Chapter 9 - BLOOD ON THE FROZEN RIVER
The federal task force wanted us in protective custody. I refused until Lorenzo was found. Elena called that decision idiotic, arrogant, and predictable, then arranged a compromise with agents close enough to intervene without making our every move public.
Lorenzo contacted me that evening. No threats this time. No photographs. Just an address and a request: come alone if you want the truth about Salvatore’s last night. The address belonged to an abandoned rowing club along the river, close enough to downtown that the skyline glowed behind it, far enough from traffic that winter made the shoreline silent. I told everyone I would not go.
Then I went. Luca was waiting in the passenger seat of my car when I entered the garage. “You’re terrible at lying to family,” he said. I almost told him to get out. Instead I started the engine.
Beatrice appeared behind us and opened the rear door. “Move.” I stared at her in the mirror. “You are not coming.” She climbed in anyway. “I spent twelve years in this story. I’m not missing the final chapter because you discovered concern.”
Luca laughed. I gave up. The rowing club stood dark beneath bare trees. Ice pushed against the riverbank in slow grinding sheets. We left the car fifty yards away and entered through a side door hanging from one hinge.
Lorenzo waited near the old boat racks with his hands visible. He looked exhausted for the first time in my life. No tailored coat, no polished shoes, no smile sharpened for a room. “You brought them,” he said.
“They brought themselves.” His gaze lingered on Luca. “You were always difficult to kill.” Luca’s face hardened. “You tried twice?” Lorenzo shook his head. “Once. The rest were Emilio.” There it was again—the name of a dead man growing more alive by the hour.
Lorenzo said Salvatore had called him the night before his death and ordered him to sever Meridian completely. Lorenzo refused. Salvatore threatened to give everything to Matteo. So Lorenzo went to the house expecting a confrontation.
“I found him already dying,” Lorenzo said. “Emilio was there.” My chest tightened. Officially, Salvatore died of a heart attack in his study. “You expect me to believe Rusk killed him?” “I expect you to believe your father invited a ghost into his house because he thought he could still negotiate.”
Luca stepped forward. “Why didn’t you tell Matteo?” Lorenzo looked at him with something close to shame. “Because by then I was in too deep. Emilio had records of everything. Payments, killings, judges, my own accounts. He told me if I kept the family stable, he would leave Matteo alone.”
I laughed once, without humor. “You call this leaving me alone?” “I kept you alive.” “You kept me useful.” His eyes flickered. The distinction hurt him because it was true. A red dot appeared on Lorenzo’s chest.
Beatrice saw it first. “Down!” she shouted. The shot shattered a window behind us. We dropped behind the boat racks. A second shot struck wood. Lorenzo crawled toward a concrete pillar. Emilio had not sent Lorenzo to confess. He had allowed him to.
Agents outside responded, but the shooter had height and cover from an unfinished building across the river. More shots drove us toward the rear exit. Then the rowing club doors opened. Three men entered from the parking side.
Lorenzo swore. “He wants all of us gone.” For the next minute, old enemies became temporary allies. Luca covered the left corridor. Lorenzo fired toward the entrance. I pulled Beatrice behind the concrete wall while glass rained from the rafters.
A man rushed the passage. Marcus, arriving with agents from the outside perimeter, tackled him before he could fire. The second surrendered when floodlights hit the windows. The third reached Lorenzo. They struggled near the river door. A shot went off. Lorenzo staggered backward, one hand pressed to his side.
Luca could have left him. Instead, he crossed the room and dragged our cousin behind cover. Lorenzo stared at him, shocked. “Why?” Luca breathed hard. “Because I’m not you.” Agents secured the building within minutes. The sniper escaped before the opposite structure could be surrounded, but he left behind a rifle, shell casings, and one fingerprint partial enough to give investigators hope.
Lorenzo survived. In the ambulance, before sedation took him, he asked to speak with me. “There’s a place,” he whispered. “Lake Forest. White house, green shutters. Emilio used it when we were kids.” I remembered the photographs from my father’s vault. The modest house near Wisconsin. Meridian House, not as a foundation, but as a literal house.
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“Is he there?” Lorenzo’s eyes closed. “He goes there when he thinks he’s won.” Federal agents moved before dawn. They found the house empty. But in the basement was a wall of surveillance photographs. Luca. Beatrice. Elena. Me.
Some were recent. One had been taken forty-eight hours earlier through the window of our safe apartment. On the back, someone had written a date three months in the future. And beneath it, one word. BEGIN.
