Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF A NAME
The attack came two nights later.
Nell had stayed late at the care facility to help her father settle after dinner. Teresa had offered to drive her home, but Nell refused. She wanted to walk the two blocks to the streetcar stop and clear her head.
The parking lot was nearly empty.
She had just reached her car when a man stepped out from between two vehicles.
“Miss Fontaine?”
Nell stopped.
“Who are you?”
He held up a badge.
“Insurance investigator. I need to ask you about your father's claim.”
She recognized the shape of the anchor tattoo near his thumb.
Louis Gallo.
Nell's stomach tightened.
“You need to speak to the police.”
Gallo smiled.
“Your father used to say the same thing. He never understood how things worked.”
He took a step closer.
Nell moved backward, reaching for her phone.
Gallo grabbed her wrist.
“Don't.”
She struck his arm with her keys. He cursed and shoved her against the side of the car. Her phone fell to the pavement.
A second man appeared from behind the vehicle.
Then headlights swept across the lot.
A dark sedan stopped hard near the entrance.
Carmine stepped out before the driver had fully opened the door.
“Take your hands off her.”
Gallo released Nell.
The second man reached inside his jacket. Benny and two security officers moved in immediately, forcing him against the vehicle and removing a small pistol from his waistband.
Carmine did not touch Gallo.
He walked to Nell.
“Are you hurt?”
“My wrist.”
He looked at the red marks forming around it.
“Benny, call the police. Tell them we have two suspects and a weapon.”
Gallo laughed.
“You think you can arrest me?”
Carmine turned.
“No. The police can.”
“You're protecting a girl who used to work in your kitchen.”
“I'm protecting a witness.”
Gallo's smile faded.
“You should ask your father what happened after the bakery burned.”
Carmine stepped closer.
“I already know he paid Voss.”
Gallo's eyes flickered.
“Then you know he wanted it buried.”
“Why?”
“Because your father had his own deal with Bellandi. The bakery was a problem. The fire solved it.”
Nell stared at him.
“You started it?”
Gallo looked at her.
“I made sure the building couldn't be used against us. I didn't know your father would be inside.”
“You chained the door.”
“It was supposed to be empty.”
Nell's face went white.
Carmine's voice dropped.
“Who ordered it?”
Gallo said nothing.
Benny had the second man secured. Police sirens approached from the street.
Carmine stepped back.
“Save it for Detective LeBlanc.”
Gallo was arrested. The second man was identified as a contractor who had worked for Bellandi Development. Police recovered a phone from his pocket containing messages about Nell's movements and a photograph of Emmett's room.
Nell was taken to the hospital for her wrist. It was sprained but not broken. Carmine waited outside the examination room.
When she emerged, she looked exhausted.
“You were following me,” she
After Salvatore's arrest, Carmine asked the estate attorney to review every employment arrangement and every business relationship that had been built on personal loyalty rather than written rules. The attorney warned that some people would see the changes as an admission of wrongdoing.
“Let them,” Carmine said.
He also met with the legitimate managers of the Orsini companies. He told them that no employee was to be threatened, followed, or pressured because of the investigation. Any manager who received a request to destroy records was to report it directly to the outside counsel and the police.
Several managers looked uncomfortable. One asked whether the family was expected to surrender its authority to outsiders.
“No,” Carmine said. “We're expected to stop treating authority as permission to do whatever we want.”
Benny later told him that two employees had quietly reported suspicious payments they had been afraid to mention before. Their information helped investigators trace another account connected to Bellandi.
Nell heard about the reports from Palmira. She did not congratulate Carmine. Instead, she said, “That's what happens when people believe they won't be punished for speaking.”
Carmine thought about that sentence for the rest of the evening.
He had once believed loyalty meant silence. Now he was learning that a person who could speak honestly, even when the truth was inconvenient, might be more loyal than someone who agreed with everything.
When Nell brought him the container of cookies, he asked whether she had made them from her mother's recipe.
