Chapter 3 - The Bloodstain That Wasn’t Megan’s
Marco vanished.
So did the cufflink.
Dean did not sleep.
By dawn, every Russo contact in the city was searching without knowing exactly what they were searching for.
Megan sat in Dean's kitchen drinking coffee strong enough to strip paint.
Dante leaned against counter.
“Marco wouldn't betray him.”
Megan looked.
“Then why run?”
“He might be protecting something.”
“That's usually what betrayers call it.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“You don't know him.”
“No. Which makes me less emotionally invested.”
Dean entered.
“Enough.”
Dante straightened.
Megan didn't.
Dean had changed clothes but not expression.
He placed folder on table.
“Marco's apartment was clean.”
“Too clean?”
Megan asked.
“Yes.”
“No passport?”
“Gone.”
“Cash?”
“Gone.”
“Family?”
“None.”
“Girlfriend?”
Dante coughed.
Dean looked annoyed.
“What?”
Megan raised eyebrow.
“Men who claim to have no personal lives usually have very complicated ones.”
Dean ignored.
Then Dante reluctantly said Marco had been seeing a woman named Nina Vale, a forensic lab technician.
Dean stared.
“You knew?”
“I knew he had someone. Not who.”
That mattered because Luca's body had been moved.
If Marinis eventually recovered it and autopsy happened, forensic evidence could expose Megan.
A lab technician could alter evidence.
Or uncover it.
They found Nina at work.
She refused to speak to Dean's men.
Megan volunteered.
Dean:
“No.”
Megan:
“We're doing this again?”
Eventually Dean took her.
Nina Vale was thirty-four, exhausted, furious.
She met them in hospital cafeteria rather than private room.
“I don't work for mobsters.”
Dean:
“You've been dating one.”
“I've been making poor decisions.”
Megan liked her.
“Where is Marco?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he contact you?”
Nina looked at Megan's bruised wrist.
“You're the tailor.”
Megan's stomach tightened.
“How do you know?”
“Marco told me.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
Dean leaned.
“What did he say?”
Nina stared at him.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should test blood from Luca Marini's cufflink.”
Megan blinked.
“Blood?”
“There was dried material inside hinge.”
Nobody had noticed.
Nina continued.
“Marco brought it to me before disappearing.”
“You have it?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“He took it after I sampled.”
Dean's jaw tightened.
“Results?”
Nina pulled sealed printout.
“The blood isn't Luca's.”
Megan felt cold.
“Whose?”
“Unknown in public database. But Marco gave comparison sample.”
Dean:
“From who?”
Nina looked at him.
“Your father.”
Silence.
Dean's father had been dead twelve years.
Old evidence samples apparently retained through private Russo records.
Nina continued.
“The blood inside cufflink matched your father's stored blood profile closely enough to suggest first-degree family relationship.”
Dean stared.
“That's impossible.”
“Was your father an only child?”
“Yes.”
“Another child?”
“My sister died as infant.”
“Then maybe not.”
Megan watched him absorb.
Luca's cufflink contained blood from someone closely related to Dean's father.
Not Dean? Dean himself also first-degree relation. Could be Dean's blood. But no, Nina had Dean? Need clarify mitochondrial? Let's say profile compared to Dean too and wasn't Dean, but likely another child of father. Nina says:
“I also compared to your DNA from security medical file Marco provided. Not you.”
Dean sat.
“My father had another child.”
Possibly.
Why blood inside Luca's cufflink?
Nina said sample looked old, trapped for years.
Maybe cufflink wasn't Luca's originally.
Then Megan remembered Luca always wore mismatched cufflinks during fittings.
One silver.
One black stone.
She had teased him.
He said:
“Sentimental.”
The silver one might have belonged to someone else.
Nina said Marco mentioned name before leaving.
Samuel Russo.
Dean's face went white.
Megan:
“Who?”
Dean answered slowly.
“My father had a driver named Samuel.”
