Chapter 11 - THE INHERITANCE
The tension in Luca’s private study was thick enough to cut with a knife.
The clock on the wall ticked past 2:00 AM.
“Ten million dollars,” I repeated, pacing the Persian rug. “You’re telling me Antonio Moretti had ten million dollars hidden in cash, and he never told anyone?”
Luca was pouring over old architectural blueprints of the estate spread across his mahogany desk.
“He didn’t trust the banks, and he didn’t trust the Commission,” Luca explained, tracing a finger along the faded blue lines. “When I was twelve, he told me that if the family ever faced total ruin, I was to ‘look to the foundation of our faith.’ I thought it was just a metaphor. But after what happened with the garden statue, I’m starting to think literally.”
My mother sat quietly in a leather armchair by the fire, her emerald gown catching the flickering light. She looked exhausted, but her mind was sharp.
“The foundation of our faith,” she murmured.
She looked up. “Sarah, when you were little, where did I take you every Sunday morning?”
“The chapel,” I answered immediately.
The Moretti estate had a private, centuries-old stone chapel on the edge of the property, built by Luca’s great-grandfather. It was rarely used anymore.
Luca looked at the blueprints.
“The chapel isn’t on these maps,” he said, his brow furrowing. “It’s older than the main house.”
“Antonio spent hours in there,” my mother said softly. “He said it was the only place he could find peace. The week before he died, he had contractors out there. He told me they were fixing the plumbing, but there is no plumbing in that old building.”
Luca grabbed a flashlight and a crowbar from the supply closet.
“Let’s go.”
The night air was bitterly cold as we crossed the grounds toward the chapel. The heavy wooden doors creaked loudly as Luca pushed them open.
Inside, it was damp and smelled of ancient dust and melted wax. Rows of wooden pews led up to a simple marble altar.
We searched for nearly an hour. We checked behind paintings, under the pews, and tapped on the stone walls, listening for hollow spaces.
Nothing.
“It’s not here,” Luca said, throwing the crowbar onto a pew in frustration. “We’re running out of time. Carmela’s men are probably already setting up a perimeter.”
I stood near the altar, looking down at the intricate mosaic tile floor.
“The foundation of our faith,” I whispered to myself.
I looked at the center of the mosaic. It depicted a large, golden cross.
“Luca,” I said, pointing to the floor. “Look at the tiles around the cross.”
He walked over, shining his flashlight on the ground.
The tiles forming the cross were seamlessly laid, but the grey stones bordering it had deep, uneven grout lines. They looked newer than the rest of the floor.
Luca wedged the crowbar into the thickest grout line. He pushed down with all his weight.
With a loud crack, a large rectangular section of the floor shifted.
Together, Luca and I pulled the heavy stone slab aside.
Beneath it was a dark, narrow stone staircase leading down into the earth.
“A crypt,” Luca breathed.
We slowly descended the stairs, the air growing colder with every step. At the bottom was a small, brick-lined room.
In the center of the room sat four large, military-grade steel lockboxes.
Luca used the crowbar to bust the padlock off the first box.
He threw open the lid.
It was packed to the brim with neatly bound stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
We opened the second, the third, and the fourth. All full of cash.
“It’s here,” I said, a wave of relief washing over me. “We can pay Carmela. We can end this.”
Luca stared at the money, but his expression wasn’t relieved. It was furious.
“No,” he said, his voice echoing in the small crypt.
“What do you mean, no?” I asked. “We have the money! If you pay her, she leaves us alone!”
“You don’t understand Carmela,” Luca said, slamming the lid of the box shut. “If I pay her, I validate her claim. I prove that my father was a thief. And worse, I show her that I can be intimidated. If I give her ten million today, she’ll be back for the estate tomorrow. And then she’ll come for you and Mary.”
“So what do we do?” my mother asked from the top of the stairs.
Luca reached into his jacket and pulled out a sleek, modern smartphone he had taken off one of Carmela’s guards earlier.
“We don’t pay a blackmailer,” Luca said, his eyes burning with cold determination. “We buy an army.”
He dialed a number on the phone.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“The Chicago Outfit has rivals,” Luca said. “Families Carmela has stepped on for years. With ten million dollars in untraceable cash, I can hire enough muscle by sunrise to wipe her faction off the map entirely.”
The phone connected. Luca began speaking rapidly in Italian to the man on the other end.
I looked at the boxes of money. It was enough to start a new life anywhere in the world. But instead, it was going to fund a war.
Suddenly, I noticed something sticking out from underneath the fourth steel box.
It was a piece of fabric.
I knelt down and pulled it free.
It was an old, torn piece of black wool. A scrap from a coat.
I held it up to the flashlight.
Stitched into the lining of the wool was a name tag.
Property of Dr. Arthur Vance.
My blood ran cold.
“Luca,” I whispered, interrupting his phone call.
He looked over, irritated, until he saw what I was holding.
“Dr. Vance was down here,” I said, my voice shaking. “He found this room years ago.”
Luca hung up the phone. He walked over and inspected the scrap of fabric.
Then he looked at the open box of money.
He reached in and grabbed a stack of hundreds. He ripped the paper binding off and rubbed the bills between his fingers.
He held one of the bills up to the light.
“Look at the watermark,” Luca whispered, his face draining of color.
I squinted.
There was no watermark. The ink was slightly blurred at the edges.
“It’s counterfeit,” Luca said, dropping the money as if it had burned him.
We opened all the boxes, checking stack after stack. It was all fake. Millions of dollars in worthless paper.
“Vance found the crypt,” I realized, the horror setting in. “He took the real money, replaced it with fakes to buy himself time, and ran.”
Luca backed away from the boxes, his chest heaving.
“We have no money,” Luca said. “And I just declared war on Carmela’s rivals to attack her. When they realize I can’t pay them...”
“They’ll join Carmela,” I finished. “And they’ll all come for us.”
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Before we could say another word, the heavy wooden doors of the chapel above us slammed shut with a boom that shook the foundation.
And then, we smelled the smoke.
