Chapter 12 - A FUNERAL WITH GUNS
Declan insisted the funeral proceed.
Gabriel called that suicidal.
Declan called cancellation surrender.
Norah called both men exhausting.
By 11:00 a.m., St. Michael's Church was surrounded by black cars, police cruisers, reporters, armed men pretending not to be armed, and mourners who knew enough to keep their eyes forward.
Declan's mother, Maeve Keane, lay in a closed coffin beneath white lilies.
Someone had murdered her because her son knew too much.
Now Arturo Moretti intended to use her funeral as an execution chamber.
Norah stood in a private room behind the sanctuary with Margaret's jewelry box open on a table.
They had retrieved it from her mother's house using Victor's men.
The wedding ring sat in Norah's palm.
It looked ordinary.
That was the point.
"How does it open?" Elena asked.
Norah turned it under the light.
No seam.
No visible compartment.
Gabriel stood near the door.
His shoulder had been restitched at dawn.
Serrano had threatened to staple Gabriel to a hospital bed.
Gabriel had left anyway.
Declan entered wearing a black suit.
Grief had sharpened him.
"People are seated."
His eyes dropped to the ring.
"That's what they killed her for?"
Norah closed her fingers around it.
"They killed her to control you."
Declan's jaw tightened.
"Same difference."
Gabriel stepped toward him.
"You can still call this off."
"No."
"Arturo chose the location because he has a plan."
"So do we."
"Your plan is to stand in front of two hundred people and hope the man who killed your father and mother makes a mistake."
Declan looked at him.
"My plan is to bury my mother."
Silence.
Gabriel nodded once.
"Then we bury her."
Norah watched the exchange.
Respect between dangerous men was rarely gentle.
It still counted.
The funeral began at noon.
Norah sat beside Elena near the front.
Gabriel sat across the aisle with Victor.
Declan stood alone beside the coffin.
Every face seemed suspicious.
Old men from the docks.
Business owners.
City council members.
Police captains.
A judge Norah recognized from the news.
Any of them could have been part of the fourteen-percent network.
The priest began speaking.
Norah heard almost nothing.
Her mother's life existed somewhere outside those walls.
She did not know where.
The ring sat in a small pouch beneath her dress.
A decoy ring sat in Gabriel's pocket.
Victor's team monitored exits.
Elena's guards watched the roofline.
Nobody had found Arturo.
Halfway through the eulogy, Norah's borrowed phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She opened the message beneath her coat.
LOOK LEFT.
Norah looked.
A stained-glass window showed Saint Michael defeating a dragon.
Below it sat an elderly man in a wheelchair.
Not Arturo.
He raised one hand.
A phone was visible in it.
Another message arrived.
NOT HIM.
LOOK HIGHER.
Norah's gaze moved to the choir loft.
Empty.
Then to the balcony rail.
A small camera had been taped beneath it.
They were being watched remotely.
Gabriel noticed her attention.
She touched her ear once.
Camera.
He nodded almost invisibly.
A third message arrived.
RING IN COLLECTION BOX.
FIVE MINUTES.
ALONE.
Norah showed Elena.
Elena's face tightened.
"No."
"If we refuse, he may hurt my mother."
"If you go alone, Gabriel will tear the church apart."
"Then don't tell him."
Elena stared at her.
"You have known my brother for six months and already learned the worst possible habit."
"Which one?"
"Believing you can protect people by deciding for them."
Norah almost smiled.
"Apparently it's contagious."
She stood during a hymn and moved toward the side aisle.
Gabriel's head turned.
Norah did not look at him.
The collection room sat behind the chapel.
Empty.
A wooden donation box had been placed on a table.
Norah opened it.
Inside was a burner phone.
It rang immediately.
"Hello?"
Arturo's voice was older than she expected.
Warm.
Grandfatherly.
"Miss Vale."
"Where is my mother?"
"Safe."
"I want to hear her."
"You will."
"Before you get anything."
A pause.
Then Margaret came on.
"Norah?"
"Mom."
"Don't give them anything."
A scuffle.
Arturo returned.
"Mothers."
"They make negotiations emotional."
Norah gripped the phone.
"Where do I leave the ring?"
"In the box."
"Then what?"
"You return to the funeral."
"And my mother?"
"You receive an address after I confirm the ring."
"No."
Arturo laughed softly.
"Your father said the same word frequently."
Norah's blood went cold.
"You killed him."
"Your father killed himself the moment he mistook bookkeeping for courage."
Rage made her vision clear.
"And Gabriel's father?"
Silence.
"Did he make the same mistake?"
Arturo's voice changed.
