Chapter 5 - THE VELVET COAT
“Gabriel, stop!” I hissed, grabbing his arm before he could reach the door.
He ripped his arm away. The muscles in his jaw ticked.
“He murdered them, Tessa,” Gabriel said, his voice a lethal, vibrating wire. “He killed my mother and father to save his own pride. I have killed men for him. I have bled for him. For twenty-eight years, I have worshipped the man who slaughtered my family.”
“You don't know the whole truth yet,” I pleaded. “Richard left that photo to break us apart. He wants you to kill Salvatore so he doesn’t have to.”
Gabriel hesitated.
His finger hovered over the trigger guard. The logic penetrated his rage, but only barely.
Answer One. Richard’s weapon wasn’t just guns; it was information. He was dismantling the Rossi family from the inside out using our own secrets.
A low groan came from the bed.
I spun around. Maria was waking up.
Her eyelids fluttered, confused by the dim light. She looked at me, her gaze unfocused.
“Tessa?” she rasped.
I rushed to her side, taking her frail hand. “I’m here, Mom. I’m here.”
She squeezed my fingers weakly. Then she saw the tarnished silver bracelet on my wrist.
Tears instantly welled in her eyes.
“Angelo gave it to you,” she whispered.
I froze. “You knew Angelo had my mother’s bracelet?”
Maria let out a ragged breath. “Angelo brought you to me, Tessa. Not Salvatore. Salvatore wanted you sent far away, to strangers in another country. Angelo defied him. He paid me the monthly stipend out of his own pocket so I could stay in Queens. So he could watch over you.”
She pointed a shaking finger toward the small hospital closet.
“My coat,” she coughed. “Get my coat.”
I hurried to the closet and pulled out her heavy, dark velvet winter coat. It smelled like lavender and old perfume.
I brought it to the bed.
“Inside the lining,” Maria said, closing her eyes against the exhaustion. “Angelo told me to give it to you if Richard Mercer ever found out who you were.”
I ran my hands over the thick velvet. Near the bottom hem, I felt a stiff, rectangular shape stitched into the fabric.
Gabriel stepped closer, his anger temporarily eclipsed by the mystery.
I ripped the seam open.
I pulled out a thick, sealed envelope. Inside was a child’s drawing.
It was a picture I had drawn when I was eight years old. A crude crayon drawing of Angelo, me, and Maria sitting on the stoop of our apartment building.
But on the back of the drawing, in Angelo’s sharp, elegant handwriting, was a message:
Tessa, if you are reading this, Richard knows. Paul Mercer killed Gabriel’s parents acting on his own greed, trying to steal their territory. Salvatore killed Paul to avenge them, and took the boy to save him from Paul’s men. Salvatore is a monster, but he is not Gabriel’s destroyer.
Gabriel read the words over my shoulder.
The gun in his hand slowly lowered to his side.
Reversal. Salvatore hadn't ordered the hit. He had avenged it. The photograph Richard left was a half-truth designed to ignite a civil war.
Beneath that paragraph, Angelo had written one more line.
Do not let Richard reach the locker at Grand Central. He knows about the train ticket.
I looked at Gabriel.
“What train ticket?” I asked.
May you like
Gabriel’s eyes widened. The realization hit him like a physical blow.
“The Ledger,” Gabriel whispered. “The Black Book of Palermo. Every bribe, every murder, every politician the Commission owns. If Richard gets it, he doesn’t just become a boss. He becomes a king.”
