Chapter 3 - THE STORY MARCUS GREW UP BELIEVING
Marcus had been five when Luca died.
He remembered rain.
A hospital hallway.
Vincent kneeling in front of him and saying his father was not coming home.
Everything after that came from other people.
Family stories.
Half-finished conversations.
Men who became quiet when Marcus entered rooms.
And Tony.
Tony had been the one adult who eventually gave Marcus an explanation.
Luca had supposedly challenged Vincent over control of several Chicago warehouses used for illegal freight and cash movement. According to Tony, the brothers fought. Luca threatened to split the organization. Vincent chose power.
Marcus believed Tony because Tony never seemed to want anything from him.
That was the trick.
Tony waited until Marcus was old enough to resent being Vincent’s heir but young enough to confuse secrecy with guilt.
Then he fed him pieces.
A photograph of Luca meeting privately with men Vincent hated.
A banking record showing Luca moving money without Vincent’s approval.
A police report placing Vincent’s car two blocks from the murder scene.
All real.
All incomplete.
Vincent understood that now.
“You should have told me,” Marcus said.
“Yes.”
“You let me grow up thinking my father was some saint everybody was too scared to discuss.”
“I let you grow up.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
That answer stopped Marcus for a second.
Tony stepped forward.
“Ask him why he burned Luca’s office after the funeral.”
Vincent looked at him.
“I didn’t.”
Tony smiled. “Convenient.”
Marcus raised the bat again.
Vincent opened the ledger.
Page after page contained dates, shipping numbers, payoffs, and coded initials from an era Vincent had spent two decades trying to bury.
Then he turned to a page marked with Luca’s handwriting.
Three initials appeared repeatedly.
TD.
Tony DeMarco.
Beside them were unauthorized cash withdrawals.
Off-book security payments.
And one line:
Tony moving freight through Cicero without approval. Need V before Friday.
Marcus stared at it.
“Anyone could write that.”
“Yes.”
Vincent nodded toward Elena.
“That’s why there’s a tape.”
Tony’s composure broke.
Only slightly.
“Don’t be stupid, Marcus. He’s had twenty-two years to manufacture whatever he wants.”
Vincent answered, “The cassette has been sealed since 2004.”
“How do we know?”
“We don’t.”
Marcus looked between them.
For once, Vincent did not ask him to believe.
“Take it to someone neither of us controls.”
Tony immediately said, “No.”
That was the mistake.
Marcus turned toward him.
“Why not?”
Tony’s face hardened.
“Because federal agents don’t authenticate family memories. They arrest people.”
Vincent saw the shift.
Tiny.
But real.
Marcus had come expecting one truth.
Now he had two men giving him different reasons not to hear the evidence.
Then Elena spoke.
“I heard Tony in the library three nights ago.”
Every man in the room looked at her.
Her voice shook, but she continued.
“He told one of the guards that once Marcus confronted Mr. Torino, ‘the succession problem solves itself.’”
Tony stared at her.
Marcus did too.
“What succession problem?”
Elena swallowed.
May you like
“That’s what I want to know.”
For the first time that night, Marcus lowered the bat.
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