Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT THE HOUSE WENT DARK
“Bathroom.”
Lorenzo pushed Isabella and Lucia toward the reinforced interior bathroom.
“No.”
“Bella.”
“I spent eight months locked in rooms while men decided what happened to me.”
Gunfire sounded downstairs.
Closer.
“I’m not hiding while you die.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
There was his Isabella.
Bruised.
Thin.
Terrified.
Still impossible to command.
He handed her a small pistol from the bedside safe.
“You remember?”
She checked the magazine.
“Yes.”
Sophia rushed into the room with Emma.
“They’re inside.”
“Bathroom. Now.”
This time Isabella went.
Not because Lorenzo ordered her.
Because Emma was there.
Lorenzo entered the hallway.
Emergency lights switched on.
Nico crouched near the stairs.
“Three down. Maybe four more.”
“Gabriel?”
“Not seen.”
Matteo appeared from a guest room with his injured arm strapped against his chest.
Lorenzo glared.
“You should be in a hospital.”
“So should Isabella.”
“Fair.”
They moved downstairs.
The first attacker came through the kitchen.
Nico handled him.
Another appeared behind a door.
Matteo fired.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
Lorenzo understood suddenly.
“This isn’t an attack.”
Nico looked at him.
“It’s a distraction.”
Lorenzo ran upstairs.
Bathroom.
Door open.
Sophia lay unconscious near the sink.
Emma was gone.
Isabella was gone.
Lucia was gone.
Lorenzo stared at the empty room.
No.
Not again.
A window stood open.
Rope descended outside.
Matteo whispered behind him.
“Gabriel.”
Lorenzo turned and struck him.
Matteo hit the wall.
“This safe house was yours.”
“It was.”
“You gave him the plans.”
“Years ago.”
Lorenzo hit him again.
Nico grabbed Lorenzo.
“That won’t find them.”
Lorenzo stopped.
Barely.
Sophia moaned.
They helped her sit.
“What happened?”
“Isabella heard something outside.”
“What?”
“Lucia crying.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Lucia was with her.”
Sophia shook her head.
“A recording.”
Gabriel had played a baby crying outside.
Isabella approached the window.
Someone threw gas through the opening.
Sophia remembered Isabella trying to fight.
Then darkness.
Emma had been beside them.
All three taken.
Lorenzo felt the universe mocking him.
He had found his family only to lose them hours later.
Then Emma’s gray rabbit caught his eye.
It lay near the bathtub.
Lorenzo picked it up.
Something hard was inside.
He squeezed.
A small GPS tag.
Sophia looked confused.
“I didn’t put that there.”
Matteo did.
Everyone turned.
“When we left the church,” he said. “I put trackers inside Emma’s rabbit and Lucia’s blanket.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because I know Gabriel.”
Nico opened the tracker application.
Two signals appeared.
One stationary.
One moving south.
“The rabbit is here,” Nico said.
“The blanket?”
He zoomed.
“Brooklyn.”
Lorenzo recognized the destination immediately.
Greenwood Cemetery.
Isabella’s grave.
They arrived twenty-four minutes later.
Fog rolled between headstones.
The DeLuca family mausoleum stood open.
Lorenzo entered.
Candles burned inside.
Isabella sat in a chair beside her own false grave.
Lucia was in her arms.
Emma sat beside her.
Gabriel Vescari stood behind them.
Dr. Benedetti no longer existed.
The pleasant physician’s posture was gone.
Gabriel looked older.
Harder.
A pistol rested against Isabella’s shoulder.
“Welcome, Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo’s men surrounded the mausoleum.
Gabriel laughed.
“Tell them to step away.”
Lorenzo did.
“Let the children go.”
“No.”
“They have nothing to do with this.”
“Children always have something to do with it. Children become men.”
His eyes moved toward Lucia.
“Your father learned that too late.”
Lorenzo took one step.
Gabriel pressed the gun against Isabella’s neck.
“Stop.”
Lorenzo stopped.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You do.”
“I didn’t know it existed until tonight.”
Gabriel studied him.
“Your father was smarter than you.”
“You killed him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted out.”
Lorenzo froze.
Gabriel smiled.
“Surprised?”
“My father ran the strongest family in Brooklyn.”
“And hated every day of it.”
Gabriel walked slowly around Isabella.
“He wanted to expose everyone. Salvatore. Me. Judges. Politicians. He collected evidence for years.”
“What happened to the ledger?”
“He hid it.”
“And you think he gave it to me?”
