Chapter 13 - THE PRICE OF AN ORSINI PROMISE
Z
The attack lasted four minutes.
It felt like forty.
Nell spent most of it beneath the kitchen pantry table with Palmira beside her.
Palmira held a revolver.
Nell stared.
“You own a gun?”
Palmira looked offended.
“I’m eighty-one, not stupid.”
Outside, men shouted.
Glass broke.
A car hit the stone fountain.
Carmine’s security team returned fire from positions around the estate.
No one in the kitchen fired.
That mattered to Nell.
In another version of this story, she might have become accustomed to violence.
She had not.
She hoped she never would.
Then silence arrived.
Not peaceful silence.
The strange heavy silence after chaos.
Carmine entered.
Blood marked his shirt.
Nell stood so quickly she struck her shoulder against the table.
“You’re hurt.”
“Not mine.”
She stopped.
He looked toward Palmira.
“You all right?”
His grandmother lifted the revolver.
“Disappointed.”
Carmine stared.
Palmira returned it to her handbag.
“What?”
“I didn’t get to shoot anyone.”
Nell almost laughed from shock.
Carmine looked toward her.
“You?”
“I’m fine.”
Only then did his shoulders lower.
Vincent had been hit.
One bullet through the upper arm.
Painful.
Not fatal.
Benny called a doctor who asked no questions.
Two DeLuca men were captured.
One dead.
Three escaped.
Police arrived after Carmine’s attorney called.
This time, Carmine did not hide what happened.
No bribed officers.
No cleaned scenes.
No quiet disposal.
He gave statements.
Security footage.
Weapons.
Names.
Nell noticed.
Later, sitting beside him in the study, she asked, “Would your father have called police?”
“No.”
“Would you have six months ago?”
Carmine considered it.
“Probably not.”
“What changed?”
He looked at her.
“You.”
Nell shook her head.
“That’s too easy.”
“It isn’t easy.”
He leaned forward.
“I spent my adult life believing control meant handling problems inside the family.”
“That sounds like your father.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I think secrets are how Bellarose survived.”
Nell studied him.
“That sounds like my mother.”
“Your mother was smarter than my father.”
“Low bar today.”
Carmine laughed softly.
Then his face became serious.
“You’re angry with me.”
Nell looked away.
“I know you didn’t know who I was.”
“But.”
“But your family owed mine a promise.”
“I know.”
“And I lived forty-one dollars away from missing my father’s medical payment while your family owned half the neighborhood.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t fair to blame you.”
“No.”
She looked back.
“But you do.”
“Yes.”
Carmine nodded.
“Then blame me.”
Nell frowned.
“That isn’t healthy.”
“I’m not asking you to be reasonable for my comfort.”
That disarmed her.
She had expected defense.
Explanation.
Maybe anger.
Instead he offered space for hers.
“You really are annoying.”
“I hear that often.”
Nell looked at his hand.
A cut crossed one knuckle.
She touched it.
“What happens with DeLuca?”
“Legally?”
“Yes.”
He noticed the emphasis.
“We cooperate with investigators.”
“And illegally?”
“There will be no illegally.”
She searched his face.
“Because of me?”
“No.”
Nell waited.
Carmine continued.
“Because I am tired of inheriting decisions from dead men.”
That answer felt different.
Not a promise made to her.
A decision made for himself.
She liked it more.
Across town, Marco DeLuca received a telephone call from Conrad Bellarose.
Bellarose was staying in a private residence under restrictive bail conditions while federal prosecutors argued he was a flight risk.
His lawyers had somehow delayed detention.
Money still worked.
For now.
“You failed,” Bellarose said.
Marco stared from the window of an abandoned auto shop.
“You told me the estate security would be minimal.”
“It usually is.”
“It was not.”
“You attacked Carmine Orsini’s grandmother’s house in daylight.”
“That was the point.”
“No.”
Bellarose’s voice sharpened.
“The point was the tape.”
Marco said nothing.
“You were supposed to get the evidence.”
“We couldn’t get inside.”
“Then you accomplished nothing.”
