Chapter 12 - The Last Honest ConversationWe found a doctor in a neighborhood clinic who was willing to treat Arthur without asking questions.
She removed a fragment of metal from his side, closed the wound, and told him that if he insisted on walking around Chicago looking for men who wanted him dead, he should at least stop bleeding on other people's furniture.
Arthur thanked her.
The doctor stared at him as if she had heard a dog speak.
Back in the clinic's storage room, he sat on a folding chair while I examined the photograph of the man by the riverfront.
His features were obscured, but his left hand rested beside the window.
On his little finger was a silver ring.
The same ring appeared in the family photographs of Arthur's older brother.
“It's him,” Arthur whispered.
“You don't know that.”
“I know his hands.”
“You saw him when you were young.”
“I watched him eat breakfast every morning for nineteen years. He had a scar on that finger from a knife he stole from our father's kitchen.”
He touched the image carefully, as though the man might vanish if he pressed too hard.
“What was his name?”
“Michael Costello.”
“And Samuel said he switched places with another boy?”
“Michael Bellini. His son.”
The two families had spent decades believing their children dead or missing while the people responsible for the deception built an empire on their grief.
I wondered how many other families had been sacrificed to protect that secret.
Arthur looked at me.
“If Michael is alive, the ledger may tell us where he's been kept.”
“Or Samuel wants to trade him for the evidence.”
“Either way, we go to the riverfront.”
“No.”
His eyebrows rose.
“No?”
“You're injured. You're being hunted. Vincent has armed men, Samuel has armed men, and the police may or may not be working for them.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We stop pretending that every problem can be solved by walking into a room with a gun.”
He looked almost offended.
I spread my father's papers across the table.
“The account book contains transfers to shell companies. These companies paid for the hotel, the old warehouse, and several properties near the river. If we match the dates to the police reports, we can identify where Michael was taken.”
Arthur stared at the papers.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
“You're right.”
I blinked.
“Could you repeat that? I would like to have it documented.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
It disappeared almost immediately.
“My father taught me to control everything around me,” he said. “My men. My business. My enemies. He never taught me what to do when I couldn't control the consequences.”
“Neither did mine.”
“Your father taught you something better.”
“What?”
“To keep asking questions.”
He looked down at the account book.
“I should have listened to him twenty years ago.”
I thought about the life I had lived since my mother's death. I had spent years imagining that my father had simply been a quiet man who had been unlucky. A decent man who had suffered because the world was careless.
Now I understood that he had been fighting a war I never knew existed, carrying secrets that could have destroyed him.
I wanted to be angry with him for hiding the truth.
I wanted to be grateful that he had tried to protect me.
Mostly, I wished I could sit beside him one more time and ask him why he had never told me about the room with no windows.
Arthur reached into his coat and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
“What is this?”
“My resignation.”
I stared at him.
“From what?”
“The Costello organization.”
“You can't resign from a criminal empire like you're leaving a job at a supermarket.”
“I can stop giving orders. I can release the people who work for me. I can turn over the accounts.”
“And all the men who depend on you?”
“Some of them are criminals. Some were brought into the business as children and never given another option. I will help the second group leave.”
“And the first?”
“Face the consequences.”
I studied him.
“Why now?”
“Because I finally understand that I have spent my entire life calling control the same thing as safety.”
He glanced at the photograph of Michael.
“If my brother is alive, I want him to meet a man who has stopped pretending that power makes him innocent.”
It was the closest thing to hope I had heard from him.
Then his phone rang.
The number was blocked.
Arthur answered and put it on speaker.
A man's voice emerged.
“Arthur?”
Arthur stopped breathing.
The voice continued.
“It's me. Michael.”
I heard a soft rustle, then a breath that sounded painfully familiar to Arthur.
“I don't have much time,” Michael said. “Samuel is moving me tonight. I don't know where he's taking me.”
“Where are you?”
“Near the river. But listen to me. Don't come alone.”
“We won't.”
“No, Arthur. You don't understand. Vincent isn't working with Samuel anymore.”
Arthur's face tightened.
“Then who is he working with?”
A silence followed.
Then Michael spoke a name I recognized from my father's account book.
“Your father.”
Arthur went completely still.
“My father is dead.”
“I know what the official records say.”
“Michael, our father has been dead for twenty-five years.”
“Then tell me why I met him yesterday.”
The call ended.
Neither of us moved.
Then the clinic's old television flickered to life.
A news presenter announced that Arthur Costello was wanted for multiple murders, organized crime, and the attempted killing of a police detective.
A photograph appeared beside the presenter.
It showed Arthur standing over a dead man in a dark room.
The photograph was dated that morning.
The man on the floor was Samuel Bellini.
Arthur stared at the screen.
“He's making sure the police believe I'm a murderer.”
I looked at the photograph.
Then at the body.
Then at the date.
Something about the man's shoes seemed familiar.
I leaned closer.
The body wore expensive black leather shoes with a silver buckle.
Vincent Rourke had worn the exact same pair when he entered my bedroom.
But the man on the floor was not Samuel Bellini.
May you like
I recognized the face beneath the blood.
It was Detective Evelyn Shaw.