“I know he did.”
“I was nineteen.”
“You were his only son.”
Lorenzo thought back.
His father’s final week.
Arguments.
Closed doors.
One night his father came into his bedroom carrying an old wooden chess box.
He had placed it on Lorenzo’s shelf.
Learn to think three moves ahead, he said.
After his death, Lorenzo packed everything.
Salvatore handled the estate.
The chess box.
Lorenzo had not thought about it in decades.
Gabriel saw recognition.
“There.”
Lorenzo concealed it too late.
“You remember.”
Gabriel smiled.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
He pointed the gun toward Emma.
Sophia’s daughter whimpered.
Lorenzo’s voice changed.
“Point that gun at me.”
Gabriel laughed.
“That would be mercy.”
“Where is Matteo?”
“Alive.”
“Bring him.”
“Why?”
“He knows the ledger.”
Lorenzo had no idea whether that was true.
But he needed time.
Gabriel considered.
Then nodded toward one of his men.
Five minutes later, Matteo was escorted inside.
Apparently he had allowed himself to be taken.
His eyes met Lorenzo’s.
Lorenzo gave the smallest glance toward the stone floor.
Matteo understood.
Thirty years of friendship still meant something.
Even damaged.
Even ruined.
Matteo laughed.
“You old bastard.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You cost me everything.”
“Not yet.”
“You betrayed me.”
“I learned from the best.”
Gabriel raised his gun.
Matteo said quickly, “The ledger is inside the grave.”
Everyone froze.
Gabriel stared.
“What?”
“Lorenzo’s father knew cemeteries were the only places Salvatore never searched.”
“You’re lying.”
“Open the crypt.”
Gabriel ordered a man forward.
The guard moved toward the false coffin.
Matteo shifted half a step.
Lorenzo shifted too.
The guard opened the stone panel.
Matteo shouted:
“NOW!”
The mausoleum erupted.
Lorenzo lunged toward Isabella.
Matteo tackled Gabriel.
Nico’s sniper fired through the doorway.
One attacker dropped.
Emma screamed.
Lucia cried.
Gabriel and Matteo crashed against Isabella’s coffin.
The pistol skidded away.
Lorenzo grabbed Isabella and pushed her behind stone.
Then another gunshot rang out.
Matteo stumbled.
Blood spread across his stomach.
Gabriel retrieved the pistol.
He pointed it directly at Lorenzo.
“You really are your father’s son.”
Lorenzo stared into the barrel.
Gabriel smiled.
Then Isabella stepped between them.
“No.”
Lorenzo’s heart stopped.
Gabriel laughed.
“You again.”
“You already stole eight months from us.”
Her hands shook.
“But you don’t get another second.”
Gabriel aimed at her.
And a tiny voice came from behind the coffin.
“Bad man!”
Emma threw her stuffed rabbit.
It struck Gabriel’s face.
He turned instinctively.
That half-second was enough.
Lorenzo lunged.
The gun fired.
The bullet tore into stone.
Lorenzo slammed Gabriel against the wall.
Once.
Twice.
The gun fell.
Lorenzo picked it up.
Gabriel laughed through blood.
“Do it.”
Lorenzo aimed at his head.
“You know you want to.”
He did.
Every part of the old Lorenzo wanted to.
Then Lucia cried behind him.
His daughter.
Alive.
Lorenzo lowered the gun.
“No.”
Gabriel frowned.
“My daughter’s first memory of her father will not be an execution.”
Sirens approached outside.
Federal agents.
Nico had sent the evidence drive hours earlier.
Gabriel’s smile disappeared.
Lorenzo stepped back.
“For thirty years, you made men disappear.”
Agents flooded the mausoleum.
“Now you get to spend whatever life you have left where everyone knows your name.”
Gabriel was dragged away.
Isabella ran into Lorenzo’s arms.
For the first time, it seemed finished.
Then Nico knelt beside Matteo.
His face darkened.
“Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo rushed over.
Matteo was barely conscious.
Blood soaked the floor beneath him.
He gripped Lorenzo’s hand.
“The chess box…”
“What about it?”
Matteo smiled faintly.
“I know where Salvatore put it.”
“Save your strength.”
“It proves your father wasn’t the man everyone thinks.”
“Matteo.”
His eyes began closing.
“Tell my nieces…”
“You tell them.”
May you like
Matteo stopped breathing.
And Lorenzo shouted his oldest friend’s name inside the tomb where his daughter had once been buried.
