Chapter 12 - VINCENT FINALLY SAID WHAT LUCA HAD BEEN TRYING TO CHANGE
Before Marcus entered a plea, he asked Vincent to meet him at the old warehouse on South Ashland.
No guards.
No lawyers in the room.
Mercer hated the idea.
Vincent went anyway.
The warehouse had once been central to Torino operations.
Now it stored legitimate imported tile and restaurant equipment.
Twenty-five years had transformed the business more than Vincent admitted.
Marcus walked between pallets.
“Was Dad trying to take this from you?”
“No.”
“Then what did he want?”
“To close the parts I was too slow to close.”
Vincent had spent the late 1990s and early 2000s moving money out of illegal freight, stolen goods, and protection arrangements into legitimate property and logistics companies.
Not out of morality at first.
Out of survival.
Prison sentences were getting longer.
Federal tools were getting stronger.
Old friends were dying.
Luca wanted the transition faster.
Tony made money from the old system.
That created the fracture.
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Marcus asked.
Vincent smiled without humor.
“People always ask that once leaving would have been easy.”
It had not been.
Partners expected revenue.
Corrupt relationships carried mutual exposure.
Debts existed outside paper.
And Vincent had enjoyed power more than he wanted to admit.
“I told myself I was cleaning things up,” he said. “Luca looked at me and said, ‘You’re renovating the prison.’”
Marcus looked away.
“That sounds like him?”
“You barely remember his voice.”
“I remember enough.”
They stood silently.
Then Marcus asked the question Vincent had dreaded.
“Did my father hate you?”
Vincent took his time.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
That made Marcus laugh.
Vincent continued.
“He loved me enough to warn me. He was angry enough to leave me behind.”
Both could be true.
Marcus nodded slowly.
Then he asked:
“Why raise me?”
Vincent stared at him.
“Because you were Luca’s.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
Marcus waited.
Vincent’s voice softened.
“Eventually you were mine too.”
Marcus looked away before Vincent could see his face fully.
That was the first honest emotional conversation they had ever had.
May you like
It solved almost nothing.
But when Marcus left the warehouse, he told his lawyer to finalize the plea negotiations.
