Chapter 6 - AnnaMina forgot how to breathe.
Apparently she had underestimated him.
He stood beside the burning café with a gun pointed at Marco and the Castellanos, while firefighters worked less than a hundred feet away.
Mina stared at him.
“You?”
Dennis’s mouth twisted.
“You should have minded your own business.”
“I served coffee.”
“You asked questions.”
“That is generally how conversations work.”
One of the armed men stepped closer.
“Enough.”
Marco’s body shifted subtly.
Mina noticed.
He was measuring distance.
Angles.
Witnesses.
Dennis kept the pistol trained on them.
“Give me the key.”
Mina closed her fingers around it.
“No.”
Dennis laughed.
“You’re not in a position to negotiate.”
“Neither are you.”
He frowned.
Mina nodded toward the fire trucks.
“There are twenty firefighters, three police cruisers, and half the neighborhood watching.”
The taller gunman smiled.
“We’re not going to shoot you here.”
“Comforting.”
“We’re taking you with us.”
Marco spoke for the first time.
“No.”
The man looked at him.
Marco’s voice was calm.
“You’re not taking anyone.”
Something moved behind the gunmen.
Two police officers came around the fire truck.
Dennis saw them.
His face changed.
Marco moved.
Everything happened at once.
He knocked Dennis’s gun hand aside.
The weapon fired into the pavement.
Firefighters shouted.
Police drew their weapons.
The two hired men ran.
One made it halfway across the street before Castellano security tackled him.
The other disappeared between buildings.
Dennis dropped to his knees.
“Hands!”
Police swarmed him.
Mina stood frozen.
Marco turned immediately.
“You okay?”
“I think so.”
He touched her shoulders.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
His hands remained there for a second longer than necessary.
Then he stepped away.
Evelyn noticed.
Mina pretended not to.
Twenty minutes later, Dennis was inside a police cruiser.
He refused to talk.
But when Marco asked who hired him, Dennis looked toward Mina.
“You think this family saved you?”
Mina didn’t answer.
“They destroyed your mother.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“What did you say?”
Dennis laughed.
“Anna figured it out. That’s why she ran.”
“Figured what out?”
He looked at Evelyn.
“You still don’t know.”
A police officer pushed his head down and closed the cruiser door.
Mina turned toward Evelyn.
“What was he talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco checked the time.
“We need to get to Union Station.”
They left before dawn.
Chicago’s Union Station was mostly quiet when they arrived.
Marco brought four men inside and left two vehicles circling outside.
Locker 428 stood near an old baggage corridor.
Mina inserted the brass key.
Her hand hesitated.
“What if this is a trap?”
Marco looked at her.
“Then stand behind me.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Because you ignore it a lot.”
She turned the key.
The locker opened.
Inside was a black leather messenger bag.
Nothing else.
Mina pulled it out.
They carried it to a secure room Marco had arranged through a station manager who apparently owed the Castellanos favors.
Mina opened the bag.
Documents.
Photographs.
A flash drive.
And another letter.
This one was addressed to Evelyn.
The older woman stared at her name.
“I haven’t seen Anna’s handwriting in eighteen years.”
Mina handed it to her.
Evelyn unfolded the letter.
Mother,
If this reaches you, I failed.
Mina watched Evelyn’s eyes move across the page.
I need you to understand why I left. Gabriel discovered that someone inside our family arranged the car explosion that killed Father’s attorney, Paul Ramsey. Gabriel believed the real target had been him.
Mina interrupted.
“Who was Paul Ramsey?”
“Our family attorney,” Evelyn said.
“He died before Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
She continued.
Gabriel found transfers from Castellano Holdings to shell companies connected to public officials, judges, and police officers. Someone was buying protection.
Marco opened another file.
“These are account records.”
Mina looked over his shoulder.
Millions of dollars.
Transfers.
Initials.
Dates.
Some went back twenty years.
Evelyn kept reading.
Gabriel believed Victor was involved.
The room went quiet.
Mina looked at Evelyn.
She continued.
But he was wrong.
Mina’s breath caught.
Victor was not stealing from the family. Victor was following the money because Gabriel asked him to.
Evelyn lowered the page.
Marco stared.
“Then why the warning about the watch?”
Mina grabbed the next page.
Evelyn read.
If Mina ever finds this, tell her never to trust the man wearing Gabriel’s watch unless he can answer one question:
What did Gabriel say the night Mina was born?
Mina blinked.
“A password.”
Marco nodded.
“Anna couldn’t risk writing Victor’s name directly.”
Evelyn continued.
The person behind the thefts was someone none of us suspected because he had no Castellano blood.
Mina’s stomach tightened.
Who did that leave?
Evelyn’s husband?
Employees?
Partners?
The next sentence answered.
It was Marco’s father.
Marco went completely still.
Mina looked at him.
“You have a father?”
He didn’t respond.
Evelyn lowered the letter.
“Anthony DeLuca.”
Marco’s face had become unreadable.
“He died ten years ago.”
“No,” Evelyn said quietly.
Marco turned.
“What?”
Evelyn looked sick.
“He disappeared ten years ago.”
“You told me he died.”
“I was told he died.”
“By who?”
The answer arrived in the form of a gunshot.
The window shattered.
Marco threw Mina to the floor.
Another shot hit the wall.
Security returned fire.
Screams erupted in the station corridor.
Marco covered Mina with his body.
“Stay down!”
A third shot.
Then silence.
One of his men shouted.
“Shooter moving east!”
Marco looked toward Evelyn.
“You hit?”
“No.”
Mina stared at him.
“Your father?”
Marco’s breathing was hard.
“I haven’t seen him since I was nineteen.”
Evelyn clutched Anna’s letter.
“There’s more.”
“Read it.”
She did.
Anthony DeLuca survived. He built the network Gabriel discovered, and when Gabriel tried to expose him, Anthony ordered the hit.
Marco closed his eyes.
Mina whispered, “Your father killed mine.”
He opened them again.
“I didn’t know.”
Evelyn continued.
Victor learned the truth too late. He gave me Gabriel’s watch as proof that my husband had trusted him. If Victor is still alive, find him. He may be the only person who knows where Anthony is.
Mina stared at Marco.
“So Victor might not be the enemy.”
“No.”
“Then who shot at us?”
Marco looked toward the shattered window.
His face had changed.
For the first time, Mina saw fear.
Not for himself.
For what his father might still be capable of.
“My father.”
Mina looked at the bag.
“What else is in there?”
She opened the final envelope.
Inside was a recent photograph.
A woman walking outside a grocery store.
Older.
Dark hair threaded with gray.
Mina knew the face immediately.
Her knees nearly buckled.
“Mom.”
Evelyn gasped.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Three months ago.
May you like
And beneath it:
ANNA CASTELLANO — ALIVE.
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