Chapter 7 - The Trial on 47th Street
The warehouse on 47th Street was a derelict industrial structure that smelled of old oil, rusted iron, and wet concrete. The rain was falling outside, the steady drumming against the corrugated steel roof providing a familiar, haunting soundtrack to Mara's life.
Dominic walked beside her, his hand lightly resting against the small of her back—not to force her forward, but to steady her as her knees threatened to give way. Valeria stood by the entrance, two large enforcers standing watch at the door.
In the center of the empty floor, beneath the harsh, white glare of a single construction lamp, two men were tied to heavy wooden chairs. One was an old man with thinning hair and a gold watch that looked out of place against his stained shirt—former Police Chief Thomas Kelly. The other was a younger man with a scarred face and bloodshot eyes that darted frantically around the room—Frank Rossi, the Moretti soldier.
When they saw Dominic enter, they began to beg, their voices echoing off the empty steel walls in a desperate, pathetic chorus of terror.
"Please, Mr. Vance! I didn't know the truck belonged to her! It was twenty years ago! I was just following orders!" Rossi wept, his body shaking against the ropes.
"Dominic, we had an agreement! I kept your family names out of the grand jury files for ten years!" Kelly shouted, his face red with panic.
Dominic didn't answer them. He pulled a folding chair out from the shadows, placing it ten feet in front of the prisoners. He looked at Mara, gesturing for her to sit.
Mara walked into the light. She looked at the two men who had altered the course of her life with a single lie. She expected to feel a roaring surge of hatred, a violent desire to see them suffer the way she had suffered under the cold awning of the laundromat.
Instead, as she looked at them—their faces smeared with tears and sweat, their bodies shivering with the cheap, primal fear of dying—she felt nothing but a profound, overwhelming disgust. They weren't criminal masterminds or terrifying agents of fate. They were just small, greedy cowards who had traded her husband's life for a handful of dirty money and a clean driving record.
She turned to Dominic, her voice remarkably calm, remarkably clear. "They aren't worth the blood, Dominic. If you kill them, you make them important. You make them part of my life forever."
Dominic looked at her, his expression unreadable. "What do you want, Mara?"
Mara walked up to the former police chief, her eyes drilling into his. "You have twenty-four hours to sign a full confession detailing every bribe you took from the Moretti family, including the cover-up of Michael Ellis's death. You will give the names of the district attorneys who helped you. You will give the bank accounts."
She turned to Rossi. "And you will plead guilty to vehicular manslaughter before a federal judge. You will spend the next twenty years in a regular state prison, without the protection of the Moretti name."
She looked back at Dominic. "Can you make sure the federal prosecutors get the paperwork without the Vance name attached to it?"
Dominic looked at her for a long moment, a slow, calculated smile breaking across his handsome face—an expression of deep, unconditional respect. "Valeria has the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois on her payroll, Mara. The documents will be on his desk before the courts open tomorrow morning. They will go away for the rest of their natural lives. Legally."
Mara let out a long, deep breath, the phantom weight that had been crushing her chest for two years finally disintegrating into the cold warehouse air. She turned her back on the prisoners, walking out of the light and into the shadows where Dominic was waiting.
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As they walked back to the car through the pouring rain, Dominic pulled his large wool coat over her shoulders to keep her dry. "You are a remarkable woman, Mara Ellis," he murmured against her hair.
"I’m just a nurse, Dominic," she said, her hand sliding into his pocket where his warm fingers immediately intertwined with hers. "I’m just someone who decided to stop hiding."
