Chapter 7 - Stay With Me
“Get me inside.”
Gabriel blocked Etta.
“No.”
“Mrs. Tunney is in there.”
“So is an explosive device.”
“And smoke.”
“The tactical team is handling it.”
Etta pointed at the warehouse schematics displayed on a police tablet.
“They’re handling the bomb. Nobody is handling the ventilation.”
Her nursing training and nineteen months cleaning Corsaro House had taught her something useful.
Old buildings had lungs.
Find where they breathed, and you found another way inside.
Etta studied the original warehouse plan.
“Here.”
An abandoned laundry exhaust duct ran beneath the eastern wall.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Too narrow.”
“For you.”
Five minutes later, Etta was crawling through it.
She hated every second.
Dust filled her mouth.
Metal scraped her elbows.
Behind her, an officer followed.
Inside the warehouse, Emilio remained frozen over the pressure plate.
Mrs. Tunney coughed violently.
Smoke thickened.
“Emilio?”
Etta’s voice came through his hidden earpiece.
His eyes closed.
“What are you doing?”
“Being difficult.”
Despite everything, he smiled.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“You’ve mentioned that.”
She reached the interior vent.
The officer removed the grate.
Etta crawled through.
“Don’t move,” she told Emilio.
“I had no plans to.”
She reached Mrs. Tunney first and cut the restraints.
The tactical team determined the pressure plate was wired to a timer system.
A bomb technician entered through the same ventilation route.
Eleven agonizing minutes followed.
Then the technician looked up.
“It’s fake.”
Emilio stared.
“What?”
“No explosive material.”
Rafe had wanted panic.
Smoke.
Police surrounding the building.
Emilio trapped inside.
And cameras.
Outside, reporters had begun arriving.
Someone had tipped them off.
Rafe intended the scene to look like an illegal Corsaro operation gone wrong.
But Mrs. Tunney was alive.
Police were witnesses.
And Emilio had entered unarmed.
Rafe’s plan collapsed.
Again.
At dawn, Emilio emerged from the warehouse.
Etta stood beside him.
Reporters shouted questions.
For most of his life, Emilio had hidden behind silence.
This time he stopped.
“My brother attempted to murder me.”
Cameras flashed.
“He also harmed innocent people while trying to take control of businesses connected to my family.”
Gabriel looked surprised.
Emilio continued.
“I am cooperating fully with law enforcement.”
That statement sent shock waves through New Orleans.
Because cooperation meant records.
Names.
Money.
Secrets.
Emilio spent the next month doing something nobody expected.
He opened the books.
Not all Corsaro enterprises were criminal. Many were legitimate: shipping, restaurants, construction, hotels, real estate.
Others existed in shadows Emilio had inherited and maintained.
He began dismantling them.
Some associates threatened him.
Others abandoned him.
One called him weak.
Emilio answered, “I nearly died protecting an empire that was poisoning me. I’m reconsidering my priorities.”
Etta watched from a distance.
She had classes.
Clinical rotations.
Exams.
A life that did not revolve around Emilio.
That made their relationship stronger.
He learned to wait.
She learned to trust.
One Sunday afternoon, Emilio appeared outside her school carrying two coffees.
“No security?” she asked.
“Across the street.”
“Progress.”
“I’m told I remain moderately killable.”
She laughed.
They walked toward the river.
Emilio had gained eighteen pounds.
His face no longer looked hollow.
He still underwent cardiac monitoring and physical therapy, but Dr. Shah had become cautiously optimistic.
At the riverfront, Etta leaned against the railing.
“Do you ever think about that first night?”
“Every day.”
“You were awful.”
“I was dying.”
“You were still awful.”
“Fair.”
“You offered to pay me.”
“I would like that portion removed from historical records.”
“Never.”
He smiled.
Then became serious.
“I thought wanting something gave me the right to ask for it however I wanted.”
Etta listened.
“Nobody had told me no in years.”
“I noticed.”
“You did more than tell me no.”
“What?”
“You made me listen afterward.”
He reached into his coat.
Etta stiffened.
“If that’s a ring, I’m throwing you in the river.”
Emilio froze.
Then slowly produced a small paper bag.
“Beignet?”
She stared.
He looked offended.
“I’m capable of romance without jewelry.”
“Barely.”
They sat on a bench eating powdered sugar-covered beignets.
For twenty minutes, Emilio Corsaro was simply a man sitting beside the woman he loved.
Neither said the word yet.
Both knew.
Then Gabriel approached.
That alone meant something was wrong.
“We found Rafe.”
Emilio stood.
“Where?”
“Mobile.”
“Arrested?”
“No.”
Gabriel handed him a phone.
On the screen was security footage from a private marina.
Rafe boarded a boat with another man.
Dr. Prentiss.
Alive.
Together.
The boat had returned to Louisiana before dawn.
“They’re coming back?” Etta asked.
Gabriel nodded.
“Why?”
Emilio understood first.
“They need something.”
“What?”
“Evidence.”
The answer arrived an hour later.
Police called.
Someone had broken into the evidence storage facility holding Patrick Malloy’s notebook and the photographs from Rafe’s safe.
Nothing else had been touched.
Only the evidence connecting Rafe to Etta’s father.
But the thieves made one mistake.
They stole copies.
The originals were somewhere else.
Etta knew where.
Her father had written one strange phrase repeatedly in his notebook.
Where Mama still sings.
She had always thought it referred to her grandmother.
Then she remembered.
Her mother had owned a piano.
After her death, Patrick refused to sell it.
The piano was currently stored in Etta’s apartment building basement.
She and Emilio arrived with police.
Etta opened the old upright piano.
Beneath the keyboard was a narrow compartment.
Inside sat a memory card.
The video on it was six years old.
Patrick Malloy had secretly recorded his confrontation with Rafe.
Rafe’s voice was clear.
So was Prentiss’s.
And then another voice entered the room.
Emilio heard it and went white.
“No.”
Etta looked at him.
“Who is that?”
Emilio stared at the screen.
“My father.”
The man Emilio had mourned for five years had known everything.
May you like
Worse—
He had ordered Rafe to continue.
