Looks shifted around the room.
Vale sent a quick look to Humphrey whose expression remained closed.
“Apologies, Stone,” Liam flashed his son a rapid smile. “Keep going.”
“Turns out the ammo was part of a weapons cache belonging to Tesano.” Stone shared the rest in a hurry.
All eyes were on Liam. The younger men had all seen their father explode on occasion. None wished to be present for a recurrence which seemed imminent.
“Go on, Stone,” Liam directed.
Stone looked to Pitch who didn’t seem eager to leap to his big brother’s assistance.
“Anyway,” Stone continued after leaving Pitch with a steely glare, “thanks to Pitch’s work with the guards, they felt comfortable enough to approach me about what they knew.”
“You mean that your Uncle Emilio paid off the cops to keep all this silent.”
“Pop...” Stone breathed, stunned.
The amazement was shared by every other man in the room.
“You knew Uncle Em was betraying you?” Roman breathed out the question on everyone else’s mind.
Liam’s quiet laughter filled the room. “Your Uncle has probably lied to me about more than I know, but yes, about this? Yes, I knew he was betraying me.”
“Why, Pop?” Pitch spread his hands. “Why didn’t you ask him about it?”
“Because I wanted to know who he was partnered up with from the outside.”
“Because he wanted to take you both down?” Humphrey guessed.
Liam nodded. “At first, yes. But then, I realized it didn’t matter who he was working with because he was betraying them too.”
“Betraying his partner?” Aaron queried.
“Your Uncle did more than pay off the cops to forget the ammo had our name on the boxes,” Liam’s intense stare was eerily calm. “He paid the thieves too. The whole thing was a set up.”
“Set up?” Gabriel blurted, as his brothers straightened in their seats.
“What I’m about to tell you boys can’t leave this room, you understand?” Liam waited until he’d seen them all nod. “I’d hoped this could’ve been settled by the time you all got back from Chicago. I’d hoped none of you would ever have to know of your uncle’s dishonesty. It’s why I didn’t give you guff about taking the trip in the middle of a work project even if some of it was for business.”
“What’s goin’ on, Pop?” Aaron urged.
Liam bristled, handsome features strained by tension. “I’ve known for a while now that Em was shipping illegal goods-goods not on our product list, I should say. It wasn’t until the theft that I realized Em’s partner was inside Tesano.”
“You mean Uncle Tori or Uncle Mica?” Roman probed.
Liam shook his head. “They’re just as dishonest as Em, but he wouldn’t have trusted them to keep their mouths shut. His partner is someone very well connected and high up in the company- it’s the only way Em would act so flagrantly and with such impunity.”
“Pop?” Stone appeared hesitant. “You don’t think it’s Uncle Ric or one of the others-”
“No.” Again, Liam shook his head. “No, thank God,” he sighed, thinking of his long time friends who were now executives at the highest levels of Tesano.
“Those four have been more like brothers to me than my own flesh and blood,” he said of Fredrico Nandi, Tonelo Aliri, Beniton Calabrese and Marco Lucci.
“It’s someone close, though,” Liam’s upper lip curled with distaste. “That’s still no help as it now takes an obscene amount of people functioning at high levels to keep the company running.”
“You said Em was betraying his partner, Dad? What did you mean?” Vale asked.
“Paying off the cops served two purposes,” Liam told his youngest son. “It protects the flow of his business as well as our name. It wouldn’t do to have our reputation blemished by illegal arms dealing.”
“So why set up the theft?” Gabriel asked.
“The theft was for the inside partner,” Liam explained. “The cops were never invited to that party, Son. This was all supposed to take place quietly, within the confines of the business. Everything, from the thieves to the guards, they were all part of the show-except for the last minute additions. My guess is not all the guards were part of Em’s chosen cast.”
Pitch tried and failed to smother another curse. “I thought it’d be good for Stone to have extra men in place for his inventory project,” regret pooled his eyes. “Did we get anyone hurt, Pop?”
“It’s alright, Son. Everyone walked away from this. None of you are at fault, understood?”
“And you still don’t know who Emilio’s partner is?” Aaron asked.
“But you know this was a set up to cheat the partner?” Vale quickly followed with his own inquiry.
“Yes, to both,” Liam confirmed.
“How do you know the partner wasn’t in on it? That this show wasn’t intended just for you?” Humphrey asked his father.
“Excellent question, Humphrey and the truth is, I don’t know. What I do know is that your Uncle is not a wasteful man. He would never give up freely available Tesano resources to move elsewhere- especially resources he’s in charge of. The thieves admitted it was a hoax to move the product to a new locale.
