Chapter 6 - Shadows from the Past
By Christmas Eve, the snow had finally arrived, blanketing the Long Island estate in six inches of pristine, untouched white.
Inside the grand foyer, a twelve-foot balsam fir reached toward the vaulted ceiling, decorated not with traditional glass balls, but with wooden ornaments, ribbons, and three small gold coins resting securely in a velvet-lined display box on the entry table.
Life in the house had changed, slowly and quietly, like the shifting of tides.
Clara no longer wore the gray, shapeless uniform of a maid. She wore a soft cream-colored sweater and wool trousers, moving through the halls with her head held high, helping the cook prepare holiday dinners and teaching Ellie how to cut paper snowflakes at the mahogany dining table.
For the first time in seven years, the estate didn't feel like a mausoleum. It felt like a home.
Except peace in our world was never a permanent state; it was merely the silence between storms.
It was 11:00 PM on December twenty-fourth when Frankie knocked twice on the open door of my private study. His face was pale, his overcoat dusted with fresh snow.
“Vince,” Frankie said, closing the door behind him with practiced care. “We’ve got a situation at the outer gatehouse.”
I looked up from the financial spreadsheets on my desk. “What kind of situation?”
“A car. Black sedan. New Jersey plates. They didn't stop at the call box. They rammed the outer security gate and parked right by the east fountain.”
I stood up immediately, reaching instinctively for the Sig Sauer P226 resting in the shoulder holster beneath my wool vest. “Who’s in the car?”
“Don't know yet,” Frankie said grimly. “The boys on the gate detail went out to check, but before they could draw, the rear door opened. Only one man stepped out. But he’s carrying a badge, Vince. Not a local badge. Federal.”
My blood ran cold.
Federal agents didn't show up on Long Island on Christmas Eve unless they had a federal warrant, a RICO indictment, or information that could tear down everything we had built over thirty years.
“Where is he now?” I asked, walking toward the heavy oak door.
“Walking up the front steps,” Frankie said. “And Vince... that’s not the worst part. The man asking for you isn't just an ordinary fed. It’s Agent Thomas Vance from the Organized Crime Strike Force in Manhattan.”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Vance.
Not a relative—we had no family left in federal law enforcement—but a name I knew all too well. Thomas Vance was the federal prosecutor who had spent five years trying to put my father away before a massive heart attack saved the old man the trouble of a trial.
“Does he know about Dante?” I asked.
“He didn't mention Dante,” Frankie said. “He asked for Clara Romano.”
The air in the study seemed to drop twenty degrees.
May you like
Clara.
I turned on my heel, strode past Frankie, and hurried down the grand staircase toward the marble foyer just as the massive front brass knocker hammered three deafening blows against the oak door.
