Chapter 4: What Eighteen Years Buys
Marco Vitale did not answer immediately.
He looked at his hands.
At the floor.
At the device on the nightstand that was no longer blinking.
Then he looked at Vincent.
"You're not going to like it."
"I haven't liked anything that's happened in this room today."
"This is worse."
"Say it anyway."
Marco exhaled through his nose.
A long, slow breath.
The kind a man takes when he is deciding how much of the truth to give and in what order.
"It wasn't supposed to be you," he said.
The room didn't move.
"The sh00ter was hired to take out Dominic.
Same night, same block, different target.
Someone fed him bad information.
Wrong man, wrong coat, wrong side of the street." Marco's voice was careful.
Measured.
Like he had rehearsed this.
"By the time I found out what actually happened, you were already in surgery."
"Who hired the sh00ter?"
"A man named Reyes.
He runs freight out of the port.
Has for years.
Dominic had been squeezing him on the harbor contracts — the same papers Lauren mentioned this morning.
Reyes decided to solve the problem permanently."
"And Lauren's fifty thousand dollars?"
Marco was quiet for a moment.
"Lauren found out about the contract on Dominic two days before it happened.
She didn't know the target.
She just knew something was being planned for that block, that night.
She paid Reyes's intermediary to call it off."
"It didn't get called off."
"No.
The intermediary took the money and didn't deliver the message.
Lauren paid to save Dominic's life and it didn't work.
And you took the bullet instead."
Vincent stared at him.
"She's known this for six months," he said.
"Yes."
"And she said nothing."
"She was terrified.
She paid money to a crjminal intermediary to stop a contract kjll.
If that came out—"
"I don't care about exposure." Vincent's voice was very quiet.
"She watched me lose my legs.
She stood at that vanity this morning and talked about wedding fittings and she has known for six months that she tried to stop it and failed."
Marco said nothing.
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"She thought you'd blame her."
"For trying to save someone's life?"
"For knowing it was coming and not telling you directly.
For going around you.
For making a decision she had no authority to make." Marco's voice was careful.
"She was afraid of what you'd become to her if you knew."
Tessa moved.
Just slightly.
She set down the towel she had been holding and crossed her arms.
Vincent noticed.
"There's more," he said.
It wasn't a question.
Marco looked at the floor again.
"The device," Vincent said.
"You put it there."
"Yes."
"Why."
"Because after the sh00ting, when you came home, I needed to know what you knew.
I needed to know if Lauren had told you.
I needed to know if Reyes was going to become a problem you'd try to solve from a wheelchair." Marco's jaw tightened.
"I was trying to protect you."
"By spying on me."
"By staying ahead of it."
"That's not protection, Marco.
That's control."
The word landed hard.
Marco's chin came up slightly.
"And the envelope?" Vincent said.
"Lauren's handwriting on the front.
That wasn't Lauren."
"No."
"You wrote it."
A pause.
"Yes."
"You planted the receipt where I'd find it.
You planted the device in the same place.
You wanted me to find them together and draw the wrong conclusion."
"I wanted you to confront Lauren.
I wanted the truth to come out between you.
I thought if you found the receipt, you'd ask her, and she'd finally tell you everything." Marco's voice hardened slightly.
"She's been lying to you for six months, Vince.
Someone had to force it open."
"So you forged her name on an envelope and hid a listening device under my mattress."
"I used her actual signature.
From the receipt.
I copied it."
"That's worse."
"Maybe."
Vincent looked at him for a long time.
Eighteen years sat between them like furniture neither of them could move around.
"The phone call," Vincent said.
"Don't trust Marco.
Who made it?"
Marco's expression shifted.
Something new moved across his face.
Not guilt.
Something closer to fear.
"I don't know," he said.
"You're lying."
"I'm not.
I swear to you, I don't know who made that call." He leaned forward.
"That's what I'm trying to tell you.
The device, the envelope — that was me.
I'll own that.
But someone else knows what I did.
Someone else has been watching this house.
And they called you this morning to make sure you'd be looking at me when I walked through that door."
Tessa's voice came from the window.
Quiet.
Steady.
"Someone wanted you both in this room at the same time," she said.
"Suspicious of each other.
Off balance."
Both men looked at her.
She didn't apologize for speaking.
"If Mr.
Corvino is focused on Marco," she continued, "and Marco is focused on defending himself, neither of them is focused on whoever is actually still out there."
The silence that followed was different from the ones before it.
Vincent looked at the device on the nightstand.
"It was still active when you found it," he said slowly.
"The green light."
Tessa nodded.
"It blinked once."
"Which means whoever planted it—" He stopped.
"Was listening this morning," Marco finished.
His voice had changed.
"They heard everything.
The phone call.
This conversation."
Vincent looked at the door.
Then at his phone.
Then at Marco.
"Reyes," he said.
"You said Reyes runs freight through the port.
The harbor papers Dominic wants me to sign.
What do those papers actually do?"
Marco's face went very still.
"They transfer operational control of the South Side freight corridor," he said quietly.
"Away from Reyes.
Permanently."
"And if I sign them from a wheelchair, half-broken, six months after nearly dying — how does that look to everyone watching?"
Marco didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Because they both understood now that the sh00ting, the device, the envelope, the phone call, and the harbor papers were not four separate problems.
May you like
They were one problem.
And it had a name.
