Chapter 7 – THE CHILD’S DRAWING

“Let me help you with your jacket, Mr. Moretti,” I said, my voice eerily calm as I stepped up behind him.

Luca turned slightly, supporting Arthur’s weight. “Thank you, Rebecca. It’s ruined anyway.”

As I pulled the torn, ruined suit jacket from his broad shoulders, my fingers deftly slipped into the side pocket.

I palmed the folded piece of child’s drawing paper and slid it into my sleeve.

“I’ll carry this to the car,” I said, draping the jacket over my arm.

Luca nodded. “Help your mother. Marco’s loyalists might still be watching the estate. We need to move.”

We walked out into the freezing October rain. The storm had broken into a torrential downpour. Luca loaded Arthur into the backseat of the armored SUV, then helped my mother in beside him.

“I’ll secure Vanessa in the other vehicle,” Luca said, wiping rain from his face. “Get in. Lock the doors.”

He walked back toward the mansion.

The second he was out of sight, I scrambled into the driver’s seat and locked all the doors.

I turned on the dome light and pulled the folded paper from my sleeve.

My mother leaned forward from the backseat, her face pale. “Rebecca, what is that?”

I unfolded it.

It was a drawing done in bright crayons. A little boy standing next to a tall man in a dark suit. Above them, written in messy, six-year-old handwriting:

To Uncle Tony. Love, Leo.

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

“Uncle Tony,” I whispered.

My older brother, Tony, was a Chicago police detective. He had died in a supposed gang shootout five years ago, leaving behind his wife and baby Leo.

I looked at the bloodstains on the edge of the paper.

Then I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the police badge my mother had given me.

Badge number 4092.

I flipped it over.

Engraved on the back was a name.

Detective Anthony Collins.

I stopped breathing.

My brother wasn’t dead.

He was the detective who had broken into Pier 9 tonight. He had faked his death five years ago to go deep undercover and build a RICO case against the Moretti family.

And Luca had just murdered him.

“Mom,” I choked out, tears of absolute agony blurring my vision. “Mom, the detective at the pier… it was Tony.”

My mother stared at the badge, then at the drawing.

A horrifying wail tore from her throat. It was the sound of a mother’s soul breaking in half.

“No!” she sobbed, hitting her chest. “No, it was too dark! He was wearing a mask! He told me to run! He didn’t tell me it was him!”

Tony had died saving our mother, entirely unrecognized by her.

“He’s a monster,” I wept, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “Luca killed him.”

I looked through the rain-streaked windshield.

Luca was walking out of the mansion, dragging a handcuffed Vanessa by the arm. He opened the trunk of his second SUV and shoved her inside, slamming it shut.

He turned and started walking toward our vehicle.

“He’s going to take us to Zurich,” I said, my voice hardening into something cold and unrecognizable. “He’s going to force me to sign for the Bellini money, and then he’s going to kill us too.”

“Rebecca, what do we do?” Arthur asked weakly from the back.

I looked at the dashboard.

The keys were in the ignition.

I wasn’t a mafia princess. I wasn’t a killer.

But I was a sister. And I was a daughter.

“Hold on,” I said.

I shifted the heavy SUV into drive.

Luca stopped walking as he heard the engine roar. He looked up, his expression shifting to confusion, then alarm.

He raised his hand, shouting something over the rain.

I slammed my foot on the gas.

The armored SUV leaped forward, three tons of steel surging directly toward the boss of the Chicago underworld.

Luca dove to the side at the last possible second.

The side mirror clipped his shoulder, spinning him violently onto the wet gravel.

I didn’t look back. I tore through the ruined iron gates, speeding into the dark, flooding streets of the city.

“Where are we going?” my mother cried, clutching the door handle.

“To the police,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I have the badge. I have the drawing. We are going to end the Moretti family tonight.”

I drove frantically for twenty minutes, checking the rearview mirror constantly. No headlights were following us.

We were safe.

I pulled up to the 14th District Police Precinct. The blue lights glowed like a beacon of hope in the storm.

I threw the SUV into park and jumped out.

“Stay here,” I told my mother and Arthur.

I ran through the rain, bursting through the double doors of the precinct.

The front desk sergeant looked up, startled by my soaked, desperate appearance.

“I need to report a murder!” I slammed the bloodstained badge onto the counter. “Detective Anthony Collins was just murdered by Luca Moretti at Pier 9!”

The sergeant stared at the badge.

He didn’t look shocked. He looked annoyed.

He slowly picked up his radio.

“Captain,” the sergeant said quietly. “We have a problem in the lobby.”

A door behind the desk opened.

A tall, broad-shouldered man in a sharp suit walked out.

He looked down at me.

It was Marco.

Share