Chapter 6 - THE MAN WHO DIDN’T START A WAR
People expected Nico to burn Chicago down.
He didn’t.
That disappointed the newspapers.
It surprised me too.
I woke the next morning to find him sitting beside the hospital window.
Same suit.
Different shirt.
No sleep.
“You’re still here.”
He looked toward me.
“Where else would I be?”
“With Sofia.”
“She’s downstairs with her pulmonologist and four federal agents.”
I blinked.
“Federal?”
“Yes.”
“You called them?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“My attorney did before I could make a worse decision.”
I almost smiled.
“What decision?”
“Several.”
“At least you’re honest.”
His face softened.
Then hardened again.
“You nearly died.”
“I noticed.”
“You were not supposed to do that.”
“Good thing I don’t technically work security.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“No.”
It wasn’t.
The surgeon said the bullet through my abdomen missed my spine and major vessels by distances small enough to make everyone use words like fortunate.
My shoulder wound hurt worse than expected.
I would recover.
Slowly.
Sofia visited that afternoon.
She stood at the doorway.
Wouldn’t come closer.
I understood.
Blood.
Hospital.
Her mother.
Too much.
“Hey.”
She stared at my bandages.
“This is not your fault.”
Her face crumpled.
“If I didn’t have birthday—”
“No.”
I sat up despite pain.
Nico moved to stop me.
I glared.
He stopped.
Progress.
“Sofia, look at me.”
She did.
“You didn’t shoot me.”
“No.”
“You didn’t hire anyone.”
“No.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But you jumped.”
“I chose to.”
“Why?”
I looked at her.
“Because I love you.”
Silence.
There it was.
I had not planned to say it.
Sofia began crying.
Then climbed carefully onto the bed.
I held her with one arm.
Nico turned away.
Pretending to look out the window.
I saw his reflection.
He was crying too.
Later, federal investigators interviewed me.
The fake waiter talked quickly.
His name was Paul Renner.
Former Vitali security.
Roman had paid him.
The outside shooters were contractors brought in through a Milwaukee crew.
Their instructions were explicit:
Sofia first.
Clara if possible.
Nico alive.
That last part confused me.
“Why keep Nico alive?” I asked.
His attorney, Marcus Lane, answered.
“Because Sofia dying helps Roman more if Nico survives.”
“How?”
“Her trust.”
Of course.
If Nico died too, federal scrutiny and probate complications could freeze everything.
If Sofia died while Nico lived?
A grieving, unstable mob boss.
A family trust dispute.
Roman could argue Nico had failed as trustee.
And with my forged medication records?
He could claim I had been negligent for months.
The shooting might be blamed on Nico’s enemies.
Everything wrapped in chaos.
Roman did not just want money.
He wanted Nico broken enough to lose control.
Then Daniel appeared.
Alive.
He walked into a police station in St. Louis and asked for protective custody.
I did not know whether to laugh or scream.
He told investigators Roman had paid him over $40,000 during the past year.
First to keep gambling.
Then to increase his debt.
Then to offer me when collections came.
Roman had studied Nico.
He knew Nico would reject the idea of taking a woman as payment.
He also knew Nico had been searching for someone with medical experience for Sofia.
I had been engineered into the house.
Not because Roman needed me to hurt Sofia.
Because he needed me near enough to take responsibility when someone else did.
Daniel agreed to testify.
I spoke to him by video.
His face looked gray.
“Clara.”
I stared.
“I’m sorry.”
I almost laughed.
“For which part?”
His eyes dropped.
“Everything.”
“That’s too broad.”
“I know.”
“You gambled my tuition.”
“Yes.”
“Our house.”
“Yes.”
“Then let a stranger use your daughter as part of a murder plan.”
His face broke.
“I didn’t know he wanted to kill anyone.”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“But you didn’t ask.”
Silence.
“I needed the money.”
“That has been your answer my whole life.”
He began crying.
For once, I did not rescue him from feeling terrible.
“I’ll testify,” he said.
“Good.”
“You hate me.”
I thought.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That’s fair.”
It was the first fair thing he had ever said.
Nico ended the call afterward.
“You okay?”
“No.”
He nodded.
No fixing.
No speech.
Just sat beside me.
That was new too.
Roman was found four days later.
Not by Nico.
By federal agents.
He had rented a cabin outside Madison under a false name.
Inside they found financial records, surveillance photographs, copies of Sofia’s trust, my forged medical logs, and one item nobody expected.
A recording of the conversation from eighteen months earlier when Nico’s wife Alessia died.
Roman speaking with her driver.
Marcus played it once.
Then stopped.
Nico’s face became empty.
Alessia’s crash had not been an accident.
Roman had paid the driver to change routes.
The driver was supposed to create a minor collision that would frighten Alessia into supporting Roman’s proposal for heavier family security and trust control.
But the car lost control.
Alessia died.
Roman had been responsible for the tragedy that started everything.
Sofia’s trauma.
Nico’s isolation.
The medical plan.
All of it.
I watched Nico stand.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Nico.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“What are you going to do?”
His face showed every old instinct.
Then he looked at me.
At the hospital bed.
At the scar forming beneath my bandage.
“Nothing.”
I waited.
He corrected himself.
“I’m going to let the case happen.”
“You mean that?”
“No.”
His honesty almost hurt.
“I want to kill him.”
I said nothing.
“But Sofia already lost her mother because Roman decided he could control people through fear.”
His jaw tightened.
“I won’t teach her the lesson that the answer is becoming worse.”
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
Roman had made his first statement.
He denied ordering Alessia’s death.
Denied intending to hurt Sofia.
And claimed Nico himself knew about the medication plan.
A document supported him.
Signed by Nico.
Authorization for “behavioral pharmaceutical intervention.”
Dated eight months earlier.
If authentic, it could destroy everything.
Nico stared at the signature.
Then whispered:
May you like
“That is mine.”
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