Chapter 12 - THE FALL OF VITTORIO
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The funeral of Vittorio Romano was held on a gray, overcast Tuesday morning at Mount Carmel Cemetery.
Only twelve people attended the service.
No flowers were sent by the Commission.
No political figures or city council members arrived in black limousines to offer their condolences.
The man who had spent thirty years trying to seize the Romano throne was buried in an unmarked family plot beneath a weeping willow tree.
The priest spoke in hushed, hurried Latin, eager to finish the rites and leave the company of men whose eyes held no grief.
Gabriel stood beside the open grave, dressed in a long black wool overcoat, his face carved from cold granite.
I stood beside him, my arm linked through his, my splinted hand resting comfortably inside my coat pocket.
Behind us stood Marco and six armed guards, watching the perimeter of the cemetery for any lingering Marchesi sympathizers.
There were none.
In the forty-eight hours following the Drake Hotel tribunal, the Marchesi syndicate had ceased to exist.
Their shipping routes had been absorbed by Hayes Marine Logistics.
Their warehouses had been seized by Gabriel’s lieutenants.
Carlo Marchesi had been quietly delivered to a federal penitentiary in Indiana to serve three consecutive life sentences for racketeering, stripped of every cent he had ever extorted.
As the priest sprinkled holy water over the bronze casket, Gabriel stepped forward and pulled a single silver coin from his pocket.
It was an antique Sicilian lira, stamped with the image of a serpent biting its own tail.
Gabriel tossed the coin onto the casket lid.
It hit the metal with a dull, hollow clink that echoed in the quiet cemetery.
“You wanted the silver, Uncle,” Gabriel murmured softly.
“Now you have it for eternity.”
He turned away from the grave without looking back, guiding me down the gravel path toward our awaiting vehicle.
The cool autumn wind rustled the dry leaves along the path, carrying the clean, fresh smell of impending rain.
“Are you all right?” I asked, looking up at his sharp profile.
Gabriel paused near the iron gates of the cemetery, looking out over the rolling green hills dotted with marble mausoleums.
“Vittorio was my father’s only brother,” Gabriel said quietly, a rare shadow of melancholy crossing his dark eyes.
“When I was ten years old, he taught me how to shoot an antique rifle behind the barn.”
“He told me that blood was the only thing in this world that never washes away.”
“It turns out he was wrong.”
“Money washed his blood away years ago.”
I reached up with my uninjured hand, gently touching the side of his jaw.
The rough stubble was warm beneath my fingertips, grounding him in the present.
“You didn't betray him, Gabriel,” I said softly.
“He betrayed himself the moment he pointed a gun at family.”
Gabriel turned his head, pressing his lips against the palm of my hand with a tenderness that made my chest tighten with warmth.
“You are my family now, Catherine,” he whispered, his eyes searching mine with fierce, unyielding devotion.
“The only family that matters.”
We climbed into the back of the armored sedan, and Marco steered the car smoothly out of the cemetery gates.
As we turned onto the expressway toward Lake Shore Drive, Gabriel picked up his tablet and handed it to me.
On the screen was an official corporate filing from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.
The document was a public announcement of a fifty-million-dollar municipal redevelopment project for the South Side waterfront.
The general contracting firm awarded the master contract was Hayes Construction & Development.
At the bottom of the page, my father’s name was listed as Chief Executive Officer, backed by a permanent line of credit from the Romano Trust.
Tears welled in my eyes as I read the lines.
My father wasn't just surviving.
He was thriving, his life’s work secured for generations to come.
“Did you do this?” I asked, my voice trembling with emotion.
“Your father earned every inch of that concrete, Catherine,” Gabriel answered, sliding his arm around my shoulders and pulling me against his side.
“He built honest foundations in a city full of thieves.”
“The least I can do is make sure nobody ever threatens his roof again.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes as the rhythm of the road carried us home.
The storm had passed.
May you like
The ghosts had been buried.
And the builder’s daughter was finally standing on ground that could never be broken.
