Chapter 6 - The Betrayal at St. Vincent’sThey escaped the storage facility because Leo shot out the emergency sprinkler system.
Water flooded the corridor.
Alarms screamed.
Visibility disappeared.
Dominic got Chloe through a service exit while Leo and two security men held Vincent’s crew back.
One Moretti guard was wounded.
Vincent escaped.
By sunrise, Dominic’s organization was splitting.
Some captains remained loyal.
Others stopped answering calls.
Vincent had been part of the family longer than Dominic had been alive.
He knew accounts.
Routes.
Judges.
Police contacts.
Safe houses.
Every protection Dominic had built contained something his uncle might know.
Chloe sat at a kitchen island while Dominic worked three phones.
She watched him become the man Boston feared.
His voice never rose.
That was the frightening part.
“Freeze the account.”
Pause.
“No. All of it.”
Another call.
“Move Leo’s mother.”
Another.
“Anyone who spoke to Vincent in the last forty-eight hours does not come near this house.”
He ended the call.
Chloe said, “You have Leo’s mother protected?”
Dominic looked over.
“She’s seventy-two and cheats at poker.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Yes.”
Something about that answer softened Chloe.
Then she remembered the gunfire.
“Your uncle tried to kill us.”
“Yes.”
“You sound weirdly calm.”
“I am not calm.”
“You look calm.”
Dominic approached.
“Would screaming help?”
“Maybe.”
“I can try.”
She almost smiled.
Then he noticed her shaking hands.
His expression changed.
“Chloe.”
“I’m fine.”
“No.”
She looked away.
He crouched opposite her.
“Do not do that.”
“What?”
“Lie because you think fear inconveniences me.”
The words hit somewhere unexpected.
Chloe’s eyes filled.
“I’m terrified.”
“I know.”
“My mother knew this could happen.”
“Yes.”
“She spent fifteen years hiding it from me.”
“Yes.”
“And then she died before explaining any of it.”
Dominic said nothing.
Chloe’s voice cracked.
“I was angry with her before she died.”
He waited.
“The last week, she kept refusing another treatment. I told her she was giving up.”
Tears came.
“She said she was tired. I told her that wasn’t good enough.”
“Chloe.”
“What if that’s the last thing she remembered?”
Dominic reached toward her.
Stopped.
Chloe noticed.
Permission.
She nodded.
He took her hand.
“Your mother knew you loved her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“Because she saved fifteen years of evidence and risked everything to keep it away from you.”
Chloe cried harder.
Dominic stayed.
No clever sentence.
No attempt to fix grief.
Just stayed.
Eventually Chloe rested her forehead against his shoulder.
His body went still.
Then his arm came around her carefully.
For the first time since Elaine died, Chloe let someone hold her while she cried.
That frightened her almost as much as the guns.
Hours later, they went to St. Vincent’s.
The chapel stood behind a construction barrier on a redevelopment site in South Boston.
Small.
Brick.
Abandoned.
Inside, dust covered wooden pews.
A stained-glass window cast fractured colors across the floor.
“Where would Daniel hide a ledger?” Chloe asked.
Leo looked around.
“Somewhere nobody renovating this dump found it.”
Dominic walked toward the altar.
Chloe noticed a plaque.
IN MEMORY OF ST. VINCENT’S FOUNDERS.
Below were names.
One was Bennett.
Margaret Bennett.
Chloe stared.
“My grandmother.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
“She volunteered here for thirty years.”
Suddenly Chloe remembered something.
Her mother bringing her here as a child.
A candle.
A brass box.
“Wait.”
She crossed to the side wall.
Behind a statue stood a row of memorial compartments.
One plaque read:
MARGARET BENNETT.
Chloe touched it.
Loose.
Leo removed the plate.
Behind it was a waterproof package.
The ledger.
They found it.
Dominic exhaled.
Then church bells rang.
Impossible.
The chapel had no functioning bells.
Leo’s head snapped upward.
“Move.”
Doors slammed shut.
Locked electronically.
Gas began hissing from vents.
Chloe covered her mouth.
“What is that?”
Dominic grabbed the ledger.
“Back!”
Leo kicked at a side door.
Locked.
Chloe’s eyes burned.
Smoke.
Not gas.
Fire suppressant?
No.
She smelled gasoline.
Flames appeared near the entrance.
Vincent was burning the chapel.
“Window!” Chloe shouted.
Dominic fired at stained glass.
It cracked.
Again.
The window shattered.
Leo cleared the remaining glass with a pew.
“Chloe first.”
“No.”
Dominic stared.
“Not now.”
She climbed.
Outside, she turned.
“Dominic!”
Leo came through.
Then Dominic.
The roof collapsed seconds later.
They fell onto wet grass.
Chloe laughed hysterically.
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“My mother would kill me if she knew I crawled through a church window.”
Dominic laughed.
Actually laughed.
It was the first full laugh Chloe had heard from him.
Then his face changed.
He looked at her.
Smoke in her hair.
Blood on her cheek.
Alive.
The laughter disappeared.
He touched her face.
Chloe stopped breathing.
“Dominic.”
“I know.”
“Know what?”
“That this is a terrible idea.”
Then he kissed her.
Chloe should have pushed him away.
His world had brought guns into her restaurant.
His family had haunted her mother.
His uncle wanted her dead.
Every rational instinct said run.
Instead, Chloe grabbed his coat and kissed him back.
The kiss was desperate.
Smoke.
Adrenaline.
Weeks of fear compressed into seconds.
When they separated, both were breathing hard.
Leo stood several yards away.
“I’m going to pretend I saw nothing.”
Chloe covered her face.
Dominic looked almost amused.
Then Leo’s phone rang.
His expression changed.
“Dom.”
“What?”
Leo turned the screen.
A photograph.
Taken minutes earlier.
Chloe and Dominic kissing outside the chapel.
Message:
THANK YOU FOR CONFIRMING HER VALUE.
Dominic’s face went white.
The kiss had lasted less than twenty seconds.
May you like
It had been enough.
Vincent now knew exactly how to destroy him.
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