Chapter 8
The arrests cracked the city open.
Bellaro’s warehouses were raided.
Judges resigned.
Two police captains disappeared.
A port official shot himself before dawn.
The news called it a criminal empire collapse.
They used my picture too.
Of course they did.
Daniel “Danny” Moretti, former underworld figure, cooperates with federal investigation.
Former.
That word followed me around the house.
Former.
Former walker.
Former brother.
Former monster?
Not yet.
Maybe never.
But something was changing.
Emma stayed at the estate because it was safest.
Rose moved into a protected memory-care wing I funded through lawyers so Emma would not call it charity.
She called it “impossible.”
I called it “paperwork.”
We argued about it for twenty minutes.
Then Rose asked if there would be music on Sundays.
Emma cried.
I said yes.
The trial preparation took months.
Emma testified about Vance.
About Alan.
About the debt threats.
About the men who hurt her.
Her voice shook at first.
Then steadied.
The first time she finished a practice statement, she walked into my study and said, “I didn’t die.”
I looked up.
“No.”
“I thought I would.”
“I know.”
She looked at my chair.
“Did you?”
“After the shooting?”
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
“I tried not to.”
She sat across from me.
“Because you wanted revenge?”
“At first.”
“And now?”
I looked at the hallway she used to scrub at midnight.
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
I had spent two years feeding rage like it was a son.
Now rage had done its job.
It found names.
It broke doors.
But it could not teach me how to live after.
Emma understood that better than I wanted her to.
The new physical therapist arrived three days later.
I told Luke to send him away.
Emma blocked my chair in the hall.
“No.”
I glared at her.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“You helped me get my mother back. Now stop acting like your body is your enemy.”
“That is not your business.”
“You made my life your business.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
I had no answer.
She folded her arms.
“Do you want to stay buried in this expensive grave?”
Luke, traitor that he was not, smiled from the doorway.
I pointed at him.
“Leave.”
He left laughing.
May you like
I hated them both.
Then I went to therapy.
