Chapter 28 - THE GRAVE IN LAKE GEORGE
"My father died twenty-three years ago," Nicholas said. Each word was a cold iron spike driven into the silence between them. "I carried his casket. I watched them drop six feet of limestone over the vault."
"You watched them drop a block of granite into an empty ditch," Isabella countered without raising her voice. "Because if Victor Caruso had stayed dead in 2001, the Commission would have divided New York like an orange between the Genovese and the Russians. He needed to disappear so you could become the monster they were afraid to challenge. He built you, Nicholas. And when you were finished clearing the streets, he intended to collect what you spent twenty years defending."
Lucy whined in his ear, her small hands knotting into his lapel. "Uncle Nicholas... my arm hurts. The lady with the white hair smells like the closet."
Nicholas pressed his palm against the back of the girl’s head, shielding her face. His thoughts were racing, violently sorting twenty years of ledgers, missing accounts, and the strange, phantom withdrawals from the Hart Audit that had never quite made sense. Every time an auditor got close to the foundation's core accounts, the man died—not by Nicholas’s orders, but by "accidents" Nicholas had always assumed were handled by his overzealous capos.
"Arthur," Nicholas said, not looking down. "Did you know?"
The old man remained on his knees, his head bowed. The blood had dripped down the collar of his pristine white shirt, soaking through the starched linen. He did not answer immediately. When he did, his voice was broken.
"Mr. Victor told me... he told me it was the only way to keep you alive, sir. In the beginning. He said if you knew he was breathing, the Federal prosecutors would use you as leverage to seize the entire trust under RICO. He said... he said he would come back when the statue of limitations expired."
"The statute expired six years ago," Nicholas whispered.
"Yes, sir," Arthur said, weeping softly into his hands. "It did."
"And Daniel?" Nicholas stepped closer to his mother, the gun lowering until it pointed at her knees. "Where did Daniel fit into this?"
"Daniel found the ledger in the false wall behind the wine cellar at Lake George," Isabella said. "He thought he was being clever. He thought if he took the girl, he could force Victor to split the off-shore accounts sixty-forty. Daniel didn't know that Victor doesn't negotiate with clerks. Victor took Daniel's wife first. Then he sent his cleaners to Daniel's apartment. Daniel only had one place left to run—to the son who thinks he's the king of New York."
"He brought her to me," Nicholas said, the realization settling like lead in his stomach. "Because he knew I wouldn't let anyone touch a child in this house."
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"He brought her to you because this house is the only vault Victor Caruso cannot enter without an army," Isabella said. She walked until her chest was almost touching the barrel of Nicholas’s gun. "And now, Nicky, Victor's army is at the main gate."
***
