Chapter 2 - My Brother’s Secret
For several seconds, all I could hear was dripping water.
Then I grabbed Nora’s wrist.
“Say that again.”
She did not pull away.
“I loved Daniel.”
“My brother never mentioned you.”
“He wasn’t allowed to.”
“Nobody stopped Daniel from doing anything.”
“Your father did.”
That silenced me.
Nora lifted her chin.
“Eight years ago, I was twenty-two. I worked nights at a bakery in Queens and studied accounting during the day.”
“What does that have to do with Daniel?”
“He came in every Thursday at two in the morning.”
Despite everything happening above us, an old memory surfaced.
Daniel disappearing Thursday nights.
Returning around sunrise.
Smiling.
I had assumed there was a woman.
I simply never cared enough to ask who.
“He told me his name was Daniel Vale at first,” Nora said.
I gave a humorless laugh.
“That was his idea of subtlety.”
“I found out who he really was three months later.”
“And you stayed?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I loved him.”
A distant thud shook dust loose from the ceiling.
I ignored it.
“What did my father do?”
Nora looked away.
“He found us.”
I knew exactly what that sentence could mean when the father in question was Vittorio DeLuca.
“He told Daniel I was unsuitable. Poor. Unknown. A weakness enemies could exploit.”
“He wasn’t wrong about the last part.”
“No.”
Her answer surprised me.
“He offered me money. I refused.”
“That sounds like you.”
“You’ve known me twenty minutes.”
“It feels longer.”
A brief smile almost appeared.
Then vanished.
“Your father ordered Daniel to end it.”
“And Daniel?”
“He refused.”
Of course he had.
Daniel had possessed all the stubbornness in our family and none of the patience.
Nora continued.
“Three weeks later, Daniel told me we were leaving New York.”
My chest tightened.
“He died three weeks later.”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s death had been blamed on a rival crew.
His car had exploded beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
There had been almost nothing left to bury.
I had spent two years destroying the organization supposedly responsible.
“Why are you here now?”
Nora hesitated.
“Because Daniel left something behind.”
“What?”
She opened her mouth.
A mechanical buzz interrupted us.
I grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the tunnel.
A flashlight beam appeared through the broken wall behind us.
Someone had found the opening.
“Move.”
Nora ran.
I followed.
The tunnel narrowed before turning sharply left.
“Where does this go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You dragged me into a tunnel without knowing the exit?”
“You were about to get assassinated upstairs.”
“Fair point.”
Behind us, a man shouted.
“DeLuca!”
Gunshots cracked through the tunnel.
Brick chips exploded near my shoulder.
Nora ducked.
“Keep moving!”
We reached an old steel door.
Locked.
“Wonderful,” I muttered.
Nora pulled a housekeeping key ring from her pocket.
“You carry skeleton keys?”
“I run a house filled with rich people who lose things.”
The third key turned.
The door opened into an abandoned boiler room.
I pulled Nora inside and locked it behind us.
She pointed toward another stairwell.
“That leads toward the old garage.”
“Then we use it.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“What now?”
“We need evidence.”
“There are assassins hunting us.”
“And if you kill them without proving Carmine organized this, half your organization may believe him instead of you.”
I stared at her.
“You really studied accounting?”
“I finished the degree.”
“Then why are you cleaning houses?”
Her face hardened.
“Because somebody made sure no financial company in New York would hire me.”
“Who?”
“Carmine Vale.”
That name again.
I slowly holstered my pistol.
“You said Daniel left something behind.”
Nora nodded.
“A file.”
“Where?”
“Inside this estate.”
My patience vanished.
“You have had three weeks to tell me this.”
“I didn’t know whether I could trust you.”
“You put a revolver against my spine.”
“That wasn’t trust.”
“What changed?”
“I watched four men enter your house to murder you.”
“That improved your opinion of me?”
“It narrowed my options.”
I almost laughed despite myself.
“Where is the file?”
“Your father’s old study.”
“That room has been locked since his death.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I tried the door.”
I stared at her.
“You are a remarkably bad housekeeper.”
“I’m an excellent housekeeper.”
“You break into private studies.”
“Only strategically.”
Another faint gunshot sounded above us.
Nora’s expression tightened.
“The gala.”
I checked my phone.
No signal underground.
“Seven hundred civilians.”
“Security will begin evacuating once they realize something is wrong.”
“Unless Carmine controls security.”
Nora said nothing.
That was answer enough.
I opened the stairwell door.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“My father’s study.”
Her eyes widened.
“I thought you wanted to escape.”
“I did.”
I drew my pistol again.
“Now I want to know why my brother died.”
We climbed.
Before we reached the first floor, Nora caught my sleeve.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
She swallowed.
“Daniel didn’t just leave a file.”
I waited.
“He left a son.”
Every sound around me disappeared.
“A what?”
Nora’s eyes filled.
“His name is Ethan.”
May you like
My throat tightened.
“He’s seven years old.”
