.
"Nothing you need to carry."
Her expression hardened.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Don't start protecting me by hiding things."
She was right.
Again.
I showed her the message.
She read it.
"If Vittorio falls, kill Matteo and make Sophia the widow before her twenty-first birthday."
Her face lost color.
"Why before my birthday?"
Dominic answered.
"Because as Matteo's widow, you would inherit his interest in Antonio's holding company."
Sophia shook her head.
"But Salvatore still wouldn't control it."
"Unless you're dead too," Elena said.
Silence.
I looked at her.
Elena's eyes were cold.
"Think about it. Matteo dies. Sophia inherits. Then Sophia dies before twenty-one. Who gets her estate?"
Dominic's expression changed.
"Nearest legal relatives."
"Vittorio and Enzo."
"Both in prison," Sophia whispered.
"Then perhaps Isabella."
Catherine's daughter.
A minor.
And who might be appointed to help manage a minor beneficiary tied to DeLuca assets?
A trusted DeLuca family elder.
Salvatore.
"He planned to inherit indirectly," Marco said.
"No," I replied.
"He planned to become indispensable."
There was a difference.
Men like Salvatore didn't need their names on paperwork if everyone holding the pen depended on them.
My phone rang.
Salvatore.
I answered.
"Uncle."
"Matteo."
His voice was calm.
"Busy morning?"
"You're disappointing me."
He laughed.
"Your father used to say that."
"Did he know?"
"Know what?"
"That you were selling him out?"
Silence.
Then:
"Antonio knew many things too late."
My body went cold.
"Did you kill him?"
Elena looked at me sharply.
Salvatore sighed.
"Your father had cancer."
"That isn't an answer."
"He refused treatment."
I knew that.
Pancreatic cancer.
Four months between diagnosis and death.
"Did you kill him?"
"No."
I believed him.
Not because Salvatore deserved trust.
Because he sounded irritated that I was giving him credit for a death he hadn't caused.
"Where are you?"
"Home."
"Which home?"
"The one that should have been mine."
My father's old estate.
Long Island.
The house where I'd grown up.
After my father died, I moved most operations to Manhattan, but Salvatore had always resented that the estate went to me.
"Why call?"
"Because I want to offer terms."
"You're in no position."
"Check the west security feed."
Marco opened the estate cameras remotely.
Most were dark.
One appeared.
Grand ballroom.
Three people kneeling.
My grandmother, Rosa.
Our longtime housekeeper, Maria.
And Thomas Reed, the attorney who controlled my father's sealed trust records.
Armed men stood behind them.
Elena swore.
Salvatore said, "Now do I have a position?"
Sophia looked at the screen.
My grandmother was seventy-eight.
She sat upright even on her knees.
Typical Rosa.
"I'll come."
"No," Elena said.
Salvatore heard.
"Hello, sweetheart."
Elena stepped toward the phone.
"I hope you choke."
He laughed.
"Still charming."
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Sophia."
Of course.
"No."
"Then Nonna dies first."
Sophia shook her head.
"Matteo."
"No."
She grabbed my arm.
"Listen."
"I am listening."
"Not like your boss. Like my husband."
Everyone suddenly became interested in other things.
Sophia lowered her voice.
"He thinks I'm still the girl who goes where she's told."
"He wants you because he thinks he can force signatures."
"Exactly."
"So?"
"So let him keep thinking it."
I stared.
"We go together."
"No."
"Together."
She wasn't asking to sacrifice herself.
She was asking to participate.
Important difference.
We formed the plan in eleven minutes.
Federal agents surrounded the estate from a distance.
Marco entered through the old wine cellar.
Elena went with him despite every objection I made.
Dominic remained outside coordinating.
Sophia and I approached through the front gate.
No guns visible.
Salvatore's men searched us.
They missed the blade in my shoe.
They also missed the microphone sewn inside Sophia's coat.
The ballroom looked almost exactly as it had during my childhood.
Same chandeliers.
Same piano.
Same portrait of my grandfather.
Only now my uncle stood beneath it holding a gun.
"Matteo."
"Salvatore."
His eyes moved to Sophia.
"Beautiful girl."
She stiffened.
I saw it.
So did he.
He smiled.
He still mistook fear for surrender.
"Come here, Sophia."
She didn't move.
Salvatore lifted the gun toward my grandmother.
Sophia stepped forward.
I let her.
Every muscle in my body screamed not to.
Trust felt like standing unarmed while someone you cared about walked toward danger.
Salvatore handed her documents.
"Sign."
Sophia looked down.
"What are they?"
"You don't need to understand."
A phrase she'd probably heard a thousand times.
She looked at him.
"I want to read them."
Salvatore laughed.
"No."
"I don't sign things I haven't read."
His smile faded.
"Your father said you were difficult."
"My father says a lot from police custody now."
My grandmother smiled.
I nearly did too.
Salvatore pressed the gun against Rosa's shoulder.
"Sign."
Sophia took the pen.
She looked at the signature line.
Then at me.
For half a second I wondered if fear had won.
Then she dropped the pen.
"No."
Salvatore struck her across the face.
I moved.
Three guns pointed at me.
I stopped.
Sophia touched her lip.
Salvatore grabbed her arm.
"You spoiled little—"
She drove her knee into him.
Hard.
He folded.
My grandmother shouted, "Finally!"
Chaos exploded.
I kicked the nearest guard's knee and took his weapon.
Gunfire erupted from the rear hallway.
Marco's team entered.
Elena dove toward Rosa.
Sophia crawled behind a marble column.
Salvatore fired wildly.
I chased him through the library.
The same library where he'd taught me chess.
The same room where my father had once told me family was the only thing money couldn't replace.
Apparently he'd been wrong.
Salvatore reached the balcony doors.
Locked.
He turned.
Gun raised.
Mine was already aimed.
"Stop."
He laughed.
"You don't have it."
"Have what?"
"The thing your father had."
"What's that?"
"Mercy."
Interesting.
"You think that's why you're alive?"
His smile vanished.
He fired.
The bullet missed my head by inches.
I fired once.
His weapon dropped.
My shot hit his shoulder.
He collapsed against the desk.
"You should kill me," he gasped.
"No."
"Afraid?"
"Practical."
I heard agents entering.
"You spent seven years turning our families against each other."
Salvatore smiled through pain.
"Seven?"
I froze.
He laughed.
"Matteo, this started before you were born."
"What?"
"Ask Lucia."
Agents surrounded him.
"What did you mean?"
He wouldn't answer.
They dragged him away.
Back in the ballroom, Sophia sat with ice against her cheek.
I crossed toward her.
She stood.
"I'm okay."
"I know."
"You look like you're about to break furniture."
"I'm considering it."
She smiled.
Then grew serious.
"Did he say something?"
I hesitated.
She noticed.
"No hiding."
I exhaled.
"He said this started before I was born."
Sophia looked toward Lucia, who had arrived with federal protection after the estate was secured.
Her mother's face changed.
That was enough.
"You know," I said.
Lucia closed her eyes.
"Yes."
"What started before I was born?"
She looked at Sophia.
Then at me.
"The feud between the Belluccis and DeLucas was never really about business."
"Then what?"
Lucia's eyes filled.
"Your father and Vittorio hated each other because of me."
Nobody spoke.
She continued.
"Before I married Vittorio Bellucci..."
Lucia looked directly at me.
"I was engaged to Antonio DeLuca."
My father.
Sophia's mother.
And suddenly the history beneath our marriage became even more complicated.
Lucia whispered, "Vittorio didn't steal only my daughter's inheritance."
May you like
She swallowed.
"He stole the life your father and I were supposed to have."
