Chapter 9 - THE TRAITOR AT VINCENT'S TABLE
Vincent wanted the evidence copied immediately.
I agreed.
Three encrypted duplicates.
One attorney.
One federal prosecutor chosen by my father years earlier.
One hidden somewhere even Vincent didn’t know.
“You don’t trust me?”
he asked.
“I’m learning.”
His expression softened.
“Good answer.”
By evening, Carlo DeLuca knew something had changed.
He came to Vincent’s house without being invited.
I watched from the security room.
Carlo was sixty-one, silver-haired, elegant, almost grandfatherly.
He kissed Vincent on both cheeks.
That frightened me more than Derek ever had.
“Twenty-six years,” Carlo said. “And suddenly you stop returning my calls.”
Vincent poured two drinks.
“I’ve been busy.”
“With the waitress?”
My stomach tightened.
Vincent’s voice changed.
“Use her name.”
Carlo smiled.
“Amelia.”
There was no surprise.
He already knew me.
Vincent saw it too.
“You’ve met?”
“No.”
Carlo sipped his drink.
“But Caleb talked about his wife constantly.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Of course.”
Vincent placed Sophia’s photograph on the table.
Carlo’s smile vanished.
“What is this?”
“You tell me.”
Carlo stood.
“You’re listening to ghosts.”
“I should have listened sooner.”
For the first time, anger appeared in Carlo’s face.
“Everything I did was for this family.”
Vincent laughed softly.
“No. Everything you did was because you thought the family belonged to you.”
Carlo left twenty minutes later.
Vincent did not stop him.
I stared at him.
“You let him walk out.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because frightened men run toward what they’re trying to hide.”
Carlo did.
Our tracker followed him to an abandoned office near the Brooklyn waterfront.
Vincent’s people photographed everyone entering.
Douglas Lawson.
Derek.
Two retired detectives.
And a man I recognized instantly.
Caleb.
Three years since I had seen him.
Three years since I had run.
Even on a grainy security feed, my body remembered before my mind did.
My heart raced.
My hands went cold.
Vincent noticed.
“We don’t have to watch.”
“Yes, we do.”
Then Caleb turned toward the hidden camera.
Almost as if he knew it was there.
He held up a handwritten sign.
HELLO, AMELIA.
Beneath it was another sentence.
ASK VINCENT WHY HIS RULE STARTED BEFORE SOPHIA DIED.
I looked at Vincent.
He became completely still.
May you like
The famous rule—nobody hurts anyone beneath the diner’s roof—was supposed to have been created after Sophia’s death.
Caleb was claiming Vincent had lied about that too.
