Nora called Rachel seventeen times.
No answer.
By the eighteenth call, she was crying silently.
“Faster.”
“I’m doing ninety.”
“Then do a hundred.”
“This isn’t the interstate.”
“I don’t care.”
Neither did I.
The Bentley tore through Queens with enough speed to guarantee that if the NYPD wasn’t already looking for me, it soon would be.
“Address.”
Nora gave it to me.
A narrow residential block in Astoria.
Rachel lived in a second-floor apartment above a family-owned bakery.
We were three minutes away when Nora’s phone rang.
“Sophie?”
She answered instantly.
Nothing.
“Sophie, baby?”
Breathing.
Tiny.
Terrified.
Then Sophie whispered, “Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
“There’s banging.”
“Listen to me. Where’s Aunt Rachel?”
“She went downstairs.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“When?”
“When the man knocked.”
My hands tightened on the wheel.
“Ask where she is now.”
Nora did.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell Sophie to lock herself somewhere.”
Nora’s voice became calm in the way only a frightened mother’s voice can.
“Sweetheart, remember our hide-and-seek spot?”
“The closet?”
“Yes. Take Mr. Pickles and go there.”
Mr. Pickles, apparently, was important.
“Lock the bedroom first. Then hide.”
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
Nora’s face broke.
“I know, baby. I’m coming.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
We turned onto Rachel’s street.
A black SUV sat at the curb.
Joey.
I stopped half a block away.
“Stay here.”
Nora stared at me as if I had lost my mind.
“My daughter is inside.”
“I know.”
“That means I’m coming.”
“You barely know how to hold a revolver.”
“I managed to kidnap you.”
Fair again.
I handed her my backup pistol.
Her eyes widened.
“You have two?”
“Three.”
“Why?”
“I’m beginning to think tonight answers that question.”
We approached through the alley.
The bakery’s rear door was open.
Rachel lay beside stacked flour sacks.
Nora rushed toward her.
I checked her pulse.
Alive.
A bruise marked her temple.
“She’s breathing.”
Nora touched her sister’s face.
“Rachel?”
No response.
“Leave her,” I whispered. “We get Sophie first.”
We climbed the stairs.
The apartment door had been forced.
A floorboard creaked inside.
I held up one finger.
Nora nodded.
I entered.
Living room clear.
Kitchen clear.
Then a man stepped from the hallway.
Joey Crane.
His gun was pointed at my chest.
For twelve years, Joey had greeted me every morning.
Now his finger rested on a trigger.
“Boss.”
“Joey.”
He looked exhausted.
Not triumphant.
That bothered me.
“Put it down.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No, I really can’t.”
Nora moved behind me.
Joey’s eyes flicked toward her.
“Where’s Sophie?” she demanded.
“Bedroom.”
“If you touched her—”
“I didn’t.”
“Rachel?”
“She tried to hit me with a lamp.”
Despite myself, I almost respected Rachel already.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Joey swallowed.
“Carmine sent me.”
“I figured.”
“He said bring the girl.”
“You planning to?”
His gun lowered half an inch.
“I don’t know.”
That was our opening.
I knocked his wrist aside.
The pistol discharged into the ceiling.
Nora screamed.
I drove Joey against the wall.
He was strong.
I was angrier.
Three seconds later, his weapon was on the floor and my forearm was across his throat.
“Give me one reason.”
“Because Michael was murdered.”
I froze.
Joey coughed.
“And I can prove it.”
Nora picked up his gun.
“Start talking.”
Joey looked at me.
“Carmine ordered me here because he thinks Rachel has Michael’s letters.”
“Does she?”
Nora said nothing.
That meant yes.
“Why betray me?”
Joey laughed bitterly.
“You think I wanted this?”
“You opened my gate.”
“My son owes Carmine two hundred grand.”
“You have a son?”
“Exactly.”
That hit harder than it should have.
Twelve years.
I didn’t know Joey had a son.
Maybe I hadn’t known my people nearly as well as I believed.
“Carmine owns his debt,” Joey said. “Same way he owns half the people around you. Gambling. Loans. Affairs. Drugs. Whatever weakness he can buy.”
“Why?”
“To isolate you.”
“From what?”
“The truth.”
A tiny sound came from the hallway.
Everyone turned.
A bedroom door opened.
A little girl stood there clutching a stuffed rabbit.
Dark curls.
Pink pajamas.
Michael’s eyes.
For eight years, I had carried my brother’s photograph in my wallet.
I had remembered him as a grown man.
Seeing Sophie was like seeing the little boy he had once been.
She stared at Joey.
Then Nora.
“Mommy!”
Nora dropped the gun onto a chair and ran.
Sophie crashed into her arms.
The sound Nora made wasn’t quite a sob.
She sank to the floor and held her daughter as though the rest of the world had disappeared.
I looked away.
Some moments weren’t mine to watch.
Then Sophie peeked over Nora’s shoulder at me.
“Who’s that?”
Nora hesitated.
I answered.
