Chapter 4 - THE FATHER I HAD SURVIVED BY BECOMING
My first instinct was violence.
Absurd, considering Arthur had been dead four years.
I wanted someone alive to punish.
Vincent.
Anyone who knew.
Anyone who helped.
Maria recognized it before I spoke.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“You have that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where somebody disappears.”
I almost asked how she knew.
Then remembered the newspapers.
“Vincent murdered your husband.”
“Yes.”
“You don't want justice?”
“I want truth.”
“Those aren't different.”
“They can be.”
Maria wiped her face.
“If you kill Vincent before he talks, Mateo stays whatever your files made him.”
That stopped me.
She continued.
“My daughter grows up with strangers calling her father a traitor.”
Her voice shook.
“I won't trade his name for your revenge.”
I stared.
No one spoke to me like that.
Sofia probably would eventually.
Perhaps it was hereditary.
I called my attorney.
Then a federal public-corruption contact I had spent years avoiding.
The irony was not lost on me.
We turned over copies.
Not everything immediately.
Lawyers insisted on controlled production.
For once, I listened.
Then we found Vincent.
He had been living under another name in Montreal.
Money makes hiding possible.
Guilt makes it exhausting.
Federal authorities detained him on financial charges tied to older investigations.
He agreed to speak.
Not because he became good.
Because self-preservation remained his greatest loyalty.
I watched the interview from another room.
Maria beside me.
Vincent looked older.
Thin.
He admitted my father recruited him.
Arthur believed I had grown “emotionally dependent” on certain lieutenants.
He wanted to teach me that loyalty was temporary.
“You killed three men to teach your son a lesson?” Maria whispered.
I felt sick.
Vincent described it clinically.
A rival family received selected information.
The conflict would remain controlled.
One warehouse.
No civilian losses.
My father expected one casualty.
Anthony Caruso.
A man he already considered troublesome.
Instead, violence escalated.
Three men died.
Mateo among them.
“And Mateo?” the investigator asked.
Vincent looked down.
“He discovered payments.”
“So you framed him?”
“Yes.”
“Did Arthur Hale order that?”
Pause.
“Yes.”
Maria left the room.
I followed.
She stood in the hallway.
Not crying.
Worse.
Empty.
“I'm sorry.”
She laughed.
I hated the sound.
“You always say that like you're responsible.”
“My father—”
“Was not you.”
I stopped.
She looked at me.
“Unless you choose to become him now.”
May you like
That hurt.
Because I'd spent my entire life believing becoming him was the goal.
