Chapter 4
"Sit down, Claire," he said, indicating the chair opposite him.
I sat. The warmth of the fire immediately began to thaw my fingers, but the ache in my chest remained cold and sharp.
"You look tired," he observed gently.
"I feel foolish," I replied, staring into the flames. "Three years, Grandfather. Three years of listening to his mother tell me I wasn't traditional enough, listening to Vincent assure me that Sophia was just a lonely girl who needed family guidance. I defended him to you. When you asked me if I was certain before the wedding, I told you he was different from his father."
Henry set his teacup down with a faint clink.
"He is his father’s son," Henry said simply. "Salvatore was the same thirty years ago. Arrogant. Believed that because he commanded four hundred men with guns, the world belonged to his appetite. He forgot that men with guns need salaries, that salaries require clean banking routes, and that banking routes require the Bennett ledger."
He reached over and tapped the old leather book.
"In 1978, the Moretti family nearly ceased to exist," Henry continued, his tone matter-of-fact, like a professor reciting European history. "The federal government had three indictments prepared that would have sent Salvatore’s father and seven captains to Marion Penitentiary for life. They came to this house on their knees. My father and I didn't take their money. We took their infrastructure."
I looked up. "What does that mean?"
"It means every offshore trust that holds the Moretti commercial real estate portfolio—every logistics contract they hold with the Port of Chicago, every clean corporate front from here to Milwaukee—was established by Bennett firms. We own forty percent of the voting equity in their primary logistics holding company. It was the price of their survival. They were allowed to run the streets, Claire. We ran the paper."
A slow realization crept into my mind. "And when I married Vincent..."
"Salvatore thought it was a reconciliation," Henry said, a faint, cold smile touching his thin lips. "He thought the third generation was finally merging. He thought my blood would mix with his, and that the Bennett ledger would naturally pass down to his grandchildren, erasing their debt forever. He was so eager for that union that he never stopped to teach his son how to preserve it."
Henry leaned forward, his spectacles catching the orange light of the fire.