Chapter 3 – The Blood on the Altar

“Dad, don’t!” I screamed, throwing my body over Anthony.

A gunshot violently ruptured the air.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the burning impact of a bullet. But the pain never came.

Instead, a heavy weight crashed into me, knocking both Anthony and me to the cold marble floor.

I opened my eyes. Vincent was lying on top of us.

Blood was blooming rapidly across the shoulder of his immaculate white tuxedo shirt.

“Vincent!” I screamed, pressing my hands over the wound.

The chapel erupted into chaos. The federal agents drew their weapons, shouting orders. Celeste sprinted down the aisle, her badge raised, screaming for medical backup.

My father stood by the altar, staring at the smoking barrel of his derringer in shock. He hadn’t meant to shoot Vincent. He needed Vincent alive to run the syndicate.

But my mother didn’t hesitate.

With a guttural cry, Margaret fired her pistol.

The bullet struck my father in the leg. Richard collapsed to the floor with a howl of agony, dropping his weapon.

“Nobody moves!” Celeste yelled, kicking the derringer away from my father. She pointed her service weapon directly at Claire. “Put the SD card on the floor. Now.”

Claire was shaking uncontrollably, staring at the blood pooling under Vincent. She slowly knelt and placed the velvet box on the marble.

“Mom!” Anthony cried out, pulling me out from under Vincent’s heavy frame.

My son’s hands were covered in his father’s blood. The boy who had just learned his entire life was a business transaction was now pressing his jacket against his father’s chest, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Anthony,” Vincent gasped, his face draining of color. He reached up with a trembling hand and grabbed Anthony’s collar. “Listen to me.”

“Don’t talk, Dad, just hold still!” Anthony begged, tears streaming down his face.

“The card,” Vincent choked out, coughing up a speck of blood. “The card Claire found. It’s not just the ledger.”

I knelt beside him, my heart breaking despite everything he had done. “Vincent, please, save your strength.”

“Evelyn, listen to me!” he rasped, his grip on Anthony tightening. “Your father… he didn’t just want Anthony for the name. He needed him for the bloodline.”

I frowned, confusion cutting through my panic. “What bloodline?”

Vincent looked at my mother, who was standing over my bleeding father, keeping her gun trained on him.

“Margaret,” Vincent whispered. “Tell them.”

My mother closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Richard isn’t your biological father, Evelyn.”

The room seemed to stop spinning. The shouts of the federal agents faded into static.

“What?” I breathed.

My father groaned from the floor, clutching his bleeding thigh. “Shut up, Margaret! You swore!”

“I swore to protect my daughter!” she yelled back. She looked at me, her eyes filled with decades of suppressed pain. “Before I met Richard, I was married to the head of the Lucchese family in New York. You are a Lucchese, Evelyn. Anthony is the only living male heir to the biggest crime syndicate on the East Coast.”

I stared at her, completely paralyzed.

“Richard married me to get access to you,” my mother cried. “He forced Vincent to marry you to produce an heir. Anthony isn’t just a bargaining chip, Evelyn. He’s the key to merging the Chicago and New York families.”

I looked at my son. My sweet, smart boy who wanted to study architecture at Northwestern. He was the unwitting prince of two mafia empires.

“That’s why I hid the card in his room,” Vincent gasped, his eyes rolling back slightly. “It contains the proof of Richard’s plan. And the adoption papers.”

“Adoption papers?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“I legally adopted Anthony when he was born,” Vincent smiled weakly. “Under a different name. To a trust in Switzerland. Richard can never claim him. He’s safe.”

Vincent’s eyes fluttered shut, his hand falling limply to the floor.

“Vincent!” I screamed, shaking his shoulders. “Vincent, wake up!”

Paramedics burst through the chapel doors, swarming over us. They pulled me away from his body, barking medical codes.

I stood numbly against the pews, holding Anthony as he sobbed into my shoulder.

Celeste walked over to me. She had the velvet box in her hand. Her face was a mask of professional stoicism, but her hands were shaking.

“He’s going to make it,” Celeste said quietly, though she didn’t sound sure.

She pressed the velvet box into my hand.

“Take this,” she whispered.

I looked down at it. “You’re the FBI. You need this for evidence.”

“I need Vincent alive,” Celeste corrected, her voice thick with emotion. “And as long as the Bureau has that card, Richard’s men will hunt you and your son to the ends of the earth to get it back.”

She closed my fingers over the box.

“Go to the safe house,” Celeste instructed. “The address is on the back of the card. Wait for me there.”

Before I could ask what she meant, a federal agent shouted from the doorway.

“Agent Vargas! We have a problem!”

Celeste turned.

Walking through the chapel doors were six men in tailored black suits. They weren’t feds. And they weren’t my father’s men.

The man in the front had silver hair and a deep scar across his jaw. He looked directly at Anthony.

“Hello, Nephew,” the man smiled coldly. “New York sends its regards.”

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