Chapter 8 - THE BROTHER’S KEEPER
The cellar air turned to ice.
Dominic’s left eye was swollen shut where Frank’s pistol had struck him outside the chute, his knees sagging under Frank’s massive, desperate grip. Yet Dominic wasn't looking at his father or his uncle. He was looking at Emily and Leo.
"Don't give him the bags, Dad," Dominic choked out, blood staining his teeth. "Shoot through me. Just finish it."
"Shut up!" Frank snarled, jamming the barrel of the Chrome .45 harder against Dominic’s skull. "Throw your weapons into the corner, Sal! You and the ghost! Do it now, or I painting these wine racks with your kid’s brains!"
Salvatore’s hand shook violently as he held his gun. Fifty years of iron rule meant nothing when a father was looking at his bleeding son. Slowly, Salvatore bent his knees to lay his weapon on the stone floor.
"Don't do it, Sal," Anthony said quietly beside him. Anthony hadn't lowered his weapon a single inch. His steel-gray eyes were fixed coldly on Frank.
"He’ll kill him, Anthony!" Salvatore pleaded, tears finally spilling down the old Don’s weathered cheeks. "I lost you for forty years! I can't watch him die!"
"He kills Dominic the second we drop our pieces anyway, Sal," Anthony said, his voice dead calm. "Look at Frank’s eyes. He knows he’s never walking out of New Jersey if we live."
"Kick one of those duffel bags over here, maid!" Frank barked at Emily, his eyes darting frantically between Anthony’s gun and the exit stairs. "And help my daughter up! We’re walking up those stairs together, and if anybody follows us before we hit the turnpike, Dominic catches one in the spine!"
Vanessa struggled to her feet, clutching her broken wrist, a triumphant sneer returning to her tear-streaked face as she grabbed one of the forty-million-dollar duffel bags with her good hand. "You heard him! Move out of the way!"
Emily didn't touch the second bag. Instead, she looked at her twin brother, Leo.
Without saying a word, the twenty-eight-year-old twins shared a single, silent look—that inexplicable connection that forty years of family lies and twenty-two years of separation couldn't erase.
Leo was standing just inches from the main electrical fuse box mounted on the brick wall beside the iron gate.
Emily took a slow step toward the second leather duffel bag on the floor. As she bent down, her fingers didn't grab the leather handle. They closed around the heavy, solid brass lion’s head of Rosa’s walking cane lying beside it.
"I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier about the wedding ring, Vanessa," Emily said softly, her eyes locking onto Dominic’s gaze. "Because you were right about one thing. Blood tells you who belongs in this family."
Dominic saw Emily’s fingers tighten on the brass cane. He saw Leo’s left hand inching behind his back toward the master breaker switch.
Dominic gave Emily a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. For Sofia, his eyes said.
"Now, Leo!" Emily shouted.
CLACK.
Leo threw the master breaker switch.
The vintage Edison bulbs died instantly, plunging the underground stone vault into pitch-black darkness.
At that exact split second, Dominic didn't drop down—he threw his head violently backward into Frank’s nose while grabbing Frank’s gun wrist with both hands and shoving it straight up toward the arched brick ceiling.
BOOM!
The muzzle flash of Frank’s .45 lit up the dark vault like a bolt of lightning, pulverizing brick dust from the ceiling.
Before the flash faded from their retinas, two more shots roared in the confined space—not from Frank’s .45, but from the nine-millimeter in Anthony’s steady hand.
BANG! BANG!
A heavy body crashed into the wooden wine racks, sending dozens of priceless bottles shattering onto the stone floor in a waterfall of dark red wine and broken glass.
Vanessa screamed in the dark, lunging toward the stairs with the duffel bag, only for Emily to sweep the heavy brass cane squarely across her ankles. Vanessa hit the stone steps chin-first and went completely limp.
Leo flipped the master breaker switch back on.
The amber bulbs flickered back to life.
Frank Calabrese lay on his back in a widening pool of vintage Cabernet and his own blood, two bullet holes squarely in the center of his chest—right over the heart that had betrayed the Bellini family in the winter of 1986. He was dead before he hit the stones.
Dominic was sitting against the open floor safe, holding his bruised ribs and gasping for air, alive and unshot.
Salvatore dropped his gun and fell to his knees beside his son, grabbing Dominic’s face in his trembling hands, checking him for bullet wounds before pulling the thirty-eight-year-old man into a fierce, crushing embrace.
"You’re alive," Salvatore sobbed into his son’s hair. "My boy... you saved them. You saved them in ninety-eight, and you saved us tonight."
Dominic buried his face in his father’s shoulder, weeping like the ten-year-old boy who had watched his uncle’s car get pulled from the river forty years ago. "I was so scared of him, Dad," Dominic choked out. "For sixteen years, I thought if I told you, he’d kill Emily and the boy before your men could find them."
Anthony slowly holstered his weapon. He walked over to the safe, looked down at his older brother and his nephew, and rested a heavy, scarred hand on Dominic’s bleeding shoulder.
"The debt is paid, nephew," Anthony said quietly. "In full."
At the top of the cellar stairs, Margaret stepped down, holding a small, warm blanket. Behind her stood little Sofia, clutching a mug of hot cocoa.
"Daddy!" Sofia cried, dropping the mug and running down the stone steps.
Dominic let go of his father and opened his arms, catching his seven-year-old daughter and holding her tighter than he ever had in her life. "I’m right here, baby girl," Dominic whispered, kissing the top of her head over and over. "Daddy’s right here. And that bad woman is never going to yell at you again."
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Emily stood beside Leo, watching the shattered pieces of their family finally stop bleeding on the cellar floor. She looked down at her left hand.
The simple, scratched gold wedding band with the letters A.M.B. was covered in brick dust and cellar grime, but beneath the amber light, the gold was still unbroken.
