Chapter 21 - The Plea
My attorneys could have fought for years.
That was what men like me usually did.
Delay.
Challenge warrants.
Attack cooperators.
Exhaust prosecutors.
Turn every fact into procedural mud until truth became too expensive to pursue.
I had money for that.
I no longer had the appetite.
We negotiated.
I agreed to plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy, illegal gambling, tax offenses and conspiracy connected to extortionate collections.
In exchange, prosecutors dismissed several overlapping counts and recognized my cooperation in dismantling the organization.
There was no immunity.
No miracle.
Miriam estimated five to eight years under the agreement depending on the judge.
Grace stared at me when I told her.
“Five to eight.”
“Yes.”
“Nora will be twelve.”
The calculation landed.
Olivia fifteen.
Sophie fourteen.
Years children did not repeat.
“I might receive less.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make hope into a promise.”
She was right.
Again.
I hated the consistency.
The girls reacted differently.
Sophie stopped speaking to me for three days.
Not mutism.
Choice.
That difference mattered.
Nora asked whether prison had pancakes.
Olivia became practical.
“Can we visit?”
“Yes.”
“Can you call?”
“Yes.”
“Birthdays?”
“I’ll call.”
“Christmas?”
“Yes.”
“School concerts?”
That one hurt.
“Probably not.”
She looked down.
“Okay.”
Not forgiveness.
Preparation.
Sentencing was scheduled for four months later.
Until then, I remained home under travel restrictions.
Those four months became the strangest gift of my life.
I drove the girls to school with security reduced to one car.
I learned how to braid badly.
Grace banned me from attempting Nora’s hair after a disastrous morning involving three rubber bands and tears.
I made breakfast.
I burned pancakes exactly as Grace once had.
The girls laughed.
I attended therapy.
Not theirs.
Mine.
Dr. Walsh referred me to a colleague in Manhattan.
The first session was humiliating.
The second worse.
By the sixth, I understood why.
I had spent my life converting fear into anger because anger felt powerful.
My father had taught me that without ever saying it.
Vincent learned the same lesson.
We simply expressed it differently.
I dominated.
He manipulated.
Neither was strength.
One evening I visited Vincent in jail.
Everyone told me not to.
I went anyway.
He appeared behind glass thinner and older.
“You look terrible,” I said.
“So do you.”
“Prison suits us.”
He laughed.
Then silence.
“You pled?”
“Yes.”
“Idiot.”
“Probably.”
“You could beat half those charges.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re throwing your life away because Isabelle made you guilty.”
“No.”
He leaned closer.
“She hated what we were.”
“She hated what we chose.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
That was the difference between us now.
He still needed identity to excuse action.
I did not.
“Did you ever love her?” I asked.
Vincent’s face changed.
“As family?”
“Any way.”
He looked down.
“I respected her.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“She saw through me.”
“Also not the question.”
Finally he whispered, “I hated that she could make you leave a room when I couldn’t.”
There it was.
Not romantic love.
Not merely money.
A lifetime of measuring himself against me.
“She didn’t take me from you.”
“She changed you.”
“She tried.”
“And now?”
I looked through the glass.
“Now my daughters are finishing the job.”
Vincent smiled sadly.
“You always did need someone telling you what to do.”
I laughed.
So did he.
For one terrible moment we were brothers again.
Then the laughter ended.
“I won’t come back,” I said.
His face tightened.
“To visit?”
“Yes.”
“You came here to tell me that?”
“I came to say goodbye.”
He looked genuinely wounded.
I almost apologized.
I did not.
Blood deserved truth too.
“I loved you,” I said.
“Loved?”
“I don’t know what word belongs there now.”
His eyes filled but he blinked the tears away.
Our father would have approved.
That was reason enough to hate it.
I stood.
Vincent pressed one hand against the glass.
“Dom.”
I stopped.
“Do the girls remember me?”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“Do they hate me?”
“That isn’t mine to answer.”
I left.
Outside, Grace waited in the car.
“How was it?”
“Awful.”
“Good.”
I looked at her.
“You say ‘good’ to strange things.”
“You went for closure. Awful means you probably got something real.”
I leaned back.
“Grace.”
“Yes?”
“When I go away, you don’t owe me anything.”
She turned toward me slowly.
“I know.”
“You can build another life.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to wait.”
“I know.”
I frowned.
“Could you pretend this is difficult?”
She smiled.
“It is. I just refuse to let you turn sacrifice into control.”
I stared at her.
Then laughed.
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She took my hand.
And for the first time, I allowed myself to hold hers back.
