The Funeral That Never Happened

Chapter 14 - The Funeral That Never Happened

Vittorio’s hand shook.

His eyes did not.

Gabriel stood on the staircase holding Lucia against his uninjured side.

Norah had never seen the old man before, but she recognized him instantly.

Not because he looked like Gabriel.

Because Gabriel had spent six years trying not to look like him.

There was the same jaw.

The same stillness.

The same unsettling patience.

But where Gabriel’s silence often concealed restraint, Vittorio’s seemed to contain appetite.

“Put the child down,” Vittorio said.

Gabriel did not move.

“You faked your death.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because dead men are rarely subpoenaed.”

Smoke curled along the ceiling.

Isabella moaned on the landing.

Vittorio barely glanced at his daughter.

Gabriel did.

“You shot her?”

“Marco did.”

“Where is he?”

“Running. He was never good under pressure.”

Norah looked toward the rear hall.

If Marco had escaped, police would be searching the perimeter.

Sirens were louder now.

Vittorio heard them too.

“That girl,” he said, nodding toward Lucia. “Put her down.”

“No.”

“You still confuse defiance with morality.”

“And you confuse blood with ownership.”

Something changed in Vittorio’s face.

He pointed the gun at Norah.

“Daniel’s daughter.”

Lucia buried her face against Gabriel’s chest.

Norah kept her voice level.

“Yes.”

“Your father caused all of this.”

“No.”

Vittorio smiled faintly.

“Good. At least she isn’t stupid.”

Daniel stepped into the room behind Norah.

“I caused enough.”

Vittorio’s smile disappeared.

“You.”

Daniel looked smaller than the old man despite being younger.

Perhaps guilt did that.

“I have the recording,” Daniel said.

“Had.”

Norah held up the metal case.

“I have it.”

Vittorio’s gun moved toward her.

Gabriel shifted down one stair.

“Don’t.”

Vittorio looked at his son.

There was something almost tender in his expression.

“Still throwing yourself in front of bullets. Your mother ruined you.”

“No,” Gabriel said. “She just realized what you were before I did.”

“She signed every paper.”

“Yes.”

“She protected me.”

“Until she stopped.”

Vittorio’s mouth hardened.

Norah understood then why the old man had stayed hidden so long.

Not merely to escape prosecution.

He could not tolerate the idea that the people who once served him had changed.

Daniel.

Elena.

Perhaps even Gabriel.

To a man like Vittorio, redemption was not hope.

It was betrayal.

Police lights flashed through the windows.

Vittorio raised the gun.

Daniel moved first.

He stepped between Vittorio and Norah.

The gun fired.

Daniel jerked backward.

Norah heard herself scream.

Gabriel launched forward, knocking Vittorio’s arm aside.

The old man fell against the banister.

The gun skidded across the floor.

Ezra kicked it away.

Officers poured through the front door.

For several seconds, the room became noise.

Commands.

Coughing.

Lucia crying.

Isabella whispering.

Gabriel on his knees beside Daniel.

Norah dropped beside her father.

Blood covered his shirt near the ribs.

“Dad.”

His eyes opened.

“Nori.”

“No. No, you don’t get to do this.”

A weak smile.

“Bossy.”

“I learned from terrible people.”

He tried to laugh and coughed instead.

Paramedics rushed in.

Norah held his hand until they forced her to move.

Vittorio was led outside in handcuffs.

He did not look defeated.

He looked offended.

As though consequence were merely poor manners.

Marco was arrested twenty minutes later hiding beneath a dock two houses away.

Isabella survived surgery.

Daniel did too.

Barely.

By noon, three hospitals, two federal agencies and every major news outlet in Chicago had pieces of the Rossi story.

None had all of it.

Gabriel sat on a hospital bed while a surgeon explained that the bullet had fractured part of his shoulder blade.

Norah stood beside the window wearing a borrowed sweatshirt.

Blood had dried beneath one thumbnail.

“Your father is stable,” Gabriel said.

She nodded.

“You can see him soon.”

“I know.”

“Lucia is with a social worker and her nanny.”

“I know.”

“Isabella—”

“I know.”

He stopped.

Norah looked at him.

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

“Giving me information because you don’t know what to say.”

Gabriel considered this.

“Yes.”

She walked closer.

“What are you afraid to say?”

His gaze dropped to his bandaged shoulder.

“That I am sorry I brought any of this into your life.”

“You didn’t.”

“My family did.”

“My family helped.”

“I employed Ezra.”

“My father left a nineteen-year-old girl in the road.”

Silence.

Norah sat beside him.

“This is the part all of you get wrong.”

Gabriel looked at her.

“You think guilt is inherited because money is.”

He said nothing.

“Your father’s crimes are not yours. Your mother’s crimes are not yours. But what you did because they taught you it was normal—that belongs to you.”

Gabriel looked down.

“Yes.”

“You can’t pay enough money to erase it.”

“I know.”

“You can’t protect enough people to erase it.”

“I know.”

“You can only tell the truth and accept what follows.”

He met her eyes.

“I know.”

For once, Norah believed he truly did.

There was a knock.

A federal prosecutor entered with two agents.

“Mr. Rossi, we need to speak with you regarding the accounts in the Hayes ledgers.”

Gabriel nodded.

His attorney stepped in behind them.

Norah stood.

Gabriel looked toward her.

She expected fear.

Instead she saw resolve.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Tell them everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

“Even the three men?”

His lawyer began, “Gabriel—”

Gabriel did not look away from Norah.

“Yes.”

She nodded.

Then she walked out.

In the hallway, Elaine was waiting.

Her mother looked ten years older.

“Daniel is asking for you.”

Norah followed her into intensive care.

Her father lay beneath blankets and tubes.

His eyes opened when she entered.

“Hi, Nori.”

This time she let him call her that.

She sat.

Daniel whispered, “Did Gabriel cooperate?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Norah looked at him.

“I’m not here to talk about Gabriel.”

He nodded.

“I know.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

Pain crossed his face.

“I know.”

“I may someday forgive parts of you. I may not forgive other parts.”

“That’s fair.”

“I won’t pretend you were a hero because you finally told the truth.”

“I don’t want you to.”

She took his hand.

“But I also don’t want the last thing between us to be seventeen years of silence.”

Daniel began to cry.

So did Norah.

Quietly.

Not like a movie.

There was no grand absolution.

No dying confession that repaired childhood.

Only two people sitting with what remained.

After a while, Daniel whispered, “There’s one more thing.”

Norah almost laughed through her tears.

“Of course there is.”

“In the second ledger.”

“What?”

“A page your mother never saw.”

Norah’s exhaustion vanished.

“What is on it?”

Daniel closed his eyes.

“A trust account.”

“For whom?”

He looked at her.

“You.”

Norah shook her head.

“No.”

“Three million dollars.”

The amount Vittorio had accused Daniel of stealing.

Her father squeezed her fingers weakly.

“I did steal it, Norah.”

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She stared at him.

And Daniel whispered, “But not for myself.”