C
HAPTER
29
I
paged through the stack of documents. Languages weren’t my strong suit, and legalese was no different. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
“A little farther back,” she said, pointing. “There.”
“A plea agreement? He didn’t sign it. Why does this matter?”
“Read,” Lena instructed.
I scanned the tiny print three times. “Still lost.”
“The DA offered your dad a reduced sentence. Five years with the possibility of parole. He would have been out by the time you turned ten. All he had to do was talk.”
“Talk about Billy,” I mused. “And all the things they did, like launder money through Morgan’s and The Slice.”
“It makes sense,” Lena said, pursing her lips. “You can’t make a ton of money illegally and deposit it at your bank, because it gets reported to the government, and they investigate. Money launderers find a business that will report the cash as income, pay taxes, and give it back clean.”
“How do you know this stuff?” I asked.
“Econ class,” she said blandly. “The Slice doesn’t take credit cards, right? It would be easy for your dad to make the books look like you’d taken in more money than you actually made. But they’d have to be careful. The Slice does okay, but they couldn’t funnel tons of money through. They couldn’t get greedy.”
Colin’s words floated back to me.
Billy’s survived as long as he has because he’s smart—he doesn’t get greedy, he doesn’t overreach.
“Billy owns a lot of businesses. It’s not just Morgan’s and the construction company. There are others, too. He owned The Slice, before my mom took it over.” He’d had a dozen opportunities to make Mob money look squeaky clean. When my dad was the accountant, it would have been even easier to hide the trail. “But my mom would never agree to it. They must have done it without her knowing.”
Lena stared at the paper in front of us. “Why didn’t your dad take the deal? He must have had a reason. Five years with parole is a lot less than twelve.”
“I don’t know.” I scanned through the prosecution’s cross-examination of my dad. No matter how they’d put the question, Dad was adamant—no, he didn’t have help. No, he didn’t work for someone else. No, there had never been any suggestion of favors for his family. No, he’d never had any dealings with Marco Forelli or anyone else in the Forelli family. Jack Fitzgerald had acted alone, and no amount of hounding, threatening, or leading by the prosecution was going to change his story.
“He was the fall guy,” I said.
“The Outfit must have had leverage,” Lena said, eyes troubled. “Something to keep your dad in line.”
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the window downstairs. “Us. My mom and me. And if my uncle went free ...”
“He was in on it.”
I nodded mutely, thumbing through the rest of the pages. And then I stopped, because at the end, after the transcripts of the closing arguments and the sentencing hearing, was a single piece of paper, separate from the legal documents. It was the deed to The Slice, transferring ownership from Billy to my mom. It was dated the day after my father’s sentencing.
“Lena,” I said, unwilling to actually touch it. “Not just leverage. A bribe.”
She took the deed and read through it, hand covering her mouth. My dad wasn’t the only person cutting deals before he went to prison. Mom had made one of her own. Her neat, rounded signature was right there. I’d never noticed before how similar our handwriting was. “Holy hell,” she said softly.
Something moved inside me, a slow and painful grinding. I leaned my head back against the bed and let the ground shift beneath me, wondering when it would stop, wondering if there’d be anything recognizable left in the end.
C
HAPTER
30
L
ena cleared out early the next morning, irritated by Colin’s insistence that one of Billy’s guys follow her home. “Sorry,” I mouthed as she left, staring daggers at Colin.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked him.
“Yes.” He met my frown with cool indifference and went back to chiseling old putty out of the window frame. A few feet away, replacement panes of glass leaned against the bookshelf. “What’s the plan for today?”
I thought about the file sitting in my dresser. Then I looked around my ruined living room, at the guy who would take a bullet for me.
“I’ll think of something.”
“Billy’s pretty upset,” he said over his shoulder, intent on his work. “He wants you out of town, at least for a while.”
“Right. You know how much he hates it when people threaten me.”
Slowly, he set the chisel down and turned to face me. “Something you want to get off your chest?”
“No.” It was the truth. “How about you?”
“You’re angry,” he said.
I pulled the sleeves of my sweater over my hands. “I was scared.”
Colin tugged at his work gloves and watched me closely. “Now you’re angry. There’s a difference.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I have a right to be, don’t you think?” “Yeah. Promise you won’t do something stupid and reckless,” he said.
“Never. You know me.”
He snorted and went back to work. I went upstairs and scrutinized my dad’s files again, but everything read the same as it did last night. My anger mounted, but with no clear target, I felt jittery and useless. I needed to do something, and so I fished out the lone address from Colin’s file and Googled it.
I don’t know what I’d expected to find, but a nursing home definitely wasn’t it. I zoomed in on the map, trying to figure out what combination of buses and trains would get me there fastest. There wasn’t time to finish, though, because a minute later, my mom came home. My temper had found its target.
“Mo?” Her footsteps were quick taps on the stairs, and then she was in my room, all fluttering hands and ineffective bustle. She gathered me up in a hug, but I didn’t let myself relax against her. “I should never have left you here alone! Billy should have called me the minute it happened. You must have been so scared. And your friend was here! I can only imagine what she’s going to tell people. Thank God for Colin.” She paused for breath, finally noticed my silence. “Are you hurt, honey? Colin said no one was hurt. Are you okay?”
“How’s Dad?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice.
“He’s fine, sweetie. Excited to come home. He can’t wait to see you.” She toyed with the buttons at her sleeve. “Billy’s going to fix this. Just watch.”
“I’ve watched enough.” I straightened the stack of papers in front of me. “Tell me about Dad’s trial.”
Her mouth thinned, lines radiating outward in disapproval. “Daddy’s coming home soon. Why focus on the past?”
