Chapter 1 - THE SURCHARGE
Nine years after a car bomb killed his wife, Chicago’s most feared Mafia boss had become a man incapable of laughter.
Then, in the middle of an execution, his exhausted secretary walked into the room, looked at the gun in his hand, and said:
“Please don’t shoot him in here. We just had the rugs cleaned.”
My name is Emily Carter, and at thirty-one, I had learned that fear was a luxury for people who got eight hours of sleep.
My younger brother lived in a private psychiatric facility in Evanston that cost eight thousand dollars every month.
Dante Marino paid me twelve thousand to manage his office.
That four-thousand-dollar difference was enough to make me overlook the broken noses, whispered threats, and occasional bloodstains.
Dante ran his empire from the forty-second floor of a glass tower in downtown Chicago.
He was only thirty-eight, but his eyes looked decades older because nine years earlier, a car bomb meant for him had killed his wife, Clara.
After burying her, Dante seemed to bury every human emotion he had left.
He never smiled.
Never joked.
Certainly never laughed.
People whispered that men had died for making too much noise around him.
Most personal secretaries lasted three weeks.
I lasted because losing my job frightened me far more than Dante Marino ever could.
One rainy Thursday, three million dollars disappeared from the South Side operation, and I traced it straight to Sal Genovese, one of Dante’s oldest capos.
Unfortunately, IRS auditors were also arriving at two that afternoon, and I needed Dante to sign several depreciation forms before our legitimate shipping company attracted questions nobody wanted answered.
So I grabbed the folder and walked into Dante’s office without knocking.
Sal was on his knees.
Two enormous guards stood behind him while Dante faced the rain-covered windows with a suppressed pistol hanging casually from his hand.
Sal was crying so hard his face was streaked with tears, yet the room remained terrifyingly silent.
“Mr. Marino,” I said, walking toward the desk. “I need your signature.”
Dante slowly turned.
“I am dealing with a personnel issue, Emily.”
“I noticed.”
The guards stared at me as though I had volunteered for my own funeral.
I opened the folder anyway.
“The IRS will be downstairs in two hours. If these forms aren’t signed, they may flag the dummy accounts, and then payroll becomes a problem.”
“Emily, please,” Sal suddenly begged. “Tell him I didn’t mean to—”
“Sal, please don’t speak to me. We are not friends.”
His mouth fell open.
I held Dante’s Montblanc pen toward him.
“Sign here. You can shoot him afterward.”
Dante’s eyes darkened.
“Leave. Now.”
“I’ll leave when you sign.”
Then I rubbed the ache behind my left eye and glanced at Sal.
“Besides, he used his mother’s maiden name for the shell company. It took me twelve minutes to trace the missing three million dollars. Honestly, it was embarrassing.”
Nobody moved.
Then my eyes dropped toward the Persian rug beneath Sal’s knees.
“Actually, there’s one more thing.”
Dante tightened his grip on the pistol.
“What?”
“Please shoot him in the warehouse.”
For the first time, confusion crossed his face.
“We had these rugs steam-cleaned Tuesday,” I explained. “The cleaners charge double for blood. I spent forty minutes arguing about the biohazard surcharge last month, and frankly, Sal isn’t worth the extra money.”
I wiggled the pen toward him.
“Sign first. Shoot second. Warehouse.”
For ten unbearable seconds, Dante simply stared at me.
Then something strange happened.
His chest jerked.
A rough, choking sound escaped his throat.
Both guards instinctively stepped backward.
Sal stopped crying.
Dante covered his mouth with one hand.
His shoulders began to shake.
Then Chicago’s most feared Mafia boss started laughing.
Not smiling.
Laughing.
Nine years of grief seemed to tear out of him at once as he leaned against the window, tears gathering in his eyes.
“The surcharge,” he gasped. “He’s not worth the surcharge.”
Everyone else looked terrified.
I just kept holding out the pen.
Finally, Dante crossed the room and took it.
His fingers brushed mine as he signed the document.
When he looked up, something about him had changed.
The emptiness in his eyes was gone.
He looked alive.
And somehow, that frightened me more than the gun.
Dante slowly turned toward Sal.
“Get him out of here.”
Sal began sobbing harder.
Dante added:
“Alive.”
One guard blinked.
“Boss?”
“I said alive.”
Dante’s faint amusement disappeared.
“I want to know where every dollar went.”
He handed me the signed papers.
“Apparently Miss Carter has convinced me murder is fiscally irresponsible.”
“I said nothing about murder generally. I objected to the location.”
Dante stared.
Then another tiny smile threatened the corner of his mouth.
Sal looked horrified.
The guards dragged him away.
I gathered the folder.
“Thank you.”
“Emily.”
“Yes?”
“Close the door.”
I stopped.
Usually when Dante Marino said those words, somebody began reconsidering their life decisions.
I closed it.
He placed the pistol inside his desk.
“What exactly did you find?”
“Sal transferred three million through four companies over eleven months.”
“You have names?”
I opened my secondary folder.
Dante stared.
“You brought a second folder into an execution?”
“I brought the first folder into a tax emergency. Your execution happened to be here.”
He sat.
I showed him the transactions.
One company purchased “consulting services.”
Another paid inflated warehouse invoices.
The third disappeared behind a Nevada registration.
The fourth had received the largest amount.
Mercer Care Holdings.
Dante read the name.
“Healthcare?”
“Apparently.”
“How much?”
“One point two million.”
“For what?”
“No idea.”
I pointed at a subsidiary.
Hawthorne Grove Residential Treatment Center, Evanston, Illinois.
Everything inside me stopped.
Dante noticed immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
I stared at the page.
