Chapter 7 - THE MORETTI TRUCE
Carmine met Luca Moretti the next night.
No entourage.
No restaurant.
No family club.
An abandoned boxing gym in Yonkers where both men had fought as teenagers.
Twenty-five years earlier they hated each other because their fathers did.
Two years earlier Carmine ordered men against Luca’s family because he believed they took Rosalie.
Now Carmine walked into the same ring carrying that shame.
Luca stood near the ropes.
Gray beginning at his temples.
“You look tired.”
Carmine removed his coat.
“You look alive.”
“Disappointed?”
“Not tonight.”
Luca saw the photograph in Carmine’s hand.
His face changed.
“Where?”
“You’ve seen her.”
Luca did not answer.
Carmine stepped closer.
“Two years ago?”
Silence.
“You knew she survived.”
Luca finally looked at him.
“Yes.”
Carmine struck him.
Luca took the blow.
Did not retaliate.
Carmine hit him again.
Luca wiped blood from his mouth.
“You finished?”
“No.”
“Then keep going until you’re stupid enough to lose the answer.”
Carmine stopped.
He hated the sentence because it sounded like the man he was trying not to become.
“Tell me.”
Luca sat on the ring edge.
“Rosalie came to us four days before the ambush.”
Carmine stared.
“Why?”
“She thought someone inside Bellucci was trying to kill her.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Why Moretti?”
“Because the person following her was using Bellucci guards. She needed somewhere your people wouldn’t control.”
Carmine felt sick.
“What did she give you?”
“A name.”
“Vittorio.”
“No.”
Carmine frowned.
“The Second House.”
Luca continued.
“Rosalie believed someone had restarted it. She said Vittorio was alive and searching for whoever controlled it.”
“So Vittorio wasn’t the enemy.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What did she think?”
“She didn’t trust him.”
“Then why go to him after the ambush?”
“She didn’t.”
Carmine went still.
Luca looked at him.
“Vittorio’s men found her.”
“You knew?”
“Later.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“You were burning my businesses and putting my men in hospitals.”
“You could have stopped it.”
“You would have believed me?”
Carmine said nothing.
Luca nodded.
“Exactly.”
The truth was another debt Carmine could not repay.
“Who attacked Rosalie?”
Luca stepped down from the ring.
“One of the cars belonged to a Bellucci shell crew.”
Carmine’s eyes narrowed.
“Who ran it?”
“That’s why I agreed to meet.”
Luca handed him an old silver cigarette lighter.
A lion was engraved on the side.
Carmine recognized it.
His father had given identical lighters to six men when Carmine became acting boss.
Anthony received one.
Salvatore.
Three captains now dead.
And one man named Dominic Valli.
Carmine’s former consigliere.
Dominic died six months after Rosalie disappeared.
Heart attack.
At home.
Carmine had attended the funeral.
Luca opened the lighter.
Inside the lid, someone had scratched a wolf.
“Where did you get this?”
“From one of the men who followed Rosalie.”
“Name.”
“He died that night.”
“Who had the lighter before him?”
“He said Dominic.”
Carmine stared.
Dominic had sat beside him for fourteen years.
Advised him.
Held Leo after his birth.
Stood at Rosalie’s memorial.
Carmine looked toward the dark ceiling.
“Dominic worked for Vittorio?”
Luca shook his head.
“I don’t think so.”
“Second House?”
“Maybe.”
“Who does now?”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“That is what Rosalie was trying to learn.”
Carmine held up the photograph.
“She’s still trying.”
“Maybe.”
“Why stay away from Leo?”
Luca studied him.
“You think she has a choice?”
Carmine did not answer.
Luca stepped closer.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“Rosalie left one thing with us before the ambush.”
He walked to an old locker and removed a small wooden box.
Inside was a child’s silver bracelet.
Carmine recognized it.
Leo wore it as a baby.
Rosalie had taken it when she left home that final morning.
Under the bracelet lay a small piece of paper.
Carmine looked at Luca.
“You said no documents.”
“It’s not a document.”
Carmine unfolded it.
Only four words.
IF I DISAPPEAR, WATCH HELENA.
Carmine looked up.
Luca continued.
“She didn’t say Helena was the enemy.”
“What did she say?”
“That Helena was the easiest door.”
Carmine understood.
Vittorio did not need to break Bellucci security.
He had a daughter inside.
But Rosalie’s warning had another meaning.
Helena might also lead to whoever was using Vittorio.
Carmine put the bracelet in his pocket.
“Why tell me now?”
Luca smiled without humor.
“Because someone visited my nephew yesterday.”
Carmine’s expression changed.
“What did they want?”
“To know whether I would join a war against Bellucci.”
“Who?”
“Didn’t give a name.”
“Description.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Old man. Gray beard. Scar beneath his ear.”
Vittorio.
“What did you say?”
Luca looked at the blood on his knuckles.
“I said the last time someone used Rosalie to start a war, I lost two good men and you lost two years.”
Carmine waited.
Luca smiled.
“So this time I told him to go to hell.”
Then the back door of the gym opened.
Both men turned.
A black wooden wolf rolled across the floor.
No person followed.
Attached to it was a red string.
Carmine picked it up.
One small brass key hung from the string.
Luca whispered:
“He knows we’re here.”
Carmine looked toward the darkness outside.
“No.”
May you like
He closed his hand around the key.
“He wanted us here.”
