Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER I HAD BURIED
I did not sleep that night.
At four in the morning, I opened the safe in my study and removed a photograph I had not touched in years.
Gabriel and me.
He was seventeen.
I was twenty-two.
We stood beside our father's old fishing boat on Lake Michigan, both sunburned and laughing.
Gabriel had one arm around my shoulders.
I remembered the day perfectly.
He caught nothing.
Then spent the drive home explaining why fishing was a ridiculous hobby invented by men who didn't enjoy being indoors.
I had forgotten the sound of his laugh.
That realization hurt almost as much as seeing him.
By six, I had read the official warehouse report three times.
Twelve years earlier, a late-night explosion destroyed part of Warehouse Seventeen near the industrial corridor south of downtown.
Gabriel had gone there to review discrepancies in freight records.
I was supposed to meet him.
Lorenzo called an hour before the meeting and said the location was unsafe.
He insisted I come to his office first.
While I was there, the explosion occurred.
Three people were officially reported dead.
Two warehouse workers.
And Gabriel.
The body identified as my brother had been severely burned.
The medical examiner's report cited dental records, personal effects, and a family identification procedure.
Lorenzo handled nearly everything because I was in the hospital recovering from injuries sustained when I arrived at the burning warehouse and tried to enter it.
I remembered smoke.
Sirens.
Men holding me back.
Then the funeral.
The closed coffin.
Gabriel's watch beneath the glass of a memorial display.
And Lorenzo's hand on my shoulder.
He's gone, Adrian. Let me handle the rest.
I had.
For twelve years.
At seven, Lorenzo entered my study.
He looked exhausted.
“Boss, I've been calling.”
“I was busy.”
“Did you find the maid?”
“Yes.”
His expression sharpened.
“Where?”
“An apartment on the West Side.”
“Who was she feeding?”
I looked at him.
“A sick man.”
Something moved in his face.
Only briefly.
“Family?”
“Apparently.”
Lorenzo exhaled.
“I knew she was hiding something.”
I studied my cousin.
Forty-six.
Expensive charcoal suit.
Silver at his temples.
The man who had stood beside me through every violent dispute since our father's generation disappeared.
He knew which questions to ask.
Which questions to avoid.
He was very good at making concern sound like loyalty.
“Find out who owns the apartment,” he said. “If she's feeding some criminal who's using her to get close—”
“Leave it.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“She's taking food that would have been thrown away.”
“That isn't the point.”
“Then what is?”
Lorenzo looked surprised.
“Discipline.”
I leaned back.
“Have you ever missed a meal because you couldn't afford one?”
His eyebrows rose.
“What?”
“Answer.”
“No.”
“Neither have I.”
Silence.
“Perhaps we should be careful about lecturing people on what desperation looks like.”
Lorenzo watched me for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“As you wish.”
He left.
I waited until his footsteps disappeared.
Then I called a woman named Naomi Price.
Naomi had once worked in financial-crime investigations before starting an independent forensic consultancy.
She was not connected to my family.
She had also turned down two lucrative offers from Lorenzo.
That suddenly made her particularly attractive as an investigator.
When she answered, I said:
“I need someone investigated.”
“Business or personal?”
“Both.”
“Name?”
I looked toward the photograph of my brother.
“Lorenzo Vale.”
There was a pause.
“Your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Then what do you need?”
“The truth. And I need you to find it without anybody in my organization knowing you're looking.”
Naomi was quiet for several seconds.
Then:
“That will be expensive.”
“For once, money isn't the problem.”
“It rarely is with men like you.”
She hung up after arranging a meeting.
I almost smiled.
I was beginning to notice a pattern.
The people who told me uncomfortable truths were usually the ones who did not seem especially impressed by my money.
That afternoon, I returned to Beatrice's apartment.
Alone.
No security.
No gifts.
No envelope of cash.
I knocked.
Beatrice opened the door with the chain attached.
Her expression hardened.
“What do you want?”
“To apologize.”
She stared.
“For what?”
“For following you.”
“Anything else?”
I looked down.
“For thinking you were stealing because you were poor.”
She didn't smile.
Good.
An apology deserved to be heard, not automatically accepted.
“May I speak with Gabriel?”
“No.”
I nodded.
“Okay.”
That surprised her.
I continued:
“Would you ask him whether he wants to speak with me? If he says no, I'll leave.”
Beatrice studied me.
