Chapter 7 - The Man Behind the Grave
Bee didn't pick up the photograph immediately.
She looked at Dominic instead.
"What does that warning mean?"
He rubbed a hand across his face.
"It means your father understood people better than anyone I've ever known."
"That's not an answer."
"No. It's the beginning of one."
Dominic told her that Michael Gallagher had once controlled the financial machinery behind the Rossi empire. When Dominic's father died, Michael became the only person capable of preventing the organization from collapsing into a war between rival families.
But Michael discovered that Lorenzo's father had been selling routes, weapons, and protection agreements to an international syndicate known as the Black Circle.
The conspiracy reached into the police department, the courthouse, and several legitimate corporations.
Michael tried to expose it.
Instead, someone arranged his disappearance and framed him for stealing millions.
"My father would never steal," Bee said.
"I know."
"How?"
Dominic reached into his pocket and produced a small silver watch.
"Because he left me this."
Bee recognized it immediately. Her father had worn the watch every day until the night he supposedly died.
Dominic explained that Michael had survived the original attack but was badly injured. Isabella helped him escape, and he disappeared under a false identity. Dominic had spent years searching for him without success.
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Because every time I got close, someone died."
Bee's anger faltered.
Dominic looked at her with exhausted honesty.
"Three years ago, a man approached me claiming to know where your father was hiding. Before I could question him, Lorenzo arranged an ambush. Two of my men died. I found a message in the wreckage."
"What did it say?"
Dominic swallowed.
"Leave Beatrice alone, or the next grave will be hers."
The church seemed to grow colder.
Bee thought of her mother's fear, the locked box, and the strange feeling that someone had always been watching their small apartment.
"Where is my father now?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
"I wish I were."
A noise came from the balcony above them.
Dominic raised his gun.
Bee turned toward the sound, but a figure dropped behind the altar and sprinted through a side door.
Dominic chased him.
Bee followed and found a phone lying on the wet pavement outside. The screen displayed a live video feed.
A gray-haired man sat in a chair inside a concrete room.
His face was bruised, but his brown eyes were unmistakable.
Bee stopped breathing.
It was her father.
Michael Gallagher looked directly into the camera.
"Beatrice, if you're seeing this, then Dominic has finally told you enough to make you dangerous."
He leaned closer.
"And now I need you to do something that will break his heart."
The video ended.
A location appeared beneath it.
May you like
The Rossi family cemetery.
And the scheduled time of Dominic's execution.
