Chapter 10 - The Sins of the Brother
Z
The private dining room at the back of my flagship restaurant, Il Corvo, was completely swept for listening devices twice a day. Its walls were lined with acoustic dampening foam hidden behind elegant velvet drapery. It was a vault disguised as a Michelin-star establishment.
At 10:00 PM, the inner circle gathered. It was a much smaller group now than it had been five years ago. Just me, Enzo, my lead defense attorney Marcus Vance, and Linda.
Linda sat to my right, typing furiously on an encrypted tablet. Even facing the potential collapse of our entire empire and a federal indictment, she was the calmest person in the room. Her transformation from a terrified maid to a lethal corporate strategist was nothing short of breathtaking.
“The Caymans accounts are zeroed out,” Linda announced without looking up from the screen. “I bounced the funds through three dozen shell companies in Singapore before converting them to untraceable digital assets. Sterling’s freeze order hit empty air. But Antonio, he’s moving fast. He’s already filed preliminary injunctions against our construction firms.”
“He’s starving us to force a reaction,” Marcus Vance said, adjusting his glasses. Marcus was a shark in a three-piece suit, a former federal prosecutor who knew exactly how his old colleagues played the game. “Sterling is ambitious. He wants to be Governor, and putting Antonio Gallo in federal prison is his golden ticket. But he needs probable cause for a RICO indictment. He needs Marco’s insurance policy.”
I swirled the wine in my glass, staring at the deep red liquid. “Enzo, what do we know about Father Thomas?”
Enzo slid a dossier across the table. “Father Thomas has been at St. Jude’s parish for twenty years. He’s clean on paper. No gambling debts, no mistresses, no secret bank accounts. He’s exactly what he appears to be: a devout, stubborn old man. But he’s not stupid. He knows Sterling can't protect him if he hands over evidence against you. He’s holding out.”
“Where is he keeping it?” I asked.
“That’s the problem,” Enzo sighed. “Our guys have been tracking him since we spotted him with Sterling. The priest hasn't gone near a bank, a safe deposit box, or a post office. He just goes from the rectory to the church, to the hospital to visit patients. Whatever Marco gave him, it’s hidden somewhere close.”
“A church is a big place,” Marcus pointed out. “We can't just toss a Catholic church upside down. The optics would be a disaster, and if Sterling is watching, it’s an instant obstruction of justice charge.”
Linda suddenly stopped typing. She looked up, her dark eyes narrowing in thought. “Father Thomas visits the hospital?”
“Yeah, twice a week to give communion to the sick wards,” Enzo replied.
Linda looked at me, a profound realization washing over her face. “Antonio… five years ago, when Marco was trying to force me to poison you, he didn't just meet me anywhere. He specifically came to Keo’s hospital room. He bypassed the nurses, bypassed security, and walked right in.”
“He claimed to be Keo’s uncle,” I recalled, remembering the rage that had fueled my actions that night.
“Yes, but think about it from Marco’s perspective,” Linda said, her voice accelerating as the puzzle pieces clicked together in her brilliant mind. “Marco knew he was launching a coup against the most powerful man in Chicago. He knew if he failed, you would kill him. He was a narcissist, but he wasn't careless with his own survival. He wouldn't have just handed a damning ledger to a priest and hoped for the best.”
She stood up, walking over to the dossier and tapping the photo of Father Thomas.
“St. Jude’s parish is attached directly to St. Jude’s County General Hospital. They share the same basement, the same archival storage, the same foundational footprint,” Linda explained. “Marco didn't just visit Keo to threaten me. He used visiting Keo as a cover to access the hospital’s archives. He hid the evidence there, and he gave Father Thomas the key to retrieve it when the time was right.”
Silence fell over the room. Enzo stared at Linda with a mix of shock and pure admiration. Even Marcus, the Ivy League lawyer, looked impressed.
I smiled. This was why I trusted her with my life. She saw the angles no one else could see.
“The hospital archives,” I mused, the plan already forming in my head. “Millions of medical records. Dusty boxes. A perfect place to hide a ledger or a thumb drive. But Sterling won't be able to get a search warrant for a hospital’s private records without specifying exactly what he’s looking for and where it is.”
“Which means Sterling needs Father Thomas to go get it and hand it to him,” Marcus concluded. “If we can get to it before the priest does, Sterling’s entire case evaporates.”
“Enzo,” I said, my voice hardening into the tone of a general issuing battle orders. “I need a blueprint of St. Jude’s hospital archives. Every entrance, every exit, every security camera.”
“I can have a team go in tonight, Boss. Rip the place apart,” Enzo offered eagerly.
“No,” I corrected him. “If a tactical team breaks into a hospital, it makes the evening news. Sterling will know we’re onto him. This has to be surgical. It has to look like nothing ever happened.”
I turned to Linda. “You still have your contacts at the hospital administration?”
May you like
“Of course,” she nodded. “I fund half their pediatric oncology wing through the Gallo Foundation. They give me whatever I want.”
“Get me a private tour of the archives tomorrow under the guise of an audit for our charitable donations,” I instructed. “Enzo, you’ll come with us as security. We are going to walk right through the front door, find whatever ghost my brother left behind, and finally bury him for good.”