“Mostly,” she said. “I changed the sugar.”
“Would your mother approve?”
“She'd tell me to stop asking permission and trust my own hands.”
Carmine smiled. “Then she's probably right.”
Nell left him with the cookies and the thought that he was beginning, slowly, to understand what she had been trying to tell him.
said.
“I was told someone had accessed the facility cameras. I asked Benny to keep a discreet watch on the entrance.”
“You didn't tell me.”
“I should have.”
“You don't get to decide when I'm watched.”
Carmine accepted it.
“No. I don't.”
She looked down at the bandage.
“I could have handled him.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Because you shouldn't have to handle him alone.”
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Nell said, “Gallo admitted the door was chained.”
“Yes.”
“He said my father was inside.”
“He said he didn't know your father would be there.”
“My father was always there. He slept in the office during busy weeks. Everyone knew that.”
Carmine's face hardened.
“Then Gallo is lying.”
“Or he doesn't care.”
They returned to the estate. Palmira was waiting in the sitting room with tea and a plate of sandwiches. She had heard what happened and insisted Nell stay in the guest room overnight.
Nell refused at first.
“I have my own apartment.”
“You also have a sprained wrist,” Palmira said. “And I have a bed that is not being used. You may argue with me after breakfast.”
Nell looked at Carmine.
He raised both hands.
“I'm not getting involved.”
Palmira gave him a look.
“You are already involved.”
Nell finally accepted.
At midnight, Carmine found her sitting in the kitchen. She was trying to open a jar with her good hand.
He took it from her, opened it, and set it down.
“Thank you,” she said.
He sat across from her.
“Gallo is being questioned. Detective LeBlanc believes he'll cooperate if the evidence is strong enough.”
“Will he name Bellandi?”
“Maybe.”
“And your father?”
Carmine looked at the table.
“I found another note in his ledger. It says Bellandi asked him to keep the fire inquiry quiet in exchange for a share of the riverfront project.”
Nell closed her eyes.
“So your father knew it was more than negligence.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know my father was hurt?”
“I don't know.”
“Find out.”
“I will.”
She looked at him.
“Don't make this about saving me. I want the truth, even if it makes your family look worse.”
Carmine nodded.
“That's what it will do.”
Nell rose carefully.
“Then I suppose we're finally doing something useful.”
She left the kitchen.
Carmine remained at the table, looking at the empty jar.
For most of his life, people had feared his anger. Nell had never once asked him to be angry on her behalf.
She had asked him to be honest.
And that was proving much harder.
The next morning, Detective LeBlanc called with an update. Gallo had agreed to identify the person who hired him to approach Nell. The second man, a contractor named Paul Dugas, had messages showing that Salvatore Greco paid him to monitor the care facility. The messages also included instructions to frighten Nell into abandoning the investigation.
LeBlanc warned that the case would take time. The police needed to establish who ordered the original fire, who altered the report, and who later threatened the family. Carmine offered to provide the Orsini records through the independent attorney, but the detective reminded him that the investigation would proceed on evidence, not promises.
Nell was sitting with Emmett when the call ended. She listened to the update and then looked at her father.
“They wanted me to stop asking,” she said.
Emmett touched the recipe card beside his bed.
“Ask,” he whispered.
Nell smiled sadly. “I will.”
She told him that the bakery would open again. She described the new ovens, the wide windows, and the worktable she planned to place near the front. Emmett listened carefully, occasionally correcting her when she described the bread shelves.
“Lower,” he said once.
“Lower shelves?”
He nodded.
“So you can reach them?”
He smiled.
Nell wrote it down. The small instruction made her feel as though he was already helping her build the place.
Carmine waited in the corridor until she came out. He did not ask her to return to the estate. He simply offered to drive her home.
“I'm going to stay with Dad a little longer,” she said.
“I'll wait.”
“You don't have to.”
May you like
“I know.”
She looked at him, then nodded. It was the first time she had accepted his company without feeling that she owed him an explanation.