“I’m Adrian.”
“You broke Aunt Rachel’s door?”
“Joey did.”
Joey sighed.
“Thanks.”
Sophie studied me.
Children have an unsettling way of looking directly through adults.
“You look like my picture.”
My chest tightened.
“What picture?”
“The one Mommy keeps.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“Sophie…”
She wriggled free and ran into the bedroom.
She returned holding a worn photograph.
Michael and me.
Coney Island.
I was maybe twenty-one.
Michael twenty-four.
We were standing beside the boardwalk, both sunburned, both laughing.
Sophie pointed at Michael.
“That’s my daddy.”
Then she pointed at me.
“And that’s you.”
I couldn’t speak.
“You’re Uncle Adrian.”
Nora looked at me apologetically.
“I told her about Michael.”
Sophie walked closer.
“Mommy said you didn’t know about me.”
“That’s true.”
“Do you know now?”
I crouched.
“Yeah.”
She nodded seriously.
“Okay.”
Apparently, that settled it.
Then she hugged me.
No warning.
No permission.
Two small arms around my neck.
I hadn’t cried when my father died.
I hadn’t cried when my mother died.
I had barely cried at Michael’s funeral because I had spent the entire day holding everybody else together.
But when Sophie DeLuca hugged me, eight years of grief found the crack.
I closed my eyes.
My hand rested gently against her back.
“Hi, Uncle Adrian,” she whispered.
“Hi, Sophie.”
Behind me, Joey said, “We need to move.”
Reality returned.
Rachel woke ten minutes later.
She hated me immediately.
“You’re him.”
“Apparently.”
“You stay away from Sophie.”
“Rachel—” Nora began.
“No. This family has brought nothing but trouble.”
“I’m trying to get them out.”
Rachel touched her bruised head.
“Your people did this.”
“My people are having an identity crisis tonight.”
Joey checked the window.
“Carmine will send another team.”
“Where can we go?” Nora asked.
I thought.
Not my estate.
Not any DeLuca property.
Not a hotel.
Then I remembered someone Carmine hated.
“Brooklyn.”
“Who’s in Brooklyn?”
“An old woman who will probably shoot me before she lets Carmine through the door.”
Forty minutes later, we stood outside a brownstone in Carroll Gardens.
I knocked.
Three locks opened.
A seventy-two-year-old woman in a robe pointed a shotgun at my chest.
“Adrian DeLuca.”
“Hello, Aunt Rosa.”
“You haven’t visited in eleven months.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You remembered my address when someone tried to kill you.”
“Family tradition.”
Her eyes moved to Nora.
Then Sophie.
Then Joey.
Finally back to me.
“Why is there a child who looks exactly like Michael standing on my stoop?”
Sophie waved.
Rosa dropped the shotgun.
Not literally.
But almost.
“My God.”
Twenty minutes later, Sophie was eating cookies in Rosa’s kitchen while Rachel held an ice pack to her head.
Rosa sat across from Nora.
“You were Michael’s girl.”
Nora blinked.
“You knew?”
“I knew there was someone.”
“Carmine told me nobody knew.”
“Carmine lies when his mouth moves.”
I leaned forward.
“You never told me.”
“Michael asked me not to.”
“Why?”
Rosa looked toward Sophie.
“Because he discovered something about Carmine.”
The room went silent.
“What?”
“He said money was disappearing from the family companies. He suspected Carmine and your father were arguing over it.”
“My father never mentioned that.”
“Your father didn’t know who to trust.”
Joey placed a flash drive on the table.
“I do.”
I stared at it.
“What is that?”
“Copies of security archives Carmine ordered deleted.”
“From when?”
“The night Michael died.”
I felt Nora’s hand close around mine under the table.
It was the first time she had touched me without a weapon involved.
Joey continued.
“Michael didn’t die where the police report said he did.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw him three hours earlier.”
“Where?”
“Your father’s warehouse in Red Hook.”
“With Carmine?”
Joey nodded.
“And Ellis Ward.”
The maintenance supervisor.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I was outside. Michael came out bleeding.”
Nora covered her mouth.
“He told me to call you,” Joey said.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Carmine caught me before I could.”
My chair scraped backward.
“You knew for eight years?”
“He threatened my family.”
“You let me bury my brother believing it was an accident.”
“I was a coward.”
“Yes.”
Joey accepted it.
Then Rosa quietly said, “Adrian.”
I turned.
She held an envelope.
Yellowed.
My name was written across it in Michael’s handwriting.
“Where did you get that?”
“Michael gave it to me two days before he died.”
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
Adrian, if anything happens to me, don’t trust Carmine. He knows about the trust. He knows what Dad changed. And there’s someone I love who may need you one day. Her name is Nora.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
At the bottom was another sentence.
Carmine thinks the money is the secret. It isn’t. The real secret is what Dad buried beneath Pier 19.
I looked up.
Joey had gone pale.
Rosa crossed herself.
And Nora whispered:
“What’s beneath Pier 19?”