Chapter 12
The capo was Henry Shaw.
He saw his photograph.
Saw Diane.
Turned to leave.
My guards caught him before the hall.
Mother shouted:
“Don’t be stupid!”
Everyone looked at her.
She realized.
Too late.
Henry stopped struggling.
I stared at Diane.
“You know him.”
She said nothing.
Henry did.
“She promised Natalie would be gone by Friday.”
Friday.
Two days away.
I looked at him.
“What happens Thursday?”
“You take Rose Gate.”
“We know that.”
“Vale intercepts.”
“Then?”
He looked at Diane.
“She disappears.”
My mother corrected him.
“Temporarily.”
Henry laughed.
“You said Friday Sabrina would control operations.”
Sabrina stared.
Diane said nothing.
I turned to Henry.
“How many compromised capos?”
“Seven.”
“Still active?”
“Six.”
“The seventh?”
“Daniel killed him at Rose Gate.”
My chest tightened.
Another thing I had never known.
Henry continued.
“Diane said Vale needed forty-eight hours to stabilize the west.”
“And you?”
“We keep everyone calm.”
Calm.
Polite word for treason.
Connor lifted the tablet.
“There’s another recording.”
Diane suddenly stood.
“What recording?”
Fear.
Real this time.
Connor pressed play.
Diane’s voice.
“Daniel made Natalie stronger by dying.”
Nobody moved.
Sabrina answered:
“You said she’d break.”
“I was wrong.”
Elias:
“And Grace?”
Diane sighed.
“The child made it worse.”
Sabrina:
“How?”
Then my mother’s voice:
“Natalie finally learned to love something more than she feared me.”
Silence.
Elias asked:
“So Thursday fixes it?”
“Yes.”
“What mistake?”
Long pause.
“Leaving Natalie with something worth fighting for.”
Connor stopped the video.
Grace.
I looked at Diane.
“You never hated that my daughter made me weak.”
She stared back.
“You hated that she made me impossible to control.”
May you like
No answer.
For the first time, my mother had been reduced to silence by her own voice.
