Chapter 7 – THE ROSARY LEFT BEHIND

The flashing red and blue lights of the police cruisers illuminated the train station. Paramedics rushed past me, lifting Daniel onto a stretcher. He was unconscious, clinging to life by a thread.

I sat on the cold tile floor, clutching the wooden rosary and the hidden note.

I survived. Meet me at the cathedral.

Answer one: Vanessa wasn’t dead. The blood, the collapse, the final words—it was a staged performance to fake her death and escape the syndicate’s wrath. The watch belonged to her, deliberately left behind as a breadcrumb.

Open two: Why did Vanessa want us to find her? And what cathedral was she talking about?

“Miss? Are you injured?” a police officer asked, shining a flashlight in my face.

I quickly shoved the rosary and note into my apron pocket. “No. I’m fine.”

I watched as officers led Uncle Marco away in handcuffs. Luca was speaking quietly to the police captain. As the head of a powerful family, Luca had politicians and captains on his payroll. He wasn’t going to jail tonight. He was spinning a story about a robbery gone wrong to protect the family’s true secrets.

Luca walked over to me. His arm had been bandaged by a medic, but he looked exhausted. The weight of his father’s sins, his sister’s betrayal, and his uncle’s treachery hung heavily on his broad shoulders.

“Daniel is in surgery,” Luca said quietly. “He has a fifty-fifty chance.”

“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, looking around to make sure no officers were listening. I pulled the wooden rosary from my pocket and pressed it into his hand.

Luca stared at the simple beads. A profound shock rippled across his face.

“This is Vanessa’s,” he breathed. “She prayed with this every night in the guest house when we were kids.”

A sudden reversal of emotion hit Luca. Hours ago, he believed Vanessa was a gold-digging monster. Then he learned she was a victim of his father. Then he watched her die saving us. Now, he realized she was a mastermind who had orchestrated her own violent exit.

“There was a note,” I whispered. “It said she survived. She wants us to meet her at the cathedral.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “Holy Name Cathedral. It’s where my father is buried. Where her father is buried in an unmarked grave.”

“Sir, the police think she’s dead,” I said. “If you go there, Marco’s remaining men might be waiting. It could be a trap.”

“I have to know, Emma,” Luca said, his eyes burning with unresolved torment. “I have to know why she went through all this just to disappear.”

He looked at me. “You should go home, Emma. I’ll have my driver take you. Your mother is probably terrified.”

I thought about my mother. I thought about my tiny, cramped apartment and the unpaid bills. I had survived a mafia shootout, uncovered murder plots, and held a dying man’s blood on my hands. Walking away was the smartest, safest thing to do.

But I looked at Luca. He was entirely alone. His sister was a murderer on the run. His uncle was a traitor. His father was a monster.

“I’m coming with you,” I said firmly.

Luca looked surprised, but he didn’t argue. He nodded once.

We slipped out a side door, bypassing the police perimeter, and got into Luca’s backup SUV.

The drive to Holy Name Cathedral was silent. The gothic spires of the church loomed against the dark Chicago sky, ominous and imposing. The massive wooden doors were unlocked.

We stepped inside. The cathedral was empty, illuminated only by rows of flickering prayer candles. The silence was heavy, broken only by the sound of our footsteps echoing off the stone floor.

We walked down the center aisle toward the altar.

Sitting in the front pew, wearing a long black trench coat over her blood-stained red dress, was Vanessa.

She turned around. She was pale, pressing a thick wad of gauze against her side, but she was very much alive.

“You found the rosary,” Vanessa said, offering a weak, sad smile.

Luca stopped ten feet away. “You wore a Kevlar vest under your dress. You knew Marco would shoot you.”

“I knew Marco was a coward who always aims for the chest,” Vanessa corrected softly. “The blood packs did the rest. I had to die tonight, Luca. It was the only way Marco would stop hunting me, and the only way the Commission would let me go.”

“Why call me here, Vanessa?” Luca asked, his voice thick with emotion. “You have your freedom. You have your life. Walk away.”

Vanessa stood up slowly, wincing in pain.

“Because I couldn’t leave without giving you this,” she said.

She reached into her black trench coat and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book.

It was the real ledger. The proof of the Moretti family’s illegal empire, the offshore accounts, the bribes, the blood money.

Escalation: Vanessa didn’t just want revenge. She possessed the power to dismantle the entire Chicago syndicate overnight.

“Take it,” Vanessa said, holding it out. “I spent twenty years planning to destroy your family with this book. I wanted to burn your legacy to the ground for what your father did to mine.”

Luca stared at the ledger. “Then why are you handing it to me?”

Vanessa looked at him, tears welling in her eyes.

“Because tonight, you took a bullet for a maid,” Vanessa whispered. “You shielded Emma with your own body. Your father would have used her as a human shield. You are not your father, Luca. The empire doesn’t have to be built on blood anymore.”

Luca reached out and took the heavy ledger.

“What will you do now?” Luca asked quietly.

“Disappear,” Vanessa said, pulling the collar of her coat up. “Start over. Somewhere Marco and the Commission can never find me.”

She turned to walk down the side aisle toward the exit.

But as she reached the heavy oak doors, they violently slammed open.

Standing in the doorway, blocking her exit, was Gianna.

Her hair was wild, her clothes stained with her husband’s blood. And she was pointing a fully loaded police shotgun—stolen from a squad car—directly at Vanessa’s chest.

“Nobody is disappearing tonight,” Gianna snarled.

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