Chapter 10 – The Sins of the Father

I stared at the photograph, the red emergency lights making the black-and-white image look like it was bleeding.

Luca stood up, leaving Anna and the kids with a newly arrived security guard, and walked over to me. He snatched the photo from my hands.

“It’s him,” Luca growled, staring at the younger version of his father. “That’s Il Fantasma. The man he used to play chess with.”

“Luca, who is he?” I pleaded. “Why did he take Michael?”

“Because he knows Michael is my weakness,” Luca said, pacing the room like a caged tiger. “Silvio used Michael’s house to try and break us. This guy skipped the money and went straight for the throat.”

He flipped the photograph over.

Written on the back, in the same elegant, precise handwriting as the note in my bedroom, was an address.

Saint Jude’s Orphanage. West Wing. Come alone, Luca. Bring the girl.

“Saint Jude’s?” I read aloud. “That’s the abandoned orphanage in the South Side. It’s been boarded up for twenty years.”

Luca stared at the words, the anger in his eyes slowly shifting into something else. Realization.

“My father grew up at Saint Jude’s,” Luca whispered. “Before he built the company, before he met your grandmother… he was an orphan there.”

“So was the man in the photo,” I deduced. “They were brothers. Not by blood, but by circumstance.”

“Which means this isn’t just business,” Luca said, pulling his jacket on. “This is a family feud. A real one.”

Ten minutes later, leaving a heavily fortified detail around Anna, my mother, and the children, Luca and I were back in the SUV.

The rain had stopped, leaving a heavy, suffocating fog rolling off Lake Michigan.

Luca drove with terrifying precision, his face illuminated only by the dashboard lights.

“I told you to stay out of this,” Luca said quietly, gripping the steering wheel. “I should have left you at the house with your mother.”

“He asked for me, Luca,” I reminded him. “If I didn’t come, he’d kill Michael.”

“He might kill Michael anyway.”

We pulled up to the rusted iron gates of Saint Jude’s Orphanage. The building was a massive, gothic brick structure, its windows boarded up with rotting wood, ivy crawling up the decaying walls like dark veins.

Luca parked the car and killed the engine.

He didn’t hand me a gun this time. Instead, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a heavy steel combat knife, sliding it into the sheath on his belt.

“Stay close,” he ordered.

We forced the rusted front doors open. The smell of mildew and rotting wood hit us instantly. Our flashlights cut through the thick darkness, illuminating overturned desks and shattered glass.

“He said West Wing,” I whispered.

We moved silently down the main corridor.

As we approached the heavy oak doors of the West Wing, a flicker of candlelight glowed from beneath the crack.

Luca kicked the doors open, leading with his weapon drawn.

The room was the old orphanage chapel. Rows of rotting pews faced a broken stone altar.

Sitting in the front pew, his hands bound behind his back with zip ties, was Michael. He looked bruised, but alive.

Standing at the altar, calmly lighting a row of white candles, was a man in his late sixties. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit. His hair was entirely white, brushed back sharply.

He turned around.

It was the man from the photograph. Older, weathered, but his eyes were exactly the same. Cold, calculating, and completely devoid of fear.

“Ah,” the man said softly. “Luca. And little Emily. You’re right on time.”

“Let my brother go, Julian,” Luca said, using a name I hadn’t heard before.

The man smiled. “You remember my name. I’m touched. Your father told me you had a good memory.”

“I remember you sitting in my house playing chess while my father built an empire,” Luca spat. “I remember you vanishing the day he died.”

Julian chuckled, walking slowly down the altar steps. “I didn’t vanish, Luca. I was pushed out. Just like Silvio. But unlike Silvio, I wasn’t stupid enough to try and extort you for money.”

“Then what do you want?” I demanded, stepping forward.

Julian looked at me, his eyes dropping to the emerald necklace resting on my chest.

“I want what was promised to me,” Julian said. “Forty years ago, Thomas and I made a pact in this very room. We swore we would build the Moretti family together. We swore we would share everything.”

Julian reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, ornate silver lighter.

“But Thomas got greedy,” Julian continued, flicking the lighter open. “He kept the company. He kept the wealth. And worst of all, he kept Clara.”

My breath caught. “You loved my grandmother?”

Julian’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second before hardening into ice. “I loved her first. I introduced them. And Thomas stole her from me, just like he stole everything else.”

He pointed the lighter toward a trail of clear liquid I hadn’t noticed on the floor.

Gasoline.

“Silvio killed Thomas because of money,” Julian said quietly. “But I am going to erase the Moretti legacy because of a broken promise. Starting with Thomas’s precious sons. And ending with the granddaughter who wears the necklace that should have belonged to my bride.”

Julian dropped the lighter.

The gasoline ignited with a deafening WHOOSH, a wall of fire instantly erupting between us and Michael.