Chapter 14 - Dinner With WolvesVictor chose an old supper club outside Milwaukee.
No cameras visible.
No civilians after nine.
Private room in back.
Red leather booths.
Dark wood walls.
A mounted stag head staring down like a witness that had seen too much.
Dominic arrived alone except for Marcus, who pushed his chair through the narrow entrance despite Dominic’s irritation.
“I can manage,” Dominic muttered.
“I know,” Marcus said. “I’m still pushing.”
Victor waited at the head of the table with six men, two bottles of wine, and the calm smile of an uncle greeting family for Christmas.
“Nephew,” he said. “You look tired.”
“You look alive,” Dominic replied. “Disappointing for both of us.”
Victor laughed, genuinely amused.
“There he is.”
Bianca Moretti sat beside him.
Dominic’s gaze touched her briefly, then moved on.
That bothered her.
Good.
Victor gestured to the empty place at his right.
“Where is Elena?”
“Not yours to summon.”
“And the boys?”
“Not yours to imagine.”
Victor’s smile faded.
“Sit.”
“I am sitting.”
One of Victor’s men snorted.
Marcus took one step forward.
Dominic raised two fingers.
Marcus stopped.
Victor poured wine.
“You know, your father believed the chair would finish you.”
Dominic’s face remained still.
“He spoke to you after the shooting?”
“He spoke before it.”
The room shifted.
Even Bianca looked at Victor.
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“Explain.”
Victor sipped his wine.
“Your father knew you were changing accounts. Selling routes. Refusing alliances. All for Elena. He said if love made you weak, pain might make you obedient again.”
Marcus’s hand moved toward his jacket.
Dominic did not move.
“My father arranged the hit?”
Victor smiled.
“He arranged a lesson. The men got enthusiastic.”
Dominic heard Elena’s voice in his memory.
No torture.
No old world.
Clean.
He breathed once.
“Did you help?”
Victor leaned back.
“I watched.”
That was the confession.
Not full.
Not legal enough.
But enough for Dominic.
He looked past Victor to the small red light hidden in the wall sconce.
Detective Walsh had gotten her warrant after Claire’s testimony connected Victor’s men to witness tampering. The supper club owner, long tired of paying Victor protection money, had cooperated.
Every word was being recorded.
Victor did not know.
Dominic let him talk.
“Elena should have been removed permanently,” Victor continued. “But your father grew sentimental near the end. Said if she carried your child, Lucia’s trust would wake up. He wanted proof.”
Dominic’s blood roared in his ears.
“My father knew Elena was pregnant?”
“He suspected. He always knew where women ran.”
Dominic thought of the flowers.
The photograph.
The card signed with his mother’s initials.
Not Victor.
His father.
A dead man reaching from the grave to control grandchildren he would never meet.
Victor smiled.
“Then your father died, and the secret became useful. I waited. Bianca waited. Everyone waited. You sat in that chair, angry and alone, exactly where we needed you.”
Dominic looked at Bianca.
“You knew.”
Bianca’s expression tightened.
“I knew enough.”
“And the court complaint?”
Victor waved a hand.
“A pressure tactic.”
“The man at the window?”
“Overeager.”
“The threat against toddlers?”
Victor leaned forward.
“Do not pretend they are toddlers to us. They are signatures. Shares. Blood access to Lucia’s trust.”
Dominic’s face turned to stone.
“They are children.”
Victor’s voice hardened.
“They are Carusos.”
“No,” Dominic said. “They are Ramirez boys until they choose otherwise.”
Victor slammed his glass down.
“There is no choosing blood.”
Dominic rolled closer to the table.
“That is where you and my father were always wrong.”
For the first time, Victor looked truly irritated.
“You think cooperating with police saves you? You think legitimate men will embrace you because you feel guilty? The old world does not vanish because you found bedtime stories.”
Dominic allowed himself a small smile.
“No. It vanishes because its bank accounts freeze.”
Victor’s face changed.
Outside, sirens began.
Not loud at first.
Then closer.
Bianca stood.
“What did you do?”
Dominic looked at her.
“Separated clean companies from dirty ones. Signed immunity agreements where useful. Turned over ledgers where necessary. Invited auditors into every trust Victor touched.”
Victor rose slowly.
“You gave them family records?”
“I gave them criminal records.”
“You crippled fool.”
Marcus moved, but Dominic raised his hand again.
Police lights flashed through the frosted windows.
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“You mistook my chair for weakness because you never understood the most dangerous thing my injury taught me.”
Victor sneered.
“What is that?”
Dominic looked toward the door as officers entered.
“How to survive without standing.”
Victor lunged.
Marcus intercepted him so fast the table crashed sideways.
Wine spilled like blood across the white cloth.
Bianca backed away, white dress untouched, face pale.
Detective Walsh entered last.
“Victor Caruso,” she said, “you are under arrest.”
Victor laughed as they cuffed him.
“This does not end.”
Dominic watched him without blinking.
“No,” he said. “But it changes owners.”
Walsh looked at Dominic.
“So do we.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
By midnight, the supper club was surrounded by cameras.
May you like
By dawn, the world would know Dominic Caruso had helped bring down his own uncle.
And somewhere in a secure room two cities away, Elena would wake to find that the war had finally become public.
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