“We sent a message.”
Bellarose laughed.
“Messages are for men who cannot accomplish results.”
Marco’s face hardened.
“Be careful.”
“You need me.”
“I did.”
Silence.
Marco looked at the phone.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Carmine will destroy you legally now.”
“You sound afraid.”
“I am practical.”
“You started this.”
“And you failed.”
Bellarose hung up.
Marco stood alone.
Then smiled.
Conrad Bellarose had forgotten something important.
He was not the only man who knew where bodies were buried.
At the Orsini estate, Vincent woke after midnight.
Carmine sat beside the bed.
No one else.
Vincent looked at his bandaged arm.
“I always hated doctors.”
“You always hated consequences.”
Vincent smiled.
“That too.”
Carmine remained serious.
“Tell me everything about DeLuca.”
Vincent looked toward the dark window.
“Their arrangement with Bellarose began after your father died.”
“What arrangement?”
“Protection.”
“For what?”
“Bellarose used DeLuca routes after Anthony shut down the tunnel.”
Carmine frowned.
“My father shut it down?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“Six months before he died.”
Carmine leaned back.
That meant Anthony had actually acted.
Too late.
Quietly.
Imperfectly.
But he had acted.
Vincent continued.
“Conrad blamed him for millions in losses.”
“Did Bellarose kill my father?”
Vincent’s eyes met his.
“I don’t know.”
Carmine said nothing.
That answer was worse than no.
Anthony’s death had been ruled natural.
Heart attack.
No autopsy beyond routine examination.
Palmira had refused one.
Family custom.
Privacy.
Control.
Again.
Vincent continued.
“But Anthony received something two days before he died.”
“What?”
“A package.”
“From?”
“Lydia.”
Carmine froze.
“Lydia was already dead.”
“Yes.”
“Then how?”
“Scheduled delivery.”
“What was inside?”
“I never saw it.”
“Where is it?”
Vincent smiled bitterly.
“That is why I came back.”
Carmine waited.
“Anthony hid it somewhere before he died.”
“Another box?”
“Maybe.”
“Another clock?”
Vincent laughed and immediately winced.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Your father told me once that if he ever needed to hide something from criminals, he would put it somewhere criminals hated going.”
Carmine thought.
Church?
Police station?
Hospital?
Then he remembered Anthony’s most repeated complaint.
He hated banks.
He said banks were criminals with better furniture.
Not that.
Nell entered quietly.
She had overheard the last sentence.
“Somewhere criminals hated going.”
Vincent nodded.
Nell looked at Carmine.
“Your father donated to a library.”
Carmine frowned.
“What?”
“There’s a plaque at the main library. Anthony and Isabella Orsini Reading Room.”
Carmine stared.
“I haven’t been inside a library since school.”
Vincent laughed.
“Exactly.”
At nine the next morning, they entered the New Orleans Public Library.
A records clerk located a donation archive.
Anthony Orsini had donated a collection of rare Louisiana cookbooks after Isabella’s death.
Nell stopped.
“Cookbooks?”
Carmine looked at her.
“My mother cooked.”
They were taken to special collections.
Twenty-eight volumes.
One contained no library barcode.
Carmine opened it.
The center had been hollowed out.
Inside was a small cassette.
No number.
One note.
For Carmine when he is old enough to understand that a father can be guilty and still love his son.
Carmine stared at the handwriting.
Anthony’s.
He put the tape into an archival cassette player.
His father’s voice filled the room.
“Carmine, if you are hearing this, then I failed to clean up what I helped create.”
Carmine stopped breathing.
Nell reached for his hand.
This time, he took it.
Anthony continued.
“Do not defend me.”
Carmine closed his eyes.
“Do not avenge me.”
His fingers tightened around Nell’s.
“Finish what I was too proud to finish.”
A pause.
Then:
“Tell the truth.”
Carmine opened his eyes.
And for the first time in his life, the most powerful man in the room knew exactly what his father wanted from him.
Not loyalty.
Not silence.
May you like
Not revenge.
Truth.
