Chapter 16
Rocco opened Dominic’s letter six weeks later.
Not because he had forgiven him.
Not because prison made the envelope heavier.
Because he realized he had started using the unopened letter as an excuse to postpone deciding what Dominic was allowed to become in his life.
He took it from the drawer.
Maeve’s coin remained in the glass dish.
The red plastic ring sat beside it.
Dominic’s letter contained nine pages.
Rocco expected an apology.
He found one.
He also found something more irritating.
Dominic did not ask to come home.
Uncle,
I spent the first month telling myself you destroyed the club to punish me.
Then my lawyer showed me the numbers again.
I had already nearly destroyed it before you found out.
Rocco stopped.
Dominic wrote about the debt.
The hidden operating losses.
The first transfer from the neighborhood fund.
He had taken seventy-five thousand dollars intending to return it after a profitable winter.
Winter was not profitable.
So he moved more.
Then lied in the internal report because admitting the first transfer would expose the second.
North Harbor did not create the fear.
It gave the fear a plan.
Dominic continued:
I still believe the club needed redevelopment.
I still believe some neighborhood businesses will close whether anyone is cruel to them or not.
That is the part I am afraid you will refuse to admit because you are trying so hard not to become me.
Rocco’s jaw tightened.
The sentence felt almost insulting.
Which was why he kept reading.
Do not turn every struggling business into something the Castellanos must save.
I used power to make people weaker because it helped my plan.
You could make the opposite mistake and use power to keep everyone exactly where they are because losing them makes you feel guilty.
Neither gives them much choice.
Rocco put the letter down.
He hated when people who had behaved badly managed to say something worth hearing.
The final page was shorter.
I am sorry about the money.
I am sorry about the vendors.
I am sorry I lied to you.
But the thing that still makes me sick is Maeve’s coin.
She thought you were poor and gave you something.
I saw someone beneath me.
I know now that I had spent so long trying to become important that anyone who could not help me become important started looking disposable.
I do not expect you to answer.
Dominic.
No request.
No promise that he had changed.
No claim that prison had purified him.
Rocco folded the pages.
The following morning, Grace found him reading the Vance Bakery account.
“Problem?”
“Their two-year lease has eighteen months left.”
“Yes.”
“Revenue?”
“Improving.”
“Profit?”
“Thin.”
“Building?”
“Still North Harbor.”
Rocco looked at her.
Grace understood immediately.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You are thinking about buying the building.”
“I could.”
“You could also buy Evan a yacht.”
“He needs a bakery.”
“He has one.”
“For eighteen months.”
Grace sat down.
“What does Evan want?”
Rocco stopped.
He had not asked.
That afternoon he visited the bakery.
Maeve was four and a half now and covered in powdered sugar.
Evan came from the kitchen.
“Something wrong with the contract?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
Rocco placed Dominic’s letter on the table.
Not for Evan to read.
Just because he had brought it.
“Your lease ends next year.”
“I know.”
“What do you want to do?”
Evan looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because I keep trying to solve it before asking.”
Claire Vance emerged from the kitchen.
“That sounds expensive.”
Rocco ignored her.
Evan wiped flour from his hands.
“We don’t want this building forever.”
Rocco stared.
“You don’t?”
“The ovens are too small. Loading is terrible. Roof leaks.”
Claire added:
“And North Harbor wants too much if we buy.”
Rocco almost laughed.
He had spent weeks imagining the bakery building as something that needed saving.
The people inside it had already imagined leaving.
“We found another property,” Evan said.
“Where?”
“Six blocks west.”
“Better?”
“Bigger.”
“Affordable?”
“No.”
“Do you want help?”
Evan hesitated.
“Business help?”
“Yes.”
“Charity?”
“No.”
“Then maybe.”
Maeve wandered over carrying a misshapen roll.
“For you.”
Rocco took it.
“Free?”
She nodded.
Evan immediately said:
“No.”
Maeve looked betrayed.
Rocco paid one dollar.
The child accepted this as justice.
On the drive back to the club, Rocco thought about Dominic’s letter.
Saving a neighborhood did not mean freezing it.
Saving people did not mean deciding what they needed before they spoke.
May you like
Sometimes the first correction to power was not giving more.
It was asking.