Hawthorne Grove.
The private facility where my brother Nathan had lived for nearly five years.
Dante leaned forward.
“Emily.”
“My brother lives there.”
Silence.
I wished I had kept my mouth shut.
Dante knew almost nothing about Nathan.
Nobody at the office did.
“My younger brother has PTSD, severe anxiety, and periods where he needs structured care.”
Dante said nothing.
“His doctors recommended Hawthorne Grove after he had a serious breakdown five years ago.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-six now.”
“So twenty-one when admitted.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
“That is none of your business.”
Dante accepted the boundary immediately.
Another surprise.
“Fair.”
He looked at the transaction again.
“Do you pay the facility directly?”
“Yes.”
“From your account?”
“Yes.”
“Every month?”
“Eight thousand dollars.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“Eight?”
“Yes.”
“Exact amount?”
“Usually eight. Medication changes sometimes add fees.”
He turned his monitor toward himself.
“Sal transferred ninety-six thousand dollars annually to Hawthorne Grove for each of the last four years.”
I stared.
Ninety-six thousand.
Eight thousand times twelve.
Exactly what Nathan’s care cost me.
“No.”
“What?”
“That can't be connected.”
“Coincidence?”
“Yes.”
Dante simply watched me.
I hated when powerful men used silence as interrogation.
“You think someone has secretly been paying my brother’s bill?”
“Maybe.”
“They debit my account every month.”
“Then perhaps somebody is reimbursing the facility through another channel.”
“Why?”
“That is what I intend to ask Sal.”
My stomach tightened.
“Dante.”
His eyes lifted.
It was the first time I had used his first name at work.
He noticed.
“Do not involve Nathan.”
“I have no interest in frightening your brother.”
“You don't understand.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“So explain.”
I stared toward the rain.
Nathan had been seventeen when our parents died within eighteen months of each other.
Our father from a stroke.
Our mother from cancer.
Nathan had always been sensitive.
Funny.
Artistic.
Then one night, when he was seventeen, he came home covered in blood.
Not his.
Or at least not all of it.
He said two men had chased him from a parking garage.
He insisted he had seen somebody planting something beneath a car.
Police found no proof.
Three nights later, Nathan was beaten behind a convenience store.
His skull was fractured.
He recovered physically.
Mentally, something never completely settled again.
For years he had nightmares.
Hypervigilance.
Panic.
Sometimes he insisted men were watching him.
Everyone told us trauma could distort memory.
I believed the doctors.
I still did.
Nathan needed treatment.
But suddenly the memory of what he had said before the beating returned.
A bomb.
A car.
Men in a garage.
Nine years ago.
I looked at Dante.
His wife died nine years ago.
My mouth went dry.
“When exactly did Clara die?”
His face closed immediately.
“September eighteenth.”
I stopped breathing.
Nathan had been attacked on September nineteenth.
The day after Clara Marino died.
Dante saw my expression.
“What?”
I sat slowly.
“My brother was beaten the next night.”
Dante became very still.
“Why?”
“Nobody knows.”
“What did he say happened before?”
I wanted to lie.
Instead:
“He said he saw two men underneath a car.”
The room went silent.
Rain ran down the windows behind Dante.
“What car?”
“He never knew.”
“Where?”
“A parking garage downtown.”
“Which one?”
“I don't remember.”
“Emily.”
“I said I don't remember!”
My voice cracked.
He backed off.
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“He was seventeen. Everyone said he was traumatized. Later he stopped talking about it.”
Dante’s phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
“Did Nathan ever mention a woman?”
My eyes lifted.
“What?”
“Clara was downtown that afternoon.”
“I don't know.”
“Think.”
“I haven't talked about this in years.”
“Emily.”
Something in Dante's expression frightened me.
Not anger.
Hope.
Hope in a man who had buried it nine years earlier.
That was far more dangerous.
“I need to see my brother.”
“No.”
He stared.
“No?”
“You don't walk into Hawthorne Grove and interrogate Nathan about your dead wife.”
“I was not planning to interrogate him.”
“You carry a gun to performance reviews.”
“That was different.”
“Not enough.”
He leaned back.
For several seconds, Dante said nothing.
Then:
“You're right.”
Again.
That habit was becoming inconvenient.
He closed the transaction file.
“You go.”
“What?”
“Visit your brother normally.”
“And ask him?”
“Only if you believe it won't hurt him.”
I studied Dante.
“And if he remembers nothing?”
“Then we leave him alone.”
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“And Sal?”
His face hardened.
“Sal will explain why he sent money to your brother's facility.”
My stomach knotted.
I gathered my folders.
At the door, Dante said:
“Emily.”
I turned.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
He almost smiled.
“The rugs.”
I rolled my eyes and left.
The joke stopped being funny at 7:14 that evening.
I was halfway home when Hawthorne Grove called.
“Ms. Carter?”
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Elaine Foster.”
I knew the name.
Nathan’s clinical director.
“Is Nathan okay?”
A pause.
“He had an episode this afternoon.”
My heart jumped.
“What happened?”
“He became distressed after seeing something on television.”
“What?”
“News coverage.”
“About?”
Another pause.
“Dante Marino.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“What did Nathan say?”
Dr. Foster hesitated.
Then quietly:
“He kept repeating a woman’s name.”
I pulled my car to the curb.
“What name?”
“Clara.”
I could hear my own heartbeat.
Then Dr. Foster added:
“He also said something else.”
“What?”
“That he tried to warn her about the bomb.”
And suddenly the missing three million dollars was no longer the most important problem in Dante Marino’s organization.
May you like
My brother had known his wife.
---
