Chapter 5 - The Man the City Wanted Dead
By sunrise, my face was on every television in New York.
News anchors called me a fugitive, a terrorist, and the prime suspect in the warehouse bombing. Edited security footage showed me carrying a weapon toward Rosa. It did not show Salvatore standing behind her or the armed men surrounding us.
The federal tactical team had lost two agents in the explosion.
Salvatore understood public anger. He knew dead law enforcement officers would make the truth irrelevant.
Reed drove us to an underground parking garage beneath a closed courthouse.
“You cannot return home,” he said.
“I was not planning to.”
“Every police department in the state has your description.”
“They had it yesterday.”
“Yesterday, half of them were not authorized to shoot you.”
Hayes stood beside him.
She had been suspended after refusing to support the official version of the warehouse raid.
“Someone inside the Bureau erased the tactical team’s body-camera recordings,” she said. “All but mine.”
“Your camera captured Salvatore?”
“Parts of him. Not enough to overcome the video he released.”
Rosa sat in the back of the van with Anthony.
She looked exhausted but furious.
“My brother has always been a coward,” she said. “Even as a boy, he broke things and blamed Dominic’s father.”
“You knew he resented my father.”
“I knew he resented everyone. I did not know he killed Carlo.”
Anthony stared at the floor.
My cousin had grown up admiring Salvatore. The truth had destroyed something inside him.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“We find the original ledger,” I said.
“The card has copies.”
“Copies can be called fake. Vincent said Elena saw the ledger. That means a physical book exists.”
Rosa looked up.
“Your grandfather kept records beneath the old family church.”
The garage went silent.
St. Michael’s Church in Brooklyn had been closed for fifteen years after a fire damaged the roof. Our family had funded its construction in the 1930s. My grandfather attended Mass there every Sunday until his death.
“Why beneath the church?” Reed asked.
“Because no one searched holy ground,” Rosa said.
Hayes gave her a skeptical look. “Criminals have searched churches.”
“Not Salvatore. He is superstitious.”
I thought of the silver lion ring and my uncle’s obsession with family traditions.
“The ledger may be there.”
Reed checked his phone.
“We cannot move during daylight.”
A message arrived on mine.
It came from Mateo.
ELENA IS MISSING.
I called immediately.
He answered on the first ring.
“Someone triggered the fire alarm,” he said. “The floor filled with smoke. When it cleared, her bed was empty.”
“What about Bruno?”
“At the veterinary hospital.”
“Police guards?”
“Two were unconscious. Sofia was in the restroom for three minutes.”
A second message arrived.
A video.
Elena sat in the back of a moving vehicle. Tape covered her mouth. A hand wearing the silver lion ring rested on her shoulder.
Salvatore’s voice spoke from behind the camera.
“You chose the dog at the warehouse. Let us see whether you choose the ledger over the girl.”
Coordinates appeared beneath the video.
St. Michael’s Church.
“He knows,” I said.
Rosa closed her eyes.
Anthony struck the side of the van.
“We go now.”
“It is another trap,” Hayes said.
“He has Elena,” Anthony replied.
“We still need a plan.”
“There is no time.”
I understood his rage, but rushing into the church would give Salvatore exactly what he wanted.
“Marco,” I said.
He had been silent near the front of the van.
“Call every loyal crew. Tell them I am dissolving all operations effective immediately.”
Everyone stared at me.
Anthony thought he had misheard.
“What?”
“No collections. No gambling rooms. No protection payments. All weapons stored. All accounts frozen.”
“Dominic, you will destroy everything.”
“That organization allowed Salvatore to hide behind loyalty while children were drugged and men were sold to killers. It deserves to be destroyed.”
Marco’s face revealed years of belief collapsing.
“Our people depend on us.”
“Then give them severance from the legitimate companies. Anyone who refuses can join Salvatore.”
Reed watched me carefully.
“You think this will draw his supporters into the open.”
“Yes.”
Within thirty minutes, reports reached us.
Three captains rejected my order and began moving men toward St. Michael’s.
Two police officers assigned to the hospital abandoned their posts and disappeared.
A deputy director in Reed’s federal office attempted to access the warehouse evidence, then fled.
Salvatore’s network was revealing itself.
We approached the church through an old subway maintenance tunnel connected to the basement.
Rosa remembered the entrance from childhood.
The tunnel smelled of water and rust. Anthony led with a flashlight.
