Chapter 16 - The Dinner Of The Dead
Vittorio had set the private dining room for eight.
That was the first thing I noticed.
White linen.
Silver flatware.
Crystal glasses.
Place cards.
NICO.
BIANCA.
MARCO.
LEO.
EMMA.
CLARA.
DAVID.
VITTORIO.
I stared at David's card.
"He is alive?"
Vittorio sat at the head of the table.
"For now."
Salvatore forced me into my chair.
Nico sat beside me.
Bianca and Leo sat across from us.
Marco sat beside Bianca.
Clara was brought in a minute later with a split lip and fury in her eyes.
"Your security team is terrible," she told Nico.
"I have noticed."
"Good."
David arrived last.
His wounded arm was in a sling.
Pike walked behind him carrying a gun.
I stared at the detective.
"You really are everywhere unpleasant."
Pike smiled.
"You should have taken the deal in interrogation."
"You never offered one."
"Details."
Vittorio lifted his wineglass.
"Now."
He looked almost happy.
"At last, everyone is present."
Leo glared at him.
"I hate your party."
Marco smiled.
"Best review of the evening."
Vittorio's smile tightened.
"Children should be seen and not heard."
Nico's chair moved an inch.
I put my hand on his wrist under the table.
He looked at me.
Not yet.
He understood.
Vittorio noticed anyway.
"Remarkable."
His gaze moved between us.
"Three days, Nico."
"What?"
"Three days ago she was filling water glasses, and now she restrains you with a touch."
Nico's voice became cold.
"Choose your next sentence carefully."
Vittorio smiled.
"There he is."
Bianca spoke.
"Why are we here?"
"Because I am tired of people running."
"You made us run."
"I gave everyone opportunities."
Marco laughed.
"You chained me to a wall."
"You refused to cooperate."
"With being dead?"
"With understanding necessity."
Marco leaned back.
"Still a sociopath."
Vittorio ignored him.
He looked at me.
"The ring."
"No."
"I did not ask a question."
"Neither did I."
Pike moved behind me.
Nico stood halfway.
Salvatore raised his weapon.
Leo began breathing quickly.
"Sit," Vittorio said.
Nico sat.
I could feel violence vibrating through him.
Vittorio held out his hand.
"The ring, Emma."
"Why?"
"You already copied the ledger."
His smile vanished.
"The copy does not concern me."
That surprised everyone.
Grace had copies.
Federal contacts had copies.
Even if Vittorio destroyed the ring, the records survived.
"Then what do you want?"
"The physical film contains something the scans do not."
I frowned.
"What?"
"A chemical marker."
Bianca went still.
"No."
Vittorio looked at her.
"You figured it out."
Nico turned.
"What?"
Bianca looked at me.
"Eleanor used microdot ink on the film edges."
"Meaning?"
"A second layer of information appears under ultraviolet light."
My stomach dropped.
"More records?"
"Names," Vittorio said.
"Names of people Eleanor protected by leaving them out of the visible ledger."
Marco's face changed.
"Witnesses."
"Exactly."
Vittorio's gaze returned to me.
"People who helped her copy files."
"People who can testify."
Grace's legal case suddenly had living foundations.
"You want to kill them."
"I want to prevent old misunderstandings from damaging innocent families."
I laughed in his face.
"You rehearse that?"
His eyes turned cold.
"Your grandmother was less amusing at the end."
Everything inside me stopped.
"What did you do to her?"
Silence.
Vittorio sipped his wine.
"Cancer did what I did not need to."
I hated the relief that came with the answer.
He had not killed her.
He had simply spent years waiting for her to die.
"My grandfather?"
Vittorio looked almost bored.
"Thomas Hayes was unfortunate."
My hands tightened around the table edge.
"Say it plainly."
Nico looked at me.
"Emma."
"No."
I stared at Vittorio.
"Say what you did."
He smiled.
"I had his brakes altered."
The room vanished.
My grandfather's funeral had happened when I was five.
I remembered black shoes.
Rain.
My grandmother gripping my hand so hard her knuckles were white.
She told me Grandpa had gone to heaven after an accident.
All those years, she had known.
She had known it was murder.
And she had kept going.
"Why?"
"He discovered business records that did not concern him."
"They concerned people being killed."
"Business can be untidy."
Nico spoke before I could.
"My father."
Vittorio looked at him.
Something changed in the room.
"What about him?"
"Was his death business too?"
Marco slowly turned toward Vittorio.
Bianca covered her mouth.
Vittorio's eyes hardened.
Nico leaned forward.
"Carlo Valenti died in a restaurant bombing blamed on Russo."
"Yes."
"Eleanor's ledger has a payment to S.C. two days before."
Salvatore's face went blank.
Nico saw it.
"You."
Salvatore said nothing.
Vittorio sighed.
"Your father was sentimental."
Nico stood.
Every gun in the room rose.
I had never seen hatred so complete.
"You killed him."
"I saved the family from him."
"He was your brother."
"He was weakening us."
Marco stood too.
"And us?"
Vittorio looked at both brothers.
"You were becoming exactly like him."
"So you turned us against each other."
"You made it easy."
The cruelty of that sentence hit them both.
Nico had believed Marco betrayed him because part of him was already willing to believe it.
Marco had believed Nico ordered his death because their rivalry had given the lie somewhere to live.
Vittorio had not invented every fracture.
He had simply pushed his knife into the cracks.
Bianca looked at him.
"You threatened Leo so I would disappear."
"I needed Nico distracted."
"You showed me fake evidence that Marco sold us out."
"You were eager to believe it."
She flinched.
"You held me prisoner."
"Only after you became inconvenient."
Clara spat across the table.
It landed on Vittorio's white cuff.
Pike hit her.
The crack echoed.
Marco lunged.
Salvatore pressed a gun against Leo's chair.
Everyone froze.
Leo stared up at him.
His face was pale.
"Coward," he whispered.
Salvatore's jaw tightened.
Vittorio wiped his cuff calmly.
"The ring."
I looked at Leo.
Then at Nico.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
Do not.
I reached toward my pocket.
Pike watched my hand.
I removed the velvet pouch.
Vittorio smiled.
"Very good."
I placed it on the table.
"Let Leo go."
"After I confirm it."
Salvatore picked up the pouch.
He opened it.
Empty.
Vittorio's smile disappeared.
Pike grabbed me by the shoulder.
"Where is it?"
I looked at Vittorio.
"Somewhere a man like you would never look."
His face darkened.
"Where?"
"With a waitress."
For the first time that evening, I saw panic in his eyes.
Because downstairs, somewhere among forty invisible catering workers moving through Lumina, Clara had passed the real ring to a woman Vittorio had never bothered to learn the name of.
May you like
And that woman was already walking out the front door.
