Chapter 6 - TWO MEN WITH THE SAME NAMEDominic thought he had exhausted his capacity for betrayal.
Then Mateo told him he had a brother.
An identical twin.
The SUV raced north through wet streets while federal vehicles searched the Lower East Side behind them.
Madeline stared at Mateo.
“You have a twin?”
Mateo looked out the window.
“Had.”
Lorenzo’s expression sharpened.
“That does not sound like an answer.”
Mateo rubbed both hands over his face.
“His name is Marco.”
Dominic watched him.
“In twenty years, you never mentioned him.”
“There was nothing to mention.”
“Apparently there is enough to place your identification on a corpse.”
Mateo exhaled slowly.
“We were seventeen when we began working for your father.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Where is Marco?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s eyes turned colder.
“That answer is becoming popular tonight.”
Mateo looked at him.
“Marco betrayed Antonio.”
Silence.
Madeline shifted closer.
“How?”
“He stole money. Sold schedules. Helped Salvatore build private crews outside Antonio’s control.”
“Why wasn’t he killed?”
“Because he disappeared.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before your father was murdered.”
Dominic understood.
“Salvatore took him.”
“I always suspected.”
“And you never told me.”
Mateo met his eyes.
“Because Salvatore told me Marco was dead.”
“Why believe him?”
“He sent me my brother’s finger.”
Madeline’s face tightened.
Lorenzo swore softly.
Mateo continued.
“For seventeen years, I believed Marco was buried somewhere I would never find.”
“And now?” Dominic asked.
“Now someone has used my identification on a corpse.”
Lorenzo said, “Could be random.”
Mateo shook his head.
“My ID uses an old middle initial nobody knows.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Marco knew.”
“Yes.”
The SUV turned into an underground parking structure beneath an abandoned office building.
Lorenzo’s men sealed the entrance behind them.
They moved upstairs into what appeared to be a forgotten insurance office.
Inside, however, monitors, weapons, medical supplies, and communications equipment covered the rooms.
Dominic looked around.
“You keep a safe house in Midtown?”
“I keep several.”
“I should be offended.”
“You should be impressed.”
Madeline sat while a doctor examined her wound again.
Dominic stood nearby.
He wanted to ask if she was in pain.
He wanted to touch her.
He did neither.
The doctor finished.
“No major vessel damage. She needs rest.”
Madeline almost laughed.
“Put that on the schedule.”
After the doctor left, Dominic sat across from her.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Dominic said, “I was wrong.”
Madeline looked at him.
The words were not easy for him.
She knew that.
She also knew they were not enough.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“Be specific.”
Dominic swallowed.
“I believed evidence I should have questioned. I believed Salvatore because doubting him meant doubting most of my life.”
Madeline remained silent.
“I punished you for trying to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“I humiliated you.”
“Yes.”
“I put you in danger.”
“Yes.”
His voice lowered.
“And when you asked me to open the door, I listened to my fear instead of you.”
Something in Madeline’s face softened.
Barely.
Dominic continued.
“I cannot undo that.”
“No.”
“But I will never do it again.”
Madeline studied him.
“You cannot promise never to be afraid.”
“I can promise never to turn fear into cruelty.”
That was different.
That sounded like a man rather than a don.
Madeline looked down at the ring on her hand.
“I still love you.”
Dominic’s throat tightened.
“But?”
“But loving you does not automatically mean I trust you tonight.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“If we survive this, you do not get your marriage back because you apologized once.”
“I know.”
“You earn it.”
“I will.”
For the first time that night, Madeline believed he might.
Across the room, Mateo’s phone rang.
He answered.
No one spoke while he listened.
Then he looked at Lorenzo.
“Your source at Pier Fourteen confirmed something.”
“What?”
“The body carrying my ID isn’t mine.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes.
“We established that.”
Mateo ignored him.
“Fingerprints came back.”
Dominic waited.
“Marco.”
The room went still.
Mateo sank into a chair.
After seventeen years, his twin brother was dead.
Madeline moved toward him.
“I’m sorry.”
Mateo stared at the floor.
“I spent half my life hating him.”
“That doesn’t mean you wanted this.”
“No.”
“Do they know when he died?”
“Tonight.”
Lorenzo folded his arms.
“Then Salvatore killed him recently.”
Mateo nodded.
“Which means Marco was useful until now.”
Dominic asked, “Useful how?”
A technician entered.
“We recovered traffic footage from Pier Fourteen.”
He put images on a screen.
A man who looked exactly like Mateo walked among Vitiello soldiers.
Same height.
Same face.
Same posture.
“Marco,” Mateo whispered.
The footage showed Marco speaking to Dominic’s men.
Directing vehicles.
Giving orders.
Dominic stared.
“They thought it was you.”
“Yes.”