Above us, bells began ringing.
The church had no electricity.
“They know we’re here,” Hayes whispered.
We reached a wooden door beneath the altar.
On the other side, Salvatore’s voice echoed through the sanctuary.
“Dominic.”
I opened the door.
The church remained scarred by fire. Rain leaked through the broken roof. Candles lined the center aisle.
Elena sat near the altar, tied to a chair.
Salvatore stood behind her with a pistol.
Dozens of armed men occupied the pews.
Some had worked for my family for twenty years.
Among them was Captain Frank Bellini, who had carried Carlo’s coffin.
“You came,” Salvatore said.
“Release her.”
“Find the ledger.”
“You already know where it is.”
“I know it is somewhere beneath this church. Your grandfather told Rosa the exact location.”
He pointed the gun toward my aunt.
Rosa stepped from the basement doorway.
“You will kill us after we find it,” she said.
“Perhaps.”
Elena stared at me with terrified eyes.
“You promised bad men wouldn’t get her,” Salvatore said. “Are you a liar, Dominic?”
I moved toward the altar.
Hayes and Reed remained hidden below.
“There is no reason to hurt her.”
“She heard my voice. She saw Vincent. She can identify Dr. Mercer.”
“Mercer is alive?”
Salvatore smiled.
“He is the one person who knows how many patients passed through Harbor Light.”
That meant the doctor was not merely a fugitive.
He was evidence.
Rosa walked to a damaged statue of Saint Michael and pressed a loose stone in its base.
A section of the floor shifted.
Beneath it was an iron box.
Salvatore’s eyes brightened.
Anthony lifted the box onto the altar.
Inside lay a thick black ledger.
Salvatore reached for it.
I placed my hand on the cover.
“You want this more than you want me dead.”
“It contains every payment made since your grandfather’s time.”
“Enough to expose judges, police, businessmen, and your partners.”
“Give it to me.”
I looked at Elena.
Then I pushed the ledger toward him.
Salvatore laughed.
“You see? Everyone chooses family in the end.”
“No,” I said. “You choose yourself.”
The church doors burst open.
Marco entered with fifty men.
Salvatore’s captains raised their weapons.
Marco did not.
He dropped his gun onto the floor.
One by one, the men behind him did the same.
“What are you doing?” Salvatore shouted.
Marco looked at me.
“Following the last order of the Moretti organization.”
Dissolve everything.
Salvatore’s supporters turned toward each other in confusion.
That was when Reed and Hayes emerged from beneath the altar with federal agents.
“Drop your weapons!”
Chaos erupted.
Salvatore grabbed Elena and pressed the gun against her head.
He backed toward the broken side door.
“Anyone moves, she dies.”
No one moved.
Then a deep bark came from the aisle.
Bruno stood at the church entrance.
His shoulder was bandaged. A veterinary technician held his leash but could not restrain him.
Mateo stood beside them.
Bruno pulled free.
Salvatore fired.
The bullet struck the floor.
Bruno hit him at full speed.
Elena fell sideways as Hayes rushed forward.
I reached Salvatore before he could recover his gun.
My hands closed around his throat.
He smiled despite the blood on his mouth.
“Do it,” he whispered. “Show them what you are.”
Every instinct told me to kill him.
For Carlo.
For Vincent.
For Elena.
For every person he had sold.
Then Elena’s small voice came from behind me.
“Mr. Dominic.”
I looked at her.
She was holding Bruno’s collar, crying.
I released my uncle.
Reed handcuffed him.
Salvatore stared up at me in disbelief.
“You have become weak.”
“No,” I said. “I have become free.”
Outside, police vehicles surrounded the church.
But before Reed could escort Salvatore away, a federal agent raised his weapon.
Hayes saw it first.
“Gun!”
The agent fired.
Salvatore jerked as the bullet struck his side.
Other officers tackled the shooter.
Salvatore collapsed against the altar.
He was alive, but barely.
Reed examined the captured agent’s identification.
“Deputy Director Paul Grayson.”
One of the highest-ranking men in the New York field office.
Grayson smiled from the floor.
“You should have let him die.”
Reed looked at me.
“He wasn’t protecting Salvatore.”
“No,” I said. “He was trying to keep him from talking.”
May you like
The conspiracy reached far beyond my family.
And now the only man who knew its full size was bleeding beneath the altar.
