Page 136 of The Cost of Silence

The handwriting hits me first. Sharp, old-fashioned cursive that I recognize from birthday cards and scrawled notes left on my father’s desk.

Legacy cannot be avoided.

If the name can’t step up, it can die.

There is a cost to silence.

There’s no signature.

He didn’t need one.

My vision narrows.

“Domenico left this?” I ask.

Rossi nods weakly. “Said it was… a message. For you. For all of you.” He swallows, lids drooping. “Said… time was up. Old ways… coming back. Whether you want them or not.”

The monitor’s beeping speeds up, jagged spikes across the screen.

“Rossi.” I squeeze his hand harder, as if I can anchor him. “Stay with me.”

“I told him,” he mutters, voice slurring now, “told him you’d never… stand next to him on that dock. Not after… what he did. Your father knew. I knew. We all—”

The rest of the sentence dissolves into a rough breath as his eyes roll slightly.

“Heart rate’s climbing,” the nurse says sharply. “We need to move him now.”

The doctor steps in, checking the lines, barking orders. “We have to take him back to the OR. You’ll need to wait outside, Mr. Mancini.”

Rossi tightens his grip one last time, dragging my focus back to him. “We were right,” he forces out. “It’s him. Finish it.”

Then the monitor screeches, a high, stuttering alarm that makes the back of my neck prickle. The room explodes into motion, nurses grabbing equipment, the doctor calling codes, the bed’s brakes released as they start to wheel him out.

I’m shoved gently but firmly aside, pressed against the wall as they rush him down the corridor, a tangle of wires and white sheets and urgency.

For a moment, all I can see is his hand slipping out of mine.

Then he’s gone around the corner, swallowed by the swinging doors of the operating theatre.

I stand there, pulse pounding in my ears, the card still crumpled in my fist.

Domenico was here.

He walked into this hospital, into our crisis, into the space where my man bled for me, and dropped a note like a calling card.

Legacy cannot be avoided.

If the name can’t step up, it can die.

There is a cost to silence.

He’s not hiding anymore. He’s done with shadows and whispers. This is a declaration. He stood on the sidewalk while one of his men attacked the woman I love. Family or not, he’s a dead man.

“You all right, sir?” the nurse asks cautiously.

No. “Yes,” I say.

I smooth the card out once, reading the lines again until they burn.