“Which means the instructions came from inside.”
Mateo’s expression broke.
“My men died believing they were following me.”
Dominic put a hand on his shoulder.
The gesture surprised them both.
“We will answer for them.”
Mateo nodded once.
The technician changed screens.
“There’s more.”
A camera caught Marco entering a warehouse three hours before the massacre.
Beside him walked Salvatore.
Then a third man emerged from a vehicle.
Madeline leaned forward.
“Who is that?”
Dominic recognized him.
His stomach dropped.
“Deputy Commissioner Halloran.”
New York police.
One of Dominic’s quietest paid allies.
Lorenzo laughed bitterly.
“So Salvatore owns police command.”
Dominic shook his head.
“Not just him.”
Another image appeared.
An Assistant U.S. Attorney.
A city contracting official.
A union representative.
Madeline whispered, “This is bigger than organized crime.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Organized crime is often just government without elections.”
Dominic ignored him.
“What were they doing?”
The technician enlarged a crate on the warehouse floor.
Documents were being burned.
“Old shipping files,” Madeline said.
“Antonio’s evidence,” Dominic replied.
Mateo lifted his head.
“Not all of it.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
Mateo stood slowly.
“Antonio never trusted a single archive.”
Dominic frowned.
“You know where another copy is.”
“Maybe.”
“Where?”
Mateo looked toward the window.
“Your father kept a church.”
Dominic stared.
“What church?”
“St. Michael’s in Queens.”
“My mother’s parish?”
“Yes.”
Dominic remembered childhood Sundays.
His mother lighting candles.
His father disappearing into the priest’s office.
“Antonio donated the basement renovation.”
Mateo nodded.
“He built a private storage room behind the old wine cellar.”
Madeline stood.
“What is inside?”
“I never saw everything.”
“Records?”
“Probably.”
Lorenzo checked the time.
“Then Salvatore may already be heading there.”
They left twenty minutes later.
St. Michael’s stood on a narrow Queens street between apartment buildings and an old bakery.
At 4:18 a.m., the sanctuary was dark.
Mateo unlocked a side entrance.
“How do you have a key?” Dominic asked.
“Your father gave me one.”
They moved downstairs.
Behind shelves of communion wine, Mateo found a rusted metal latch.
A section of wall opened.
Inside was a concrete room.
Dust covered metal cabinets.
Boxes.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
Cassette tapes.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
His father had built an archive.
An insurance policy.
A confession.
Madeline opened a box.
Inside were names.
Dates.
Victims.
Payments.
The entire hidden history of Salvatore’s operation.
Lorenzo found another file.
“Dominic.”
He handed it over.
Antonio Vitiello’s handwriting appeared across the first page.
IF I AM DEAD, MY BROTHER DID IT.
Dominic stared.
The message continued.
SALVATORE HAS CORRUPTED POLICE, PORT OFFICIALS, AND FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE WHO TELLS MY SON THAT REVENGE IS HIS DUTY.
Dominic’s hands began to shake.
Madeline touched his arm.
Then Mateo opened a small black box.
Inside lay a birth certificate.
He frowned.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
Mateo handed it to him.
Dominic read the name.
Then read it again.
SALVATORE ANTHONY VITIELLO — FATHER.
MOTHER: ELENA BIANCHI.
CHILD: MARCO BIANCHI.
Mateo stopped breathing.
Madeline looked at him.
“Oh my God.”
Marco had not merely worked for Salvatore.
Marco had been Salvatore’s son.
Mateo’s twin brother shared a mother with him.
But not a father.
Mateo stared at the paper.
“My mother never told me.”
Dominic said quietly, “Did she know?”
“She died when we were nineteen.”
Lorenzo looked through another file.
His face hardened.
“There’s more.”
He pulled out a photograph.
Young Salvatore stood beside Elena Bianchi.
Behind them was Antonio.
The back contained a handwritten sentence.
SALVATORE BELIEVES MARCO IS HIS HEIR.
DOMINIC MUST NEVER KNOW WHY.
Dominic looked up.
“Why what?”
No one answered.
Then footsteps sounded upstairs.
Dozens.
The church doors opened.
Men entered.
Mateo killed the basement lights.
Lorenzo whispered, “We were followed.”
Dominic reached for his gun.
A voice echoed from the sanctuary above.
A voice he had heard his entire life.
Salvatore.
“Nephew.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Salvatore continued.
“You found your father’s little shrine.”
Madeline stepped closer to Dominic.
Salvatore’s voice descended through the church.
“Bring me the files, and I will tell you why Antonio was never supposed to be your father.”
Dominic went completely still.
Madeline whispered, “Don’t listen.”
But Salvatore laughed above them.
“You deserve the truth, Dominic.”
May you like
A pause.
“Especially since I am the man who gave you his name.”
Related Stories
