Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER'S ALIBI
“Why was my brother with you the night my wife died?”
Vincent’s voice was a low, terrifying rumble that seemed to strip the warmth right out of the magnificent crystal chandeliers. The thirty-six elite dinner guests held their collective breath, trapped in the gilded cage of a mafia boss whose world was violently unravelling.
Vanessa Bellini pressed her back against the mahogany wall, her chest heaving underneath her red silk gown. Her mascara was beginning to smudge around the edges of her eyes.
“Vincent, you’re listening to a traumatized child and a maid who knows nothing about our family!” Vanessa cried out, her voice cracking with forced panic. “Daniel was in Chicago that week! He was managing the midwestern shipping ports! Ask him!”
Vincent didn’t blink. His dark, piercing eyes remained locked on his fiancée.
“Marco,” Vincent said without turning around.
“Already on it, boss,” the bulky security chief replied, tapping furiously on his encrypted phone. Within seconds, Marco held the device up to the light. “Sir, I’m pulling travel manifests, hotel check-ins, and toll tags for Daniel Romano from three years ago.”
The silence in the room stretched like a tight wire.
I kept my arm firmly around eight-year-old Emma, feeling the little girl’s shoulders trembling against my side. Her small hand was clutched tightly to the hem of my apron.
“Well?” Vincent demanded, his tone dropping another dangerous degree.
Marco swallowed hard, his eyes flickering between the phone screen and Vincent. “Boss... Daniel’s corporate credit card was used at a steakhouse in downtown New Orleans at 8:15 PM on the night Mrs. Romano’s boat sank. He wasn't in Chicago.”
A collective gasp echoed across the tables.
Vanessa let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. “See?! He was downtown! He was miles away from Pier 17! This is a complete waste of—"
“Wait,” Marco interrupted, holding up a hand. “Let me finish the rest of the log, sir.”
Vincent stepped closer to his security chief. “Go on.”
“The car rented on Daniel’s corporate account was an executive sedan,” Marco read aloud, his voice steadying. “The GPS history shows it left the downtown steakhouse at 9:00 PM. It drove straight to the industrial district. Specifically, the private service access road... behind Pier 17.”
The blood drained entirely from Vanessa’s face. She looked like a ghost trapped in daylight.
Across the room, near the far corner of the table, a man suddenly stood up.
Daniel Romano.
Thirty-four years old, impeccably dressed in a custom charcoal suit, Vincent’s younger brother looked like a deer caught in high beams. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief.
“Vincent,” Daniel said, his voice shaking. “Don’t listen to the logs. Technology makes mistakes. You know me. I would never hurt Olivia. She was family!”
Vincent slowly turned his head to look at his brother. The resemblance between them was striking, but tonight, the contrast was terrifying. Vincent looked like a judge passing a death sentence; Daniel looked like a cornered animal.
“You lied to me,” Vincent said, each word falling like lead. “For three years, you looked me in the eye every Sunday at dinner, you held your niece, and you told me you were hundreds of miles away when Olivia’s boat went down.”
“I panicked!” Daniel shouted, taking a clumsy step forward, knocking over his wine glass. Deep red liquid spilled across the white linen tablecloth like fresh blood. “Olivia was threatening to tear this family apart! She found out about the dock acquisitions—she thought we were laundering money through the charity fronts! She was going to go to the federal prosecutor!”
Vincent’s jaw tightened so hard I thought bone would snap.
“So you met her at the marina,” Vincent whispered, closing the distance between them with lethal, predatory grace.
“I tried to talk sense into her!” Daniel stammered, raising his hands defensively as Vincent approached. “I swear to God, Vinny, I just wanted to calm her down! Vanessa was there because she helped set up the meeting to bridge the gap!”
Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut, letting out a ragged sob. “We tried to protect you, Vincent. Olivia was unstable. She was dragging the Romano name into federal court. If she went down, we all went down—you, Emma, the entire empire!”
Vincent stopped two feet away from his brother. The air around him felt charged with static electricity.
“My wife,” Vincent said, his voice trembling with a rage so profound it defied description, “trusted you. And you lured her down to the water.”
“No!” Daniel screamed, stumbling backward into a velvet-backed chair. “We didn’t touch her boat! When we left Pier 17, Olivia was still standing on the dock! She got onto that vessel alone!”
Emma buried her face into my apron, crying softly. “He’s lying, Claire. Uncle Daniel was yelling at Mommy. I heard him on the phone that morning.”
The room froze again.
Vincent looked down at his daughter, then back at his brother.
“You spoke to her that morning,” Vincent stated, not as a question, but as a chilling fact.
Daniel’s knees buckled. He hit the chair hard, unable to find another lie.
Before Vincent could reach for his brother, Emma pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. It was the letter she had mentioned just moments before—the one her mother had hidden inside the dollhouse.
“Daddy,” Emma sobbed, holding it up with trembling fingers. “Mommy made me promise to give this to you if the bad men ever came back.”
Vincent stopped. He knelt in front of his daughter, gently taking the paper from her small hands.
He unfolded it.
His eyes scanned the handwritten lines. As he read further down the page, his breath hitched. The unbreakable mafia boss physically recoiled, his face turning an ash-gray color.
“What is it, sir?” Marco asked, stepping forward anxiously.
Vincent didn't answer right away. He slowly stood up, holding the letter as if it were burning his fingers. He looked past Daniel, past Vanessa, and stared directly at the heavy double doors of the dining room.
“Marco,” Vincent said, his voice entirely hollow. “Lock down the estate perimeter. Nobody leaves. Not a single guest, not a single guard.”
“Boss, what’s in that letter?”
May you like
Vincent looked down at Emma, then back at me. A tear finally broke free, tracking down his cheek.
“Olivia didn't die in a boating accident,” Vincent whispered, the words shattering the hearts of everyone in the room. “Her brakes didn't fail on the water. According to this... she was poisoned before she ever boarded the vessel.”
