Chapter 10 – THE GHOST IN THE COAT

“That’s impossible.”

Luca’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble. He released my shoulders and stepped back, his eyes searching my face for any sign of hysteria. “Michael is dead, Melissa. The Bellini hit squad killed him in the alley. I saw the police report.”

“I know what I saw!” I cried out, my voice echoing in the grand hallway. The shattered plates and ruined sandwiches lay at our feet, ignored. “It was him, Luca! He was wearing our father’s old black trench coat. The one he took when he left home at eighteen. I saw his face.”

Luca stared at me for a long moment. Then he pulled his radio from his belt.

“Vito. Check the perimeter cameras. Sector four, the back gardens. Tell me exactly what you see.”

Static crackled. Then Vito’s tense voice replied, “Boss… the cameras in sector four went dark two minutes ago. Someone cut the hardline.”

Luca’s expression turned to stone. “Double the guard on Mason’s door. Shoot anyone who comes up the stairs who isn’t me.”

He grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”

He pulled me down the hallway, away from Mason’s room, and pushed me into his private study. He locked the heavy double doors and walked over to his desk, pulling a massive, locked ledger from the bottom drawer.

“If your brother is alive,” Luca said, flipping through the pages with frantic precision, “it means the phone call you received last week was staged.”

“Staged?” I asked, my mind reeling. “But I heard the gunshot! He said he was running from the Bellinis!”

“And conveniently told you exactly where to find Elena’s diary,” Luca murmured, his finger tracing a line of old transactions. “A diary that just happened to incriminate my father, removing the only man powerful enough to stop a hostile takeover of Chicago.”

The air in the room suddenly felt too thin to breathe. “Are you saying… Michael set your father up?”

“I’m saying Michael Carter wasn’t just a mechanic for the Rossis,” Luca said, looking up at me with a terrifying clarity. “Look at this.”

He spun the ledger around. It was a list of old payouts from the Castiglione family—the family of The Viper—dated twenty years ago.

At the bottom of the page, circled in red ink, was a name.David Carter. Mechanic.

“My father,” I whispered, touching the page.

“Your father didn’t just fix cars for the Rossis,” Luca said softly. “He built the armored vehicles for the Castigliones. He was their chief engineer. When my father wiped out the Castigliones twenty years ago, your father went into hiding. He faked his death in that garage fire.”

“No,” I shook my head, stepping backward. “My dad died. I went to the funeral. I saw the casket.”

“A closed casket,” Luca said gently. “Melissa, your brother didn’t move to Seattle. He stayed in Chicago to finish what your father started. Michael isn’t a victim in this. Michael is The Viper.”

The room spun.

My older brother. The boy who used to buy me ice cream. The man who had called me crying for his life. He was a master assassin? He was the one trying to destroy the Morettis?

“If Michael is The Viper,” I stammered, the horror sinking into my bones, “why did he send the rosary to Mason? Why threaten a ten-year-old?”

Before Luca could answer, his radio cracked to life.

It wasn’t Vito’s voice.

It was a voice that made my blood freeze in my veins.

“Hello, little sister.”

I lunged for the radio on Luca’s belt. “Michael! What are you doing?!”

“I told you to run, Mel,” Michael’s voice echoed through the small speaker, calm, cold, and utterly terrifying. “I told you to get out of that house. You didn’t listen. You chose the Morettis. Just like Dad knew you would when you took this job.”

“Where are you?” Luca demanded, his hand gripping his weapon.

“I’m sitting in the security room, Luca,” Michael chuckled. “Vito is taking a nap. Along with the rest of your men. Your security system is a joke. I built the bypass for it three years ago when Vanessa hired me.”

Luca’s eyes went wide. He bolted for the study doors, unlocking them, and sprinted down the hallway toward Mason’s room. I ran right behind him.

“Michael, please!” I screamed into the hallway. “Don’t hurt Mason!”

“The debt must be paid, Mel,” Michael’s voice crackled on the radio. “Antonio Moretti took my childhood. He forced my father to fake his death and abandon us. An eye for an eye. A son for a son.”

We rounded the corner to Mason’s bedroom.

The two guards stationed outside the door were slumped on the floor, unconscious. Dart tranquilizers stuck out of their necks.

Luca kicked the bedroom door open.

“Mason!”

The room was empty.

The bed was unmade. The window was wide open, the rain blowing inside, soaking the carpet.

Mason was gone.

And resting on the boy’s pillow was a single, dark brown wooden bead.