Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
Vincent slapped the photograph onto the white tablecloth.
I didn't want to look at it. My entire body was trembling, my flight instinct screaming at me to run past his guards and disappear into the Brooklyn night.
But my eyes drifted downward anyway.
It was an old surveillance photo, grainy and printed in black and white. It showed a man running down an alleyway, looking over his shoulder. The rain was slicking his hair to his forehead, but his face was perfectly visible.
He was wearing a heavy jacket.
And on his left wrist, clearly caught in the flash of a streetlamp, was the heavy silver watch.
I stopped breathing.
The man in the photograph was young, terrified, and desperate.
It was my father. Arthur Bennett.
“This was taken two blocks away from my father’s office on the night he was murdered,” Vincent said. His voice was completely devoid of emotion now, which somehow made it infinitely worse. “The police said it was a robbery gone wrong. I knew it was a hit. I spent fifteen years looking for the man in this photo.”
I looked up at Vincent, tears suddenly blurring my vision.
“My dad wasn't a killer,” I whispered. “He was a mechanic. He fixed transmissions. He didn't even own a gun.”
“Men who need money do terrible things,” Vincent said coldly. “And judging by the fact that you're working double shifts in a restaurant that’s about to close, your family has a habit of needing money.”
I felt a hot flush of anger burn through my terror.
I needed money because I was twenty-eight and raising my six-year-old daughter, Mia, entirely on my own. I needed money because nursing school didn't pay for itself, and babysitters charged by the hour.
But I wasn't about to give this mafia boss my daughter’s name as ammunition.
“You're wrong,” I said fiercely, grabbing my apron and untying it from my waist. “My father died when I was thirteen. Whatever you think he did, he’s gone. You can't hurt him anymore. And you're not going to hurt me.”
I threw the apron onto the table next to the photograph.
I turned to walk away.
The two massive men in dark suits immediately stepped together, forming a solid wall of muscle between me and the exit.
“Move,” I demanded, trying to sound braver than I felt.
They didn't blink.
“I didn't say you could leave, Lucy,” Vincent said from behind me.
Panic seized my chest. I spun around to face him. “You can't keep me here. There are fifty people in this dining room.”
“And none of them are looking at us,” Vincent pointed out.
I glanced around. He was right. The other patrons had miraculously found their plates utterly fascinating. Not a single person was making eye contact with the table where Vincent Caruso was interrogating a waitress.
“Vincent, that is enough.”
Eleanor’s voice was sharp. She pushed herself up from the table, leaning heavily on her cane. She walked around her son and stood directly in front of me, shielding me with her small, fragile frame.
“Ma, step aside,” Vincent warned gently.
“I will not,” Eleanor snapped, her blue eyes flashing with a mother’s authority. “I don't care what you think you see in that photograph. Look at this girl’s hands.”
Vincent frowned in confusion. “What?”
Eleanor reached out and took my trembling hands in hers. She held them up for Vincent to see.
My knuckles were red and dry from chemical cleaners. My fingernails were cut short. A small burn mark scarred the side of my thumb from a hot coffee carafe.
“These are the hands of someone who works for everything she has,” Eleanor said firmly. “She sat with me when everyone else treated me like a burden. She defended me when it could have cost her her job. That does not come from a family of murderers, Vincent.”
Vincent stared at his mother. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
For a terrifying man, his weakness was glaringly obvious: he loved his mother with a fierce, blinding devotion.
He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Fine,” Vincent said. He looked at me, his dark eyes calculating. “I won't touch you. But I am not letting you out of my sight. Not until I know exactly how my father’s watch ended up on your wrist.”
“I told you, my dad—”
“I don't want your version of the story,” Vincent interrupted. “I want the truth. You're coming with us.”
“I can't just leave!” I protested. “I have to get home. My… my roommate is expecting me.”
“Your roommate can wait,” Vincent said, turning toward the door. “My men will collect your things from the locker room. You're coming to the estate.”
I looked at the two bodyguards. I looked at the terrifying man walking toward the exit.
If I ran, they would catch me. If I went to the police, the Carusos owned half the precincts in Brooklyn anyway.
I had no choice.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a black armored SUV, staring out the tinted windows as we pulled through the massive iron gates of the Caruso family estate in Staten Island.
The property was a fortress. High stone walls, security cameras, and armed men patrolling the manicured lawns.
Eleanor was sitting beside me, exhausted but stubbornly holding my hand. Vincent sat in the front passenger seat, staring straight ahead in silence.
The car parked in front of a sprawling brick mansion.
“Take my mother to her room,” Vincent ordered one of the guards. “Have the nurse check her vitals.”
He turned to me. “You. With me.”
I followed Vincent through the grand foyer, down a long hallway lined with dark wood paneling and oil paintings, until we reached a massive office that smelled of expensive leather and old paper.
He closed the door behind us. The lock clicked.
“Empty your pockets,” Vincent ordered, leaning against his mahogany desk.
I glared at him, but I reached into my jeans. I pulled out my cell phone, a chapstick, and a few crumpled dollar bills from my tips. I set them on his desk.
“The watch,” Vincent added.
I hesitated, my fingers tracing the cracked glass at the three o'clock mark. It was the only piece of my father I had left.
Slowly, I unbuckled the leather strap and placed the heavy silver watch next to my phone.
Vincent picked it up. He ran his thumb over the engraving on the back. A look of profound grief flashed across his hardened face before he buried it again.
“You said your father died in a car crash fifteen years ago,” Vincent stated, setting the watch down.
“Yes.”
“What month?”
“October,” I answered, my throat tight. “October 12th.”
Vincent froze.
He slowly looked up at me. His eyes were wide, completely shocked.
“What did you just say?”
“October 12th,” I repeated, stepping back nervously. “Why?”
Vincent didn't answer. He walked around the desk, pulled open a heavy filing drawer, and yanked out a manila folder. He threw it onto the desk, knocking my crumpled dollar bills to the floor.
He flipped the folder open.
Inside was an old police report.
Vincent pointed to the date at the top of the page.
Date of Incident: October 12th.
“That is the exact date my father was murdered,” Vincent said, his voice barely a whisper.
I stared at the paper. A cold chill washed over my entire body.
“That’s… that’s a coincidence,” I stammered.
“I don't believe in coincidences,” Vincent said.
As he spoke, a small, rectangular piece of stiff paper fluttered out from the folds of my crumpled dollar bills on the floor. It had been wedged in my pocket.
Vincent noticed it. He bent down and picked it up.
It was an old, faded train ticket.
I carried it everywhere. My father had given it to me the night he died, telling me to keep it safe.
Vincent looked at the ticket. Then, his face turned the color of ash.
“Where did you get this?” Vincent asked, his voice shaking.
“My dad gave it to me.”
Vincent turned the ticket around so I could see it.
It was a one-way ticket to Atlantic City.
“My father wasn't killed in Brooklyn,” Vincent said, his eyes locking onto mine with terrifying clarity. “He was killed in a hotel room in Atlantic City. And the only people who knew he was there were his inner circle.”
The silence in the room was deafening.
May you like
Vincent stepped closer to me.
“Answer one question, Lucy,” he said. “If your father was just a mechanic… why did he have a train ticket to the exact city my father was murdered in, on the exact night he died?”