Then closed the door.
I waited in the hallway.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Finally, the door opened.
Beatrice stepped aside.
“Fifteen minutes.”
I entered.
Gabriel sat beside the window.
In daylight, I could see more clearly what the explosion had done to him.
Scarring climbed the right side of his neck.
His left hand remained partially curled.
A tremor interrupted some of his movements.
He could speak, but finding certain words seemed to require painful concentration.
My brother had been twenty-five when I lost him.
He was thirty-seven now.
Twelve years of his life had happened without me.
I sat in the chair Beatrice indicated.
Gabriel watched me.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then I asked:
“Who saved you?”
He glanced at Beatrice.
“Her mother.”
Beatrice sat beside him.
“My mother was Ruth Gallagher. She worked as a nurse in a rehabilitation facility on the South Side.”
She explained that Ruth had been driving home after a late shift when she encountered an injured man staggering near an industrial access road.
His clothing was burned.
He was disoriented.
He collapsed before he could tell her his name.
She called for medical assistance and accompanied him to the hospital.
Gabriel interrupted.
“They came looking.”
“Who?”
“Two men.”
My stomach tightened.
“Lorenzo's?”
Gabriel nodded.
“He told me they were there to finish it.”
Beatrice continued.
“Mom reported the visit to the hospital administrator. After another suspicious encounter, Gabriel was transferred and registered under an assumed name while the immediate threat was investigated.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“When I woke properly, Lorenzo came.”
I leaned forward.
“To the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“He told me you had ordered the warehouse cleared.”
My heart pounded.
“He showed you a document?”
Gabriel nodded.
My signature.
A directive supposedly authorizing Lorenzo to eliminate an internal threat associated with Warehouse Seventeen.
Gabriel believed he was the threat.
“He said you thought I'd been working with your enemies.”
I shook my head.
“I knew you were investigating the books.”
“You accused me of disloyalty.”
That stopped me.
Because it was true.
A week before the explosion, Gabriel had confronted me over money disappearing from one of our freight subsidiaries.
I told him to stop looking for conspiracies.
I accused him of undermining Lorenzo.
We argued.
Badly.
My final words to him before that night had been:
If you can't trust the people running this family, stay out of the business.
Gabriel had looked at me.
Then walked away.
I remembered the door closing.
I had replayed it for twelve years.
Now I understood why a forged order carrying my signature had been so convincing.
I had already made my brother believe I valued Lorenzo more than him.
Gabriel spoke quietly.
“I thought you wanted me dead.”
My throat tightened.
“I didn't.”
“I know that now.”
I stared.
“You believe me?”
Gabriel looked at Beatrice.
Then back at me.
“Lorenzo came to the hospital. You didn't.”
“I didn't know you were alive.”
“I know.”
For the first time, a little of the hatred in his eyes gave way to something else.
Exhaustion.
“Bea kept telling me there had to be another explanation.”
Beatrice looked down.
“She didn't know you. I barely did.”
He smiled faintly.
“She said anyone who spent twelve years mourning a brother deserved at least one chance to answer for himself.”
I looked at her.
She did not return my smile.
“I didn't bring you here so you could feel forgiven, Mr. Vale.”
“I know.”
“Gabriel needs proper medical care, secure housing, and the truth. He doesn't need another powerful man deciding his future.”
I nodded.
“Understood.”
Then Gabriel reached into a drawer beside his wheelchair.
He removed a worn notebook.
Its cover was held together with tape.
Inside were columns of numbers.
Dates.
Container codes.
Bank transfers.
Company names.
My brother's handwriting.
“I kept copies,” he said.
I stared.
“Of what?”
“The records I was going to show you that night.”
He turned to the final page.
One name appeared beside a transfer of $2.4 million.
LORENZO VALE.
Then another name appeared beneath it.
A man I had spent twelve years blaming for my brother's murder.
VICTOR GARZA.
My enemy.
Lorenzo's supposed enemy.
The man against whom I had built half my criminal empire.
Gabriel looked at me.
“Adrian.”
His voice was quiet.
“Lorenzo didn't just make you believe I was dead.”
He tapped the notebook.
“He made you believe Victor Garza was responsible.”
I stared at the page.
And suddenly I understood why Lorenzo had never allowed the war between the Vales and Garzas to end.
May you like
Peace would have given me time to examine the past.
War kept me dependent on him.
