204 When the Mafia Boss Ignored His Deaf Mother’s Warning at Dinner, I Translated Her Secret—Only to Discover the Men Who Ordered My Brother’s Murder Were Sitting at His Table

The North Sea wind howled through the open floodgates, freezing the water that clung to our clothes as we finally dragged ourselves up the maintenance hoist onto the dry concrete apron of the pier.

The Dutch harbor police boats were already circling the mouth of the canal, their blue emergency lights flashing against the gray Rotterdam fog. Gabriel’s fixers had handled the local authorities, presenting diplomatic transit papers and foreign maritime warrants that kept the Dutch officers at the perimeter gates.

Dominic Rossi sat handcuffed on an overturned industrial pallet, wrapped in a coarse wool blanket, guarded by two armed men who didn't take their eyes off him for a single second. He looked defeated now, an old, broken exile stripped of his shadow empire, shivering in the European cold.

Julian sat on the rear bumper of our Mercedes van, a paramedic from Gabriel’s private team wrapping a clean compression bandage around his shattered shoulder. He stared at his boots, refusing to look at me, refusing to look at Gabriel.

I stood twenty feet away, near the edge of the concrete pier, holding the waterlogged ledger against my chest.

The pages were damp, but the ink remained indelible. Every signature from Arthur Vance was a nail in the coffin of everything I had believed about my family. My father hadn't been an honorable dockworker crushed by the weight of organized crime. He had been a willing participant, trading pieces of our heritage for high-stakes poker chips and quick cash, hiding behind Julian’s brilliance when the house of cards began to collapse.

Heavy footsteps approached behind me.

Gabriel stopped at the railing, looking out toward the massive silhouette of the *Caledonia* resting in the drained basin below.

"The Dutch authorities have seized the vessel," Gabriel said, his voice flat, completely devoid of emotion. "The bearer bonds in the lower safe will be confiscated under international asset forfeiture. Dominic will be extradited to New York by tomorrow afternoon on the original federal RICO warrants."

I didn't turn around. "And my father?"

Gabriel was silent for a long moment. The gulls wheeled overhead, crying into the gray sky.

"The statute of limitations on the 1994 manifests expired five years ago," Gabriel said quietly. "Federal prosecutors won't care about thirty-year-old shipping logs when they have Dominic Rossi in an orange jumpsuit. Arthur won't go to prison, Maya."

"That's not what I asked, Gabriel."

I turned to face him. His dark eyes were tired, carrying the weight of a betrayal that had ripped both of our families apart from the inside out.

"You gave my father fifty-one percent of the port corridor because you believed my family had been wronged," I said, my voice shaking with raw, bitter honesty. "You gave it to us out of guilt. Because you thought your father had ruined mine."

"I gave it to you, Maya," Gabriel said, stepping closer, his gaze steady and intense. "Not your father. Not Julian. You."

"It's dirty, Gabriel!" I thrust the ledger toward him, pressing the cold leather against his chest. "All of it! Your family's money, my father's slips, Julian's accounts! We built this entire peace on a lie! You think I can walk into Slip Nine every morning knowing that my father helped your father build that pipeline?"

"Maya, listen to me," Gabriel said, grabbing my wrists with gentle but unyielding pressure, forcing me to stop trembling. "Dominic is finished. Reyes is in prison. Sterling is awaiting trial. The men who profited from thirty years of blood on those docks are gone."

"And what about us?" I asked, looking up into his eyes, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. "What happens when I go back to Chicago and look across the kitchen table at my father? How do I look at the man who let Julian take the fall for his own crimes?"

Julian looked up from the bumper of the van, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow.

"Maya," Julian choked out, his voice carrying across the pier. "Dad didn't want me to take the fall. When Reyes cut the brake lines on my car that night, Dad was the one who called me twenty minutes before I got behind the wheel. Dad told me to get out of town. He didn't know Reyes’s men had already staged the car at the slip."

I stared at my brother. "Then who put the body in your car, Julian?"

Julian swallowed hard, glancing toward Dominic, then back to me.

"There was no body, Maya," Julian whispered.

The wind off the harbor seemed to stop entirely.

"What did you say?" Gabriel demanded, releasing my wrists and turning toward Julian with sudden, violent focus.

"Frankie didn't identify my watch on a corpse," Julian said, his words dropping like lead weights onto the concrete. "Frankie Deluca was working for Dominic the entire time. Frankie staged the wreckage with animal blood from the stockyards and bribed the deputy coroner to sign the certificate. Dominic needed Julian Vance dead on paper so Reyes would move aggressively against Gabriel."

A cold, sickening realization swept through my veins.

Frankie.

The man who had lived in Bridgeport. The man whose kitchen I had stood in yesterday afternoon. The man who had looked out his window into the alleyway with terrified eyes.

"Gabriel," I gasped, the blood draining from my face. "Frankie Deluca."

Gabriel pulled his phone from his windbreaker, punching in the direct line to his security team at the Highland Park estate.

The line rang once. Twice. Three times.