Chapter 4 - The Gates of Green Rock
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The rain finally stopped just before five in the morning, leaving the asphalt roads gleaming like black glass beneath the predawn fog.
I hadn't slept a wink.
I had spent the remaining hours sitting by Helen’s bedside, changing cold compresses on her forehead until she drifted into a deep, peaceful slumber.
At 5:30 AM, a soft rap on the door broke the silence.
I opened it to find Marco standing in the corridor.
He was dressed in a heavy black cashmere coat, his dark hair brushed back, his face drawn but hardened into an expression of lethal determination.
“Olivia,” he said quietly.
“Yes, Mr. Bellini?”
“Helen is resting comfortably?”
“She is sleeping soundly, sir.
The house doctor checked on her an hour ago and said she just needs quiet and fluids.”
Marco looked at me for a long moment, taking in the dark circles beneath my eyes and my rumpled apron.
“Go change into warm clothes,” he said.
I blinked, confused.
“Sir?”
“You're coming with me.”
“To... to where, Mr. Bellini?”
“Green Rock State Correctional Facility,” he answered without hesitation.
“My brother is being released at seven o'clock.
Helen is too weak to make the drive, but Daniel will need someone who isn't tainted by the Bellini name to look at him with kindness.
And after what you did last night, you are the only person in this house I trust.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Mr. Bellini, I’m just a maid.
I have chores to finish, and my father—”
“Your chores are finished,” Marco interrupted smoothly, stepping closer.
“And as for your father, Arthur Carter’s auto repair shop on 4th Street had a foreclosure deadline with Continental Bank set for this Friday, correct?”
My eyes widened in absolute shock.
“How... how do you know that?”
Marco pulled a sleek leather wallet from his interior pocket and handed me a stamped receipt slip.
“I had my accountant wire eighty-five thousand dollars to Continental Bank twenty minutes ago.
The mortgage on the garage is paid in full.
The lien has been lifted.”
Tears rushed to my eyes so fast my vision blurred.
My father had spent the last five years starving himself to keep that shop open after my mother died.
“Why would you do that?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“Because loyalty cannot be bought with an hourly wage, Olivia,” Marco said softly, his dark eyes searching mine.
“You stood up to Celeste to protect an old woman who had nothing to offer you.
Now change.
We leave in ten minutes.”
Half an hour later, I was seated in the passenger seat of Marco’s armored black SUV, watching the skeletal trees of rural Pennsylvania whip past the window.
Neither of us spoke for most of the two-hour drive.
The tension in the vehicle was thick enough to choke on.
Marco drove with one hand on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched, staring straight down the grey highway like a man driving directly into purgatory.
At precisely 6:50 AM, the towering concrete watchtowers and razor-wire fences of Green Rock Correctional appeared through the mist.
Marco parked the car near the heavy iron exit gate and cut the engine.
The silence inside the cabin was deafening.
“He’s going to hate me,” Marco said suddenly, his voice scraping against his throat.
It was the first time I had ever heard doubt in the voice of the city's most feared man.
“He won't hate you, Mr. Bellini,” I said quietly, turning to face him.
“He sent Mrs. D'Angelo to your house in the middle of a storm because he wanted to save you from making the biggest mistake of your life.
A man who hates you would have let you marry her and watch you fall.”
Marco turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my pulse race.
Before he could reply, the loud, grinding screech of an industrial iron gate echoed through the yard.
A small side door clicked open beneath the perimeter floodlights.
A man walked out into the cold morning air.
He wore a cheap grey canvas jacket and carried a single cardboard box beneath his arm.
He was thinner than Marco, with the same sharp, aristocratic Bellini jawline, but his face was lined with scars and exhaustion.
Daniel Bellini stopped on the gravel path, squinting up at the grey sky as if he hadn't seen natural light in two years.
Marco threw open the SUV door and stepped out into the biting wind.
I followed, stepping onto the gravel a few paces behind him.
Daniel lowered his gaze.
When his eyes met Marco’s, his entire frame stiffened.
The two brothers stood thirty feet apart on the desolate roadside, separated by two years of lies, iron bars, and buried blood.
“Daniel,” Marco called out, his voice cracking on the cold air.
Daniel didn't run.
He didn't yell.
He slowly walked forward, the gravel crunching beneath his worn boots, until he stopped three feet from the brother who had abandoned him.
“You look like hell, Marco,” Daniel said raspy, his voice hoarse from disuse.
Marco didn't care about dignity or pride.
He lunged forward, grabbed Daniel by the shoulders, and pulled him into a fierce, crushing embrace.
Daniel froze for a second, the cardboard box dropping from his hands and spilling old legal papers onto the wet dirt.
Then, his shoulders began to heave.
The younger brother buried his face into Marco’s heavy coat, sobbing silently in the shadow of the prison wall.
“I’m sorry,” Marco choked out, tears finally breaking free from his own eyes.
May you like
“Forgive me, brother.
Forgive me.”
