Chapter 4 - THE TRAITOR AT THE TABLE
Victor Marino had served the Costa family for eighteen years.
He had attended Beatrice’s fiftieth birthday.
He had carried Damian’s father’s coffin.
He had once taken a bullet meant for Damian.
That history was the only reason Damian did not immediately shoot him.
“Sit down.”
Victor remained standing.
Around the table, four other men became statues.
Damian picked up his glass of bourbon.
“Your cuff.”
Victor looked down.
A speck of red stained the white fabric.
“Cut myself shaving.”
“On your wrist?”
Victor’s face changed.
Damian noticed everything.
Fear.
Calculation.
Then surrender.
Victor reached for his weapon.
Paul’s deputy shot him first.
The bullet struck Victor’s shoulder and spun him against the wall.
Chaos erupted.
Damian remained seated.
“Alive.”
Victor groaned as guards dragged him upright.
“Why?”
Victor laughed weakly.
“You really don’t know?”
“Explain it.”
“You changed.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“You spend your days sitting beside an old woman and watching a maid.”
One of the capos glanced down.
Damian’s voice became quiet.
“You attempted to murder her because I visit my mother?”
“No.”
Victor spat blood.
“Because people see weakness.”
Damian stood.
Victor continued.
“The Russians see it. The Palermo crew sees it. Your own soldiers see it.”
“And you believed killing Tessa would solve that?”
“I believed watching her bleed might wake you up.”
Damian punched him once.
The sound echoed.
Victor fell.
Damian looked down at him.
“That was for touching something that belongs under my protection.”
Victor smiled through blood.
“Listen to yourself.”
Damian froze.
Something that belongs under my protection.
Not something that belongs to me.
There was a difference.
But he understood the warning.
Tessa had become leverage.
He had created that vulnerability simply by caring whether she lived.
Victor saw the realization.
“There he is.”
Damian crouched.
“The man who thinks love is weakness.”
Victor laughed.
“Isn’t it?”
Damian remembered his mother calling him her angry boy.
He remembered Tessa kneeling in broken glass.
“No.”
He stood.
“Trusting the wrong people is weakness.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“Paul.”
“Yes.”
“Find everyone connected to him.”
Damian walked away.
He did not order Victor killed.
That surprised everyone.
Damian had something worse planned.
He would dismantle Victor’s entire network, expose his theft, bankrupt his family’s criminal holdings, and deliver evidence of his trafficking operation to federal prosecutors.
Sometimes a bullet was mercy.
Damian was not feeling merciful.
---
Tessa sat in the estate kitchen drinking tea when Damian returned after midnight.
A bruise darkened her cheek.
He stopped.
Anger returned instantly.
She noticed.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look like you’re about to murder civilization.”
“I’m considering it.”
“That seems excessive.”
“You were attacked.”
“And Paul stopped him.”
“After he put a knife against you.”
Tessa touched the bruise.
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I am.”
“No.”
Damian moved closer.
“You aren’t.”
Her expression changed.
He lowered his voice.
“You work for me. Someone attacked you because of me.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It is exactly the same thing.”
Tessa looked down at the tea.
“Who was he?”
“A soldier connected to one of my men.”
“So it was mafia business.”
Damian’s silence answered.
Tessa laughed once without humor.
“I knew what people said about you.”
“What do they say?”
“That you own half the judges in Illinois and scare the other half.”
“Exaggerated.”
“That you made three men disappear.”
“Also exaggerated.”
“How many?”
Damian said nothing.
Tessa sighed.
“This is insane.”
“You can leave.”
The words hurt him more than expected.
He forced himself to continue.
“I’ll give you severance. A year’s salary. Paul can relocate you.”
Tessa looked up sharply.
“You’re firing me?”
“I’m keeping you alive.”
“What about Beatrice?”
“She’ll have nurses.”
“She hates the nurses.”
“She’ll adjust.”
“No, she won’t.”
“Tessa.”
“You don’t get to drag me into this by paying my debt and changing my job, then throw me away because you’re scared.”
His face became still.
“Scared?”
“Yes.”
Nobody accused Damian Costa of fear.
Nobody.
Tessa stood.
“You’re terrified.”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“You’re terrified that caring about anyone makes you weak.”
The kitchen seemed to shrink around them.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know you watched your mother through cameras instead of sitting beside her.”
Damian’s eyes flashed.
“I know you paid strangers to handle everything painful because money is easier than being there.”
“That’s enough.”
“And now you’re doing it again.”
His voice dropped.
“Enough.”
Tessa flinched.
Damian immediately hated himself.
Silence stretched.
Then Tessa spoke quietly.
“My sister used to get angry when I tried to protect her too much.”
Damian said nothing.
“She said I treated her like her illness meant she couldn’t choose anything for herself.”
Tessa looked at him.
“You’re doing that to me.”
“You could die.”
“So could you.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because I chose this life.”
“And I’m choosing to stay.”
Damian stared at her.
“Why?”
Tessa opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Then she looked away.
“Because Beatrice needs me.”
The answer disappointed him.
Which was dangerous.
“Only my mother?”
Tessa looked back.
The air changed.
Neither moved.
Damian took one step forward.
Tessa’s breathing shifted.
Then Beatrice’s voice came from the hallway.
“Tessa!”
The moment shattered.
Tessa stepped away.
“I should go.”
Damian let her.
But sleep did not come that night.
---
The next morning, Damian walked into Room 104 and discovered Beatrice staring at an old photograph.
Tessa sat beside her.
The picture showed Damian at approximately eight years old standing beside his father, Antonio Costa.
Beatrice tapped the image.
“Bad man.”
Damian stiffened.
Tessa looked toward him.
Beatrice tapped Antonio again.
“He hurt the girl.”
“What girl?” Damian asked.
Beatrice’s eyes grew frightened.
“The basement.”
Damian moved closer.
“Mother.”
“No.”
She began shaking.
Tessa took her hand.
“It’s okay.”
Damian crouched.
“What girl?”
Beatrice stared at him.
Then whispered something he had not heard in thirty years.
“Evelyn.”
Damian stopped breathing.
Evelyn Costa.
His older sister.
The sister who supposedly died in a car accident when Damian was nine.
Beatrice grabbed his lapel.
“He lied to you.”
Damian’s blood turned cold.
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Tessa watched his face.
Beatrice’s grip tightened.
“He said Evelyn died.”
Damian whispered, “She did.”
Beatrice began crying.
“No.”
Damian stared.
“No?”
Beatrice shook her head violently.
“She ran.”
The room tilted.
“My sister is alive?”
Beatrice looked through him.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
May you like
“She had a baby.”
---
