Chapter 7 – MY UNCLE’S SIGNATURE WAS WRITTEN IN RED INK

The gunfire paused as Benny reloaded behind the overturned sofa.

Carmine stared at the child’s drawing in Nell’s hand.

“Your father’s master recipe,” Carmine said.

Nell nodded, her fingers trembling over the faded pencil marks.

“My father hid his original recipes on the back of my drawings. He said nobody would ever look for a masterpiece behind a child’s scribble.”

Carmine looked at the dead hitman in the doorway.

“Uncle Sal sent them.”

Benny racked the slide of his pistol.

“Boss, we have to move. They’re going to flank us through the kitchen.”

Carmine didn’t panic.

He never panicked.

He grabbed Nell’s hand.

“Stay low. Follow me.”

They moved through the townhouse as two more hitmen breached the kitchen windows.

Carmine fired three precise shots.

One man dropped. The other scrambled back out the window.

They reached the hidden service stairs in the back of the pantry.

They descended into the dark, damp alleyway behind Royal Street.

The rain had started again, washing away the sound of sirens in the distance.

They reached a secondary car Benny had parked two blocks away.

Once inside, Carmine didn’t start the engine immediately.

He turned on the dome light.

He looked at the contract he had shoved into his jacket.

He flipped to the last page again.

He stared at his uncle’s signature.

Salvatore Orsini.

Written in deep, crimson red ink.

Carmine remembered something his father had told him twenty years ago.

“A man who signs in blue wants to be remembered. A man who signs in black wants to be respected. A man who signs in red is writing a threat.”

“Sal didn’t just guarantee this contract,” Carmine said softly, the realization chilling the air in the car.

“He’s the silent partner. He always has been.”

Nell looked at him, shivering in her wet coat.

“Your uncle helped Bellarose steal my father’s bakery?”

Carmine closed his eyes.

“My father didn’t burn your bakery down, Nell. He was trying to buy it from your father to protect him from Bellarose. But Sal wanted the empire for himself. Sal set the fire. Sal planted my father’s watch in the ashes to make sure your father blamed the man trying to save him.”

The pieces of the twenty-year-old puzzle finally locked together.

Sal had played everyone.

He had let Carmine’s father take the blame.

He had let Bellarose build the empire.

And now, he was forcing Carmine to legitimize it.

“If they have my drawing,” Nell whispered, her voice breaking. “That means they found my father’s hidden lockbox.”

Carmine looked at her.

“Where was the lockbox?”

“Under the floorboards of his room at the care facility.”

Benny swore from the driver’s seat.

“Boss.”

Carmine’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

He pulled it out.

It was the head nurse at Emmett’s facility.

Carmine answered it.

He listened for exactly ten seconds.

He didn’t say a word.

He hung up the phone.

He looked at Nell.

The emotion in his eyes was so heavy it felt suffocating.

“Nell,” Carmine said.

She shook her head.

“No.”

“Sal and Bellarose just took your father.”

Nell covered her mouth, a shattered sob escaping her lips.

“He doesn’t even know where he is! He has dementia, Carmine! He’ll be terrified!”

Carmine reached out.

He didn’t touch her shoulder like a boss comforting an employee.

He took both of her hands in his, gripping them tightly.

“I am going to bring him back to you. I swear it on my father’s life.”

He looked at Benny.

“Where is Bellarose tonight?”

Benny checked his phone.

“He’s hosting his annual charity gala at the Grand Hotel. Five hundred guests. The Mayor is there. The Chief of Police.”

Carmine’s jaw hardened into a mask of pure, absolute power.

“Good. We’re going to the gala.”

Benny hesitated.

“Boss, we can’t shoot up a charity gala.”

“We aren’t going to shoot anyone,” Carmine said quietly.

“We are going to ruin them.”

Thirty minutes later, Carmine and Nell walked through the polished brass doors of the Grand Hotel.

Nell was no longer wearing a wet coat.

Carmine had stopped at one of his family’s luxury boutiques.

She wore a breathtaking, floor-length midnight blue gown.

Her hair was pinned back.

She looked like royalty.

Carmine wore his ruined, rain-soaked suit.

He didn’t care.

He walked into the massive ballroom with the authority of a king entering a conquered city.

The music stopped.

Five hundred wealthy guests turned to look at the man who ruled the shadows of New Orleans.

Standing on the grand staircase, holding a glass of champagne, was Conrad Bellarose.

Beside him stood Uncle Sal.

Sal smiled, a greasy, confident smirk.

Carmine didn’t shout.

He walked directly through the crowd. The guests parted like the Red Sea.

He stopped at the bottom of the staircase.

“Conrad,” Carmine said. His quiet voice carried effortlessly across the silent ballroom.

Bellarose raised his glass.

“Carmine. You look like you’ve had a rough night. Did you bring the signed contracts?”

Carmine reached into his jacket.

He didn’t pull out the contract.

He pulled out a heavy, brass key.

Sal’s confident smile instantly vanished.

He stared at the key as if it were a ghost.

Carmine threw the key onto the marble stairs.

It clattered loudly against the stone.

“I know what is in Warehouse Two, Sal,” Carmine said.

Bellarose looked at Sal in confusion.

Sal was perfectly pale.

Carmine looked at Nell, then back at his uncle.

“You thought you burned it down. But my father saved it.”

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