Chapter 22 - The Silent Matriarch
The silence in Frankie’s kitchen hung heavier than lead.
"Fifty million?" The number sounded absurd, like a fairy tale invented to explain a nightmare. "Julian was a logistics coordinator for a family-owned dock. He made seventy-two thousand dollars a year."
"He made seventy-two thousand on the books, Maya," Frankie said, his breathing shallow as he leaned over the sink, splashing cold tap water across his pale face. "On the books, he was your father's loyal right hand. But off the books? Julian knew the digital routing codes for every blind container that bypassed customs between Montreal and the Gulf."
"And Gabriel's father?" I asked, my heart pounding against my ribs like a caged animal. "Old Man Dominic Rossi? I was sixteen when they held that wake. Gabriel spent an entire month in black. The whole city stopped."
"Dominic Rossi had cancer," Frankie explained, drying his face with a stained dish towel. "Or at least, that’s what the street was supposed to believe. The Feds were two weeks away from unsealing an eighty-count RICO indictment that would have seized every crane, warehouse, and vessel the Rossis owned. If Dominic died, the indictment died with him. So he died. On paper."
"And Gabriel knew?"
"Gabriel was twenty-four. He thought his old man was six feet under, just like you thought Julian was." Frankie stepped toward me, his hands outstretched in an urgent plea. "Maya, if Dominic Rossi finds out Julian didn't die in that car, he won't just kill Julian. He’ll execute your father, he’ll execute you, and he’ll wipe Vance & Sons off the map to plug the leak. You can’t go to Rotterdam."
"Julian is alive, Frankie," I said, my voice hardening. "He is my brother. I spent six months waking up screaming because I thought he was trapped at the bottom of the Calumet River. I’m not leaving him in Europe to be hunted like a dog."
"Then Gabriel is going to find out," Frankie warned. "Gabriel isn't stupid. You dropped that dry-dock key in front of him. You think he isn't checking flight manifests right now?"
Frankie was right. Gabriel was ruthlessly efficient. If he pulled the shipping logs from Rotterdam and matched them against his family’s historical records, he would reach the same conclusion I had—or worse, he would suspect Vance & Sons was plotting a coup.
"There’s one person who knows the whole truth," I said, reaching for my coat. "Someone who never bought the lie in the first place."
"Who?" Frankie asked, looking terrified.
"Signora Rossi."
I left Frankie's apartment before he could argue. The drive to the Rossi family estate in Highland Park took forty-five minutes, each mile stretching out like a tightrope. The sprawling limestone mansion sat perched high above the lake, surrounded by manicured iron fences and ancient oak trees.
I didn't call ahead. I pulled right up to the heavy security gates. The armed guard at the stone gatehouse stepped out, squinting at my sedan, but when he recognized me as the woman who had sat beside Gabriel at Il Canto, he lowered his clipboard and punched the intercom.
"Miss Vance? Mr. Rossi isn't here. He’s down at the city offices."
"I’m not here for Gabriel," I said clearly through the rolled-down window. "I’m here for his mother. Tell her I have a message from Slip Nine."
Two minutes later, the iron gates groaned open.
I walked through the cavernous foyer, where marble floors reflected the dim afternoon light, and followed the head housekeeper through the conservatory toward the glass greenhouse at the rear of the estate.
Signora Rossi was standing beside a long wooden bench, pruning white orchids with a pair of delicate brass shears. She wore a simple charcoal wool dress, her silver hair pulled back into an immaculate knot. When the glass door clicked shut behind me, she didn't turn—she had felt the shift in air pressure.
She set down the shears, wiped her hands on a linen cloth, and turned around. Her eyes were sharp, dark, and startlingly clear.
I didn't speak. I raised my hands and signed to her in the smooth, fluid gestures she had taught me during my brother’s wake: *I need the truth.*
The older woman’s expression didn't change, but her fingers lifted in response: *The truth is a heavy stone to carry, child. Why are you here?*
I pulled the yellow paper from my pocket, walked across the stone floor, and laid it directly on the wooden potting bench between us.
Signora Rossi looked down at the handwriting. For the first time since I had met her, I saw a fracture in her composure. Her breathing hitched. Her hand reached out, hovering half an inch above Julian's pen strokes, before she slowly withdrew it, as if the paper were scalding hot.
She looked up at me, her eyes clouded with an ancient, bitter grief.
She lifted her hands, her movements slower, heavier: *Julian was always too clever for his own good. I told him the water was too deep.*
*He’s alive,* I signed back, my hands trembling. *In Rotterdam. Why did he say Gabriel’s father would kill him?*
Signora Rossi closed her eyes for three long seconds. When she opened them, her gaze was fixed on the far wall of the greenhouse, where a portrait of her husband from thirty years ago hung in an ornate frame.
She began to sign, each gesture precise and deliberate: *Because Dominic didn't just hide from the law, Maya. He left because he wanted to build an empire that Gabriel could never touch. Dominic built the European corridor using stolen money—and your brother was the one who stole it for him.*
My breath caught. "Julian worked for him?" I blurted out aloud, forgetting she couldn't hear me.
Signora Rossi read my lips effortlessly. She nodded slowly, then signed: *Julian thought he was protecting your father’s docks. Dominic promised him that if Julian helped him wash fifty million through the Rotterdam dry docks, Vance & Sons would own the Great Lakes harbor forever.*
*And then?* I signed, desperation clawing at my throat.
May you like
Signora Rossi looked directly into my eyes, her fingers moving with brutal clarity: *Then Julian realized Dominic never intended to let him go home. The car that went into the river wasn't meant for Julian. Dominic ordered that hit to kill Gabriel.*
***