“Uncle Billy was charged, too.”
“It was a witch hunt.” She began straightening the books on my bookshelf, making sure the spines lined up perfectly. “The district attorney was out to get him. Daddy, too. They dismissed the charges.”
“Billy’s. But not Dad’s.”
“No. Daddy wanted to give us a better life. He went about it the wrong way, and he’s so, so sorry, honey. But he’s repented, served his time. It’s over now.”
“You can’t believe that. People broke into our house last night. With guns. Does that seem over to you?”
“I don’t like your tone. I told you, your uncle will take care of it.”
“Right. And he takes care of everything because why, exactly?”
“We’re family,” she said tightly, twisting her wedding band around her finger. “That’s what we do. Take care of each other.”
“The DA offered Dad a deal. He could have been out years ago. Why didn’t he take it?”
“Where is this coming from?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We got through it. You and me, the Fitzgerald Girls. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Billy leaned on Dad, right? Did they threaten you? Me?”
“Billy would never threaten us. How do you think we’ve managed all this time? Your father was going to jail. There was no escaping that. There were records, tax returns. They had proof. If Billy had gone to jail, we would have been on our own. The restaurant wouldn’t have been enough to support the two of us, to give you the life we wanted for you. And there was no one else, no other family to help. Should I have sent my husband
and
my brother to prison? We would have been alone.”
“So Dad took the fall.” And Billy signed over The Slice to my mom, like hush money.
She whirled, color high. “We had you to think of! I tried to tell you before, sweetheart. Sometimes you have to give up the life you want in order to protect the people you love.”
“I lost him for twelve years.
Twelve.
So you could keep a restaurant. And Billy kept everything.” I grabbed my messenger bag and shoved the assorted files inside. “I’m going out.”
“Honey, wait!”
I ignored her, nearly tripping down the stairs in my hurry to be gone, shoving my feet into my shoes, grabbing a coat and scarf from the closet.
Colin had just finished the second window, cleaning his tools and carefully replacing them in the box.
“Going somewhere?” He set down the rag he was using. “I don’t think—”
“I don’t care,” I snapped, and headed out the back door, not waiting to hear the rest of the sentence. He was just another thing Billy had taken from me.
It’s a lot easier to storm off when you’re actually allowed to be alone for longer than five minutes. I hadn’t gotten much farther than the alley before Colin caught up with me.
“What the hell is your problem?” He put his hand on my shoulder, and I knocked it away.
“You
knew
.”
“Knew what?”
“About my dad’s trial. You knew, this entire time. And you never said a word.”
I shoved my fists into the pockets of my coat and continued walking. Colin kept pace with me, and out of the corner of my eye I could see his scuffed leather work boots and jean-clad legs flashing in a steady rhythm.
The air was sharp, spicy with the scent of burning leaves, and I resisted the urge to scuff my feet through the piles of russet and gold lining the sidewalk. This was the street I’d lived on my whole life. I’d trick-or-treated at these houses. I’d learned to ride my bike here, my mom running beside me with one hand on the seat until I’d begged her to let go. My life here was what had sent my dad to prison. My feet carried me automatically toward The Slice, and I braced for Colin’s explanation, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
“Billy asked me not to tell you,” he finally said.
“Screw what Billy wants!” I might not have a right to Colin’s past, but I had every right to my own.
“What could you have done? They wanted to keep you out of it.”
“To protect me.”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m too stupid and weak to protect myself?”
“Hey.” He grabbed my arm and forced me around. “I know exactly how smart you are. And I’ve seen you in action—there’s nothing weak about you. But you can’t fault the people who love you for trying to keep you safe.”
My stomach did a strange, tumbling dance. “The people who love me?”
He curled a finger around the lapel of my coat. “Yeah.”
I twisted free. “The people who love me have a really crappy way of showing it.” No matter what he said, his past stood between us, a hulking, shadowy thing.
“Here’s what you need to understand.” He sounded exhausted. He must have stayed up all night, guarding the house. “People think you have power. They will tell you what you want to hear, show you what you want to see, in order to get it. Everyone wants something from you, but they’re not always going to be up-front about it.”
“Even you?”
“What do you think?” he asked as we stopped in front of Morgan’s carved oak doors.
“I think it’s time Billy and I had a chat.”
Colin blocked my path inside. “How’d that work out last time?”
“This is different.”
“It’s the same. You think you’re going to outmaneuver Billy. It won’t happen. He might let you think you’ve won, but trust me—he’s playing on a much bigger board than you. Besides,” he added, “You’ve got a visitor.”
He jerked his chin toward the window of The Slice. From our position on the sidewalk, I could just see Luc in the corner booth, building a miniature castle out of sugar packets. When he noticed me staring, he knocked it over with a flick of his finger and raised his mug in a mock toast.
“Are you coming in?” I asked.
“Lost my appetite,” Colin said.
Luc rose as I stepped inside. I waved to the waitress on duty, my mouth suddenly too dry to speak. My coat seemed stifling, and I tried to unbutton it as I made my way toward him. My hands were clumsy, and then Luc’s long, elegant fingers were on the buttons, maneuvering them with practiced ease. Jealousy flared—how exactly had he gotten so good at helping girls out of their clothes?
“Cold,” he said, eyebrows raised. “You’re all pink.”
“I walked.” He nodded. I expected him to kiss me, but he only touched his thumb to the center of my lower lip, forehead creased with concern.
“Brought you some company.” He gestured toward the booth.
“Company?” I leaned to look around him.
Jenny Kowalski smiled up at me, not at all friendly. “You probably don’t need a menu, do you?”