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My poor Zio is in a nursing home in the Bronx.I wish him well in his recovery after his stroke, poor Zio.Can’t even speak now or use his hands, speak or text us…

So, Roberto had a stroke and is now conveniently in a nursing home.Somehow, I don’t really believe it.How convenient for the Italian Mafia or the FBI, or both.

Why didn’t they outright kill him?Why leave him with a stroke?Did the attempt to kill him fail?

Now, I have to spend the rest of the evening researching while I wait for Harrison to get home.I know I should tell Harrison about this, but part of me wants to wait and see.Maybe he really did have a stroke.Maybe Deluca had nothing to do with my parents’ deaths.How did the brakes fail?I suspect that whatever happened, happened on that road, rather than at the FBI HQ.Did someone run my stepfather and mother off the road and then make sure that the brakes looked like they failed?

Maybe Deluca could accomplish that.Maybe that was his role.

Until I do more research and digging, I won’t know.

ChapterFifteen

Harrison

I arrive home and call out, but there’s no response.

I go to Natalia’s office and see her hunched over her laptop.When I bend down and kiss her on the back of the neck, I see she has her earpods on and didn’t hear me.She startles and quickly closes her laptop like she didn’t want me to see what she was viewing.

“You’re home,” she says and turns around, slipping her arms around me.“I didn’t hear you.Was listening to a podcast.”

“I’m home,” I say and kiss her, wanting to ask her what she was reading and why she closed the screen so quickly, but another part of me thinks it’s none of my business.She may not want me to see whatever it is yet, and I have to give her that space.She might be reading a patient file, for all I know, and that’s covered by privacy laws, just as those in the FBI are not allowed to share information outside of work or their authorized work computers, if they are working at home.

“What’s up?”

She snuggles closer to me for a moment and then looks up, brushing my hair from my cheek with affection.“Just work.What do you want for dinner?We have those ribs leftover from the other night.I can thaw them and heat them up in the oven, make a salad.”

“Sounds good.”

We leave her office, and for the next hour, we spend together fixing dinner and then eating it.Everything seems fine, and I don’t feel the need to press her about the laptop.If she could tell me, she would, so since she said nothing, she can’t.I have to respect that.

We spend a pleasant hour after dinner sitting and watching the latest game, my arm around her shoulder, her knee leaning against my thigh.

I check my watch and excuse myself.I have some business to attend to and leave the living room and go to my office.

I need to meet with my uncles and lay the groundwork for some truth-telling.I call them both and arrange a meeting at Maxims the next afternoon.I’ll spend all morning preparing, and when I confront them with the harsh truth, I hope they realize it’s over.

We have to clean up the family business and go straight or to jail.Those are the only options.

The next morning,after our usual morning routine, I kiss Natalia goodbye and leave for the warehouse, where I’ll spend some time preparing for my meeting in the afternoon.I’m going to lay it all out, piece by piece, evidence and all, and force them to reveal their position on extracting the family from the underworld.I need to know if they’ll work with me to figure out how to save things or if they’ll revolt.

I go over everything I know about my father’s business, his intentional and unintentional connections to and work with the Russian mafia.I’ll wait and see how they respond before I confront Tommy with what I know.I want to give them both the chance to come clean and agree to go straight.Depending on how they respond, I’ll tell them what Ireallyknow.I’ll go over the betrayal and how both Tommy and Ryan conspired to prevent my father from carrying through with his plans to clean up the business.

They can try to lie to me, but it won’t work.I have rock-solid evidence from the FBI and from Stepan.

I know what they’ve done, and it breaks my heart.

The meeting will tell me everything I need to know about each of them and their loyalty to the Family, to me, and their hopes for the business.

It led to my father’s death.

It won’t lead to mine…

When the time comes,I take my vehicle to Maxims and go to the back room where Stepan and I met, and there, waiting for me, are both Tommy and Ryan.

“We got here early,” Ryan says and gets up to hug me.As usual, he’s the affectionate one, and Tommy merely nods.Now that I know about his debts, I have to keep my guard up and not accept his freindly uncle personna too quickly.

“Good.I had some traffic which delayed me, but I’m glad you’re both here.We have a lot to talk about.”