"Salvatore forgot who built the table he sat at."
That was confession enough.
Norah looked at the donation box.
"You want the real ledger."
"I want what belongs to me."
"It belonged to the people you blackmailed."
"People are easiest to own when they believe their secrets are unique."
Norah understood then that Arturo did not see corruption as a tool.
He saw it as architecture.
"Put the ring in the box."
"No."
A long silence.
"Your mother has thirty seconds."
Norah's heart stopped.
"Wait."
"Twenty-nine."
She reached beneath her dress.
"Twenty-eight."
The door behind her opened.
Gabriel entered.
Norah covered the receiver.
"He has her."
Gabriel held out his hand.
"Give me the phone."
"He'll kill her."
"Give me the phone."
Arturo's countdown continued faintly.
"Twenty-four."
Norah handed Gabriel the phone.
He put it to his ear.
"Uncle."
Silence.
Arturo stopped counting.
"Gabriel."
The warmth vanished from his voice.
"You've become difficult."
"You had my father killed."
"Your father had himself killed."
"You murdered Thomas Vale."
"I corrected a clerical problem."
Norah closed her eyes.
Gabriel's face became something she had never seen before.
Cold beyond rage.
"If Margaret dies, there is nowhere on earth you can hide."
Arturo chuckled.
"That sounds like Salvatore."
"He was better than me."
"No."
Arturo's voice sharpened.
"He was softer."
Gabriel looked at Norah.
"You have the ring?"
Arturo asked.
"Yes."
"Put it in the box."
"Release Margaret first."
"No."
"Then kill her."
Norah stared at Gabriel in horror.
Even Arturo went silent.
Gabriel continued.
"Kill her and the ring disappears."
His eyes stayed on Norah's.
"The ledger disappears."
"Every copy disappears."
"And the one thing you've murdered half a city to control becomes worthless."
Norah understood.
He was gambling on Arturo's need for the ledger being stronger than his desire to punish them.
Arturo breathed once into the phone.
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
A new voice came through the receiver.
Luca.
"Enough."
Gabriel's expression changed.
"You're with him."
Luca sounded tired.
"Gabriel, listen to me."
"I have listened to you since I was a child."
"Then listen once more."
"Release Margaret."
"I cannot."
"Cannot or will not?"
Before Luca answered, a gunshot exploded through the church.
People screamed.
Gabriel dropped the phone and shoved Norah behind the wall.
Another shot.
Then another.
The funeral erupted into chaos.
Gabriel ran toward the sanctuary.
Norah followed despite his shouted order not to.
Declan was on the floor beside the coffin.
Blood spread across his black suit.
Victor fired toward the choir loft.
Elena crawled behind a pew with three children caught in the panic.
The stained-glass window shattered.
Gabriel reached Declan.
"Where?"
Declan gripped his side.
"Through and through."
"Stay down."
"Wasn't planning a dance."
Norah saw movement above.
A shooter crossed the balcony.
Victor fired.
The man disappeared.
Then church doors opened.
Police poured in.
Too quickly.
Far too quickly.
Norah looked at the officers.
One captain wore a gold badge.
She had seen his face somewhere.
Then she remembered the photograph from Saint Agnes.
Captain Russo.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
He had been on the dock eleven years ago.
He was supposed to be retired.
Yet here he was wearing an active command jacket.
Norah grabbed Gabriel's sleeve.
"That man."
"Who?"
"Russo."
Gabriel looked.
Captain Anthony Russo saw them recognize him.
His hand moved inside his coat.
Gabriel raised his weapon.
Russo fired first.
Victor took the bullet.
He spun and fell across a pew.
Gabriel returned fire.
Russo disappeared behind a column.
Police shouted.
Nobody knew who was shooting at whom anymore.
Norah dropped beside Victor.
Blood poured from his upper chest.
"Pressure," he gasped.
She pressed both hands against the wound.
Victor looked past her toward the broken window.
"Funeral was never the exchange."
"What?"
"Distraction."
His face tightened with pain.
"Arturo wanted us all here."
Norah understood before he said it.
The ring in her pouch was not the only path to the ledger.
Margaret's house contained Thomas's belongings.
The grave had been opened.
The bunker had been compromised.
What place had they left unguarded because everyone assumed the evidence was already found?
Norah's old family home.
Her childhood house.
Gabriel's phone rang.
He answered.
A terrified male voice shouted through the line.
One of Victor's men.
"Boss, Vale's house is on fire."
Norah's heart stopped.
The man continued.
May you like
"And somebody just took Mrs. Vale inside."
THE FOURTEEN PERCENT LEDGER