“Relative?”
“No.”
But same surname?
Russo common enough.
Samuel disappeared night Dean's father died.
Everyone assumed he was traitor who opened convoy route to Marinis.
Dean had spent twelve years believing Samuel sold father out.
“What if Samuel was your half-brother?” Megan asked.
Dean looked as if she had struck him.
Age?
Samuel had been ten years older.
Possible.
Then Nina revealed something else.
Marco had traced Samuel.
Alive.
Under new name.
Samuel Reed, living in Vermont.
Marco wasn't fleeing betrayal.
He was going to bring back man Dean might kill on sight.
He had hidden mission because he didn't trust Dean's anger.
Dean stood.
“I would have listened.”
Dante and Megan looked at him.
He noticed.
“Eventually.”
Megan:
“That's why he didn't tell you.”
Dean swore.
They drove to Vermont.
No convoy.
Dean, Dante, Megan.
Nina stayed.
Samuel Reed lived above hardware store in small town.
When Dean entered, sixty-year-old man dropped coffee.
Recognition immediate.
“Michael's boy.”
Dean stiffened.
“My father's name was Michael to people he trusted.”
Samuel laughed bitterly.
“He trusted no one.”
Dean:
“Are you my brother?”
Samuel closed eyes.
“Yes.”
No drama.
Just answer.
Dean stumbled back half step.
Samuel explained.
Michael Russo had affair before marriage.
Samuel born secretly.
Raised by mother's family.
As adult, Michael brought him in as driver but never acknowledged publicly because mafia inheritance politics made extra son dangerous.
Then night of ambush.
Samuel discovered route leak came from Anthony Russo, Michael's consigliere.
Dean's uncle by marriage.
Anthony sold route to Marinis.
Samuel tried warn Michael.
Too late.
He escaped because Anthony framed him.
“Why not come back?”
“Because you became king at twenty-four and first order you gave was to find Samuel Russo and put bullet in his head.”
Dean remembered.
Shame.
Megan looked at him.
He didn't deny.
Samuel continued.
“Luca found me two years ago.”
“Why?”
“He hated his brother.”
Twins again.
Luca learned Lorenzo had worked with Anthony Russo's surviving network to control docks.
Luca wanted out.
He copied evidence.
The cufflink belonged to Samuel; it contained blood from an old knife fight with Anthony years before. Luca took it as physical proof tying Samuel to story? Weak. Maybe cufflink had microetched account and blood incidental.
Samuel gave cufflink to Luca with engraved account numbers linking Anthony's offshore trust.
“Why trust Luca?”
“I didn't. I used him.”
Fair.
Then front window shattered.
Dante shoved Megan down.
Gunshots tore through wall.
Someone had followed.
Dean returned fire from behind cabinet.
Samuel shouted:
“Back stairs!”
Megan crawled.
Outside two SUVs.
Not Marini plates.
Russo.
Dean's own men.
Dante recognized insignia.
“They're ours.”
Dean's face went cold.
Someone inside Russo organization had ordered hit.
And now the old murder of his father had connected directly to the person hunting Megan.
They escaped through alley.
Samuel came.
In car, Megan realized another detail.
Blood beneath her fingernail night she killed Luca.
She assumed his.
But Luca had grabbed her after already bleeding from hand? He had small cut when arrived.
“What?”
Dean asked.
“I think Luca was injured before he came to me.”
That blood might belong to attacker who confronted Luca earlier.
She had scrubbed most.
But shop floor?
Maybe sample.
If blood wasn't Luca's, could identify person who had tried to kill him before Megan ever fired.
The shooting in Luca's house might not be only reason he died.
They had moved body too quickly.
They might have buried evidence they desperately needed.
Dean looked at Dante.
“Where is Luca's body?”
Dante swallowed.
“Safe.”
“Get it back.”
Megan stared.
Dean:
May you like
“We're going to learn who really killed him.”
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