Chapter 10 - The Dawn of Ashes
By five-thirty in the morning, the rain had turned into a thick, gray drizzle that hung over the Hudson River like a shroud.
The fire from the south gate had been extinguished by the local volunteer department, who had arrived thirty minutes after the shooting stopped, asked zero questions, and accepted three thick envelopes of cash from Nico before packing up their hoses and turning their trucks around.
Six black town cars were parked in the circular driveway of the estate.
Forty men in dark suits stood in the mist, their faces grim, automatic weapons concealed beneath heavy coats. The entire Costello organization had mobilized from the five boroughs, summoned by the emergency encrypted broadcast Gabriel had sent from the bunker.
Chloe stood on the grand stone terrace, shivering inside an oversized black wool coat that Beatrice had draped over her shoulders. Her hands were wrapped around a steaming mug of black tea, but she couldn't stop the tremors running through her limbs.
In the courtyard below, two bodies wrapped in heavy industrial tarps were being loaded into the back of an unmarked refrigeration van.
Gabriel walked up the stone steps, his heavy footsteps crunching on the wet gravel.
He had changed into a fresh black suit, but the white bandage taped across his left temple was stained with a small circle of red. He looked completely hollowed out—the kind of pale, predatory exhaustion that came from pulling an entire world back from the brink of annihilation.
He stopped three feet from Chloe, leaning his forearms against the stone balustrade, looking out over the gray expanse of the river.
“The docks are secured,” Gabriel said, his voice scratchy and raw. “Santoro pulled his crews back to New Jersey twenty minutes ago. When word got out that Frankie and Domenic were dead, the union delegates folded. The war is over before it even hit the morning papers.”
Chloe took a small, bitter sip of her tea. “Is that what you do? You just... clean up the bodies and go back to business?”
Gabriel turned his head, his bruised-winter eyes studying her profile. “It’s what I have to do to keep my mother alive. It’s what I’ve done since I was twelve years old.”
“It’s a nightmare,” Chloe whispered, her voice cracking. “Gabriel, you almost died on that cellar floor. Your mother lived with a secret that was eating her alive for thirty years because she couldn't tell you. Because you wouldn't look at her.”
Gabriel flinched. The words hit him harder than any bullet Frankie Varga had fired.
He looked down at his large, scarred hands—hands that had held guns, broken jaws, and signed multi-million-dollar shipping manifests, but couldn't spell a single word of the language his mother lived in.
“I know,” he murmured, the confession barely audible above the distant rumble of a tugboat horn on the river. “I thought... if I built her a fortress, if I bought her diamonds and paid fifty men to guard her, it would make up for Michael. It would make up for my father.”
He turned to face Chloe fully, stepping into her space, his shadow wrapping around her against the cold morning wind.
“Teach me,” Gabriel said.
Chloe blinked, looking up at him through the mist. “What?”
“Teach me how to speak to her,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping into an intense, desperate plea that stripped away every ounce of the ruthless mob boss he presented to the world. “I don't care what it costs. I’ll pay you fifty thousand a month. I’ll buy you a house. I’ll set up a trust fund for your family. Just... don't leave her in the dark anymore. And don't leave me out of her world.”
Chloe stared at him. She looked past his shoulder, toward the massive French doors of the manor.
Beatrice was standing in the warm light of the library window, holding a cup of tea, watching the two of them.
When Beatrice caught Chloe’s eye, the old woman slowly lifted her right hand and tapped her fingers against her heart, then opened her palm toward Gabriel:
He’s learning to breathe, little bird. Don't give up on him yet.
Chloe felt a tear slip down her cold cheek, hot and stinging against her windburned skin.
She turned back to Gabriel Costello.
She set her mug of tea down on the stone balustrade.
She raised both of her hands into the space between them, curling her fingers inward, thumb resting against her palm: A.
Then she straightened her fingers, tucking her thumb across: B.
Gabriel watched her hands like a man seeing the sun for the first time.
Slowly, clumsily, his massive, scarred fingers mirrored hers, forming the shape of the letters in the quiet morning air.
“A,” Chloe whispered. “B.”
Gabriel looked from his hands to hers, a small, fragile breath escaping his chest.
May you like
Down on the driveway, the engine of the refrigeration van rumbled to life, pulling away into the gray fog, carrying the dead of the old world with it.
And on the terrace above the river, the Costello family finally began to speak.
