Chapter 7 - THE SECOND TIME VINCENT HAD TO CHOOSE HIS BROTHER
Vincent did not reach for a gun.
He did not accuse Marco.
He did not even move away from him.
He simply put the phone on speaker.
“Say it again, Tony.”
There was silence.
Then Tony spoke.
“I found transfers from one of Samuel’s companies into an account under Michael Castle.”
Marco stared at the phone.
“That’s my alias.”
“I know.”
Vincent watched Marco.
“Did Samuel pay you?”
“No.”
“Do you know the account?”
“No.”
Tony interrupted.
“The account has existed six years.”
Marco laughed bitterly.
“Of course it has.”
Vincent understood.
Samuel was repeating the same trick.
Same method.
Different decade.
Bank records.
Alias.
Accusation.
Distrust.
Fifteen years ago, Vincent had reacted in minutes.
This time he did something else.
“Tony, send me everything.”
“Boss—”
“Everything.”
He hung up.
Marco stared at him.
“That’s it?”
“What?”
“You’re not going to accuse me?”
Vincent looked at him.
“I did that once.”
Silence.
Vincent continued.
“It cost us fifteen years.”
Marco’s eyes became wet.
“I’m not doing it twice.”
The words seemed to hit Marco somewhere deep.
He looked out the window.
“Damn you.”
“What?”
“You couldn’t have learned that fifteen years earlier?”
“No.”
Marco laughed.
Then, unexpectedly, so did Vincent.
For a few seconds, they were twenty again.
Before power.
Before graves.
Before betrayal.
Tony’s evidence arrived.
The money trail looked convincing.
Too convincing.
Every transfer happened shortly after Marco had visited medical facilities, banks, or government offices.
Someone had been tracking his identity.
More importantly, the destination account had never been accessed.
A perfect frame.
Vincent called Tony.
“Where did you get the records?”
“A source.”
“Name.”
Tony hesitated.
Vincent’s chest tightened.
“Tony.”
“My mother.”
Marco and Vincent exchanged a look.
“Your mother is alive?”
“Yes.”
Vincent had always been told Tony’s mother died when he was a child.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Who told you I couldn’t know?”
Another silence.
“Samuel.”
There it was.
Tony had been carrying his own lie for decades.
Vincent closed his eyes.
“Meet us at the estate.”
“Boss—”
“Bring your mother.”
The old Maronei country house had not been occupied in years.
Dust covered the furniture.
Portraits remained hidden beneath sheets.
The dining room where Vincent’s father once hosted Christmas dinners smelled of wood and cold air.
Tony arrived near midnight with a woman in her late sixties.
Maria Rini.
She looked at Vincent and started crying.
“You have his eyes.”
Vincent did not ask whose.
He already knew.
“My father?”
She nodded.
Tony stood stiffly beside her.
Vincent looked at him.
“You knew?”
“Not until I was nineteen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tony laughed bitterly.
“What was I supposed to say? Hello, boss, I’m apparently your father’s secret kid?”
“You could have tried.”
“Samuel told me if you knew, you’d kill me.”
Vincent looked at Marco.
Same lie.
Different victim.
Maria sat down.
“Your father wanted to acknowledge Anthony.”
Tony flinched at the name.
“But Samuel stopped him.”
“Why?”
“Because Samuel needed Vincent to inherit.”
Vincent frowned.
“That makes no sense if Tony was also family.”
Maria shook her head.
“Vincent was easier.”
The answer hurt.
Tony looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
“She’s probably right.”
At twenty-eight, he had believed strength meant suspicion.
At forty-three, he knew better.
Maria continued.
“Your father planned to divide the legitimate businesses between both sons and close everything else.”
Vincent stared.
“Everything criminal?”
“Yes.”
Marco exhaled.
“So Samuel stood to lose everything.”
Maria nodded.
“He had spent years building influence through those operations.”
Vincent leaned against the table.
Every lie led back to the same truth.
Samuel needed the old system alive.
Vincent had been the perfect angry young man to preserve it.
Then a slow clap came from the doorway.
Samuel.
He stood there alone.
“Beautiful.”
Tony moved.
Samuel raised a small device.
“Don’t.”
Vincent looked at it.
“What is that?”
“Insurance.”
Marco noticed first.
“Gas.”
Vincent smelled it.
Faint.
Chemical.
Samuel smiled.
“The basement line has been open for twenty minutes.”
Tony’s face changed.
“You’ll kill your own sister.”
Samuel looked at Maria.
“She stopped being useful years ago.”
Tony lunged.
Samuel pressed the device.
Nothing happened.
He pressed again.
Still nothing.
Then a voice spoke from behind him.
“Looking for this?”
Sophia.
Vincent’s heart stopped.
She stood beside two federal agents.
One held a disconnected receiver.
Marco went white.
“SOPHIA?”
She flinched.
“I stayed in the car until they said it was safe!”
Marco looked ready to collapse.
An agent stepped forward.
“We intercepted Mr. Vieri’s communications after Mr. Maronei provided full access to his network.”
Samuel stared at Vincent.
“You invited federal agents into your family home?”
Vincent smiled.
“No.”
He looked around.
“This stopped being my family home when men like you taught everyone inside it to be afraid.”
Agents moved toward Samuel.
For the first time, there was nowhere to run.
Samuel looked at Vincent.
“I made you.”
Vincent’s expression did not change.
“No.”
Samuel’s face twisted.
“I kept you alive. I kept you powerful.”
“You kept me angry.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“And convinced me anger was power.”
Samuel was handcuffed.
As agents led him away, he shouted:
“Without me, you are nothing!”
Sophia came running.
Marco caught her.
Tony put an arm around his mother.
Vincent looked at all of them.
The brother he had lost.
The brother he never knew he had.
The little girl who had walked through a dangerous door because she believed one sentence her father taught her.
Family never dies.
Vincent looked toward Samuel.
“For the first time in my life…”
His voice remained calm.
“…I’m going to find out who I am without you.”
Samuel disappeared into the night.
Vincent thought it was over.
Then an agent returned five minutes later.
“Mr. Maronei?”
“Yes?”
“We found something in Samuel’s car.”
He handed Vincent a sealed envelope.
On the front was written in his father’s handwriting:
FOR MY SONS.
Plural.
Vincent looked at Tony.
Tony looked back.
May you like
And both realized their father had known exactly what was coming.
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