Chapter 4 - THE MATCH IN THE DARK
“Get down!” Luca shouted.
He lunged forward, grabbing his mother and dragging her toward the back corner of the nursery just as a massive explosion rocked the first floor.
The blast sent a shockwave up the stairs, rattling the floorboards beneath our feet. Thick, acrid black smoke began pouring under the crack of the iron door.
“They’re burning the house,” I choked out, covering my mouth with my sleeve.
Luca pulled his gun from his shoulder holster. His eyes were wide, the calm mafia boss entirely replaced by a man fighting for his family’s survival.
“The windows,” Luca ordered, pointing to the boarded-up glass. “Hannah, help me.”
I rushed to the window. The wooden planks were nailed tight from the outside. Luca slammed the butt of his heavy pistol against the wood, splintering the frame, but it barely gave way.
The smoke was getting thicker. Teresa was coughing violently, sinking against the wall, clutching the blue baby blanket to her chest.
“Mom, stay low!” Luca yelled over the roaring flames downstairs.
He kicked the wooden boards again and again. His expensive dress shoes cracked the timber. With one final, brutal kick, the boards gave way, shattering the glass and letting in the freezing Chicago rain.
“Hannah, take my mother,” Luca ordered, lifting Teresa off the ground.
We were on the second floor. A wrought-iron fire escape led down to the alleyway. I climbed out first, the rain instantly soaking my uniform. I reached back and helped pull Teresa through the jagged window frame.
Luca climbed out last, just as the flames burst through the nursery floorboards, engulfing the crib in a terrifying wave of orange fire.
We hurried down the slippery metal stairs. The alley was dark and narrow.
“Keep moving,” Luca said, keeping himself between us and the street.
We reached the end of the alley. Luca’s black SUV was still parked at the curb, but his two guards were gone.
Lying on the wet asphalt, illuminated by the headlights, was one of his men. He was unconscious, a dark pool of blood mixing with the rain around his head.
Luca cursed under his breath. He aimed his weapon into the shadows.
“Get in the car,” he told me, tossing me the keys. “You drive.”
I didn’t argue. I unlocked the heavy doors, shoving Teresa into the back seat before climbing behind the wheel. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely press the ignition button.
The engine roared to life.
Suddenly, a figure stepped out from the shadows across the street.
It was a man in a long trench coat, holding a lit flare. The red light cast a demonic glow across his face.
He didn’t raise a weapon. He didn’t try to shoot us.
He simply looked directly at me through the windshield, smiled, and held up a small, framed photograph.
Even through the rain, I recognized it immediately.
It was a picture of my mother and my brother, Leo. The exact picture that sat on the mantle in my mother’s living room.
The man tossed the photograph onto the wet pavement, dropped the flare beside it, and disappeared into the darkness.
“Drive!” Luca yelled, jumping into the passenger seat.
I slammed my foot on the gas. The heavy SUV tore down the street, leaving the burning house behind.
I drove frantically for ten minutes, taking random turns to ensure we weren’t being followed. Finally, I pulled into an empty, dimly lit parking garage under an abandoned shopping center.
I threw the car into park, gripped the steering wheel, and burst into tears.
The adrenaline crashed. The reality of what I had just seen set in.
“Hannah,” Luca said, his voice surprisingly gentle in the quiet car. “Breathe.”
I shook my head, sobbing. “I can’t. They have my family.”
Teresa leaned forward from the back seat, her hands trembling. “Sweetheart, what do you mean? Who was that man in the alley?”
I turned around to face them. The interior lights of the SUV cast long shadows across their faces.
“The blanket,” I whispered, pointing to the blue fabric still clutched in Teresa’s hands. “The name on that blanket. It’s my little brother’s name.”
Luca stared at me. “Your brother? You told my staff your mother lived alone with a nurse.”
“She does now,” I cried. “Leo is eighteen. He’s away at college. But he was adopted. My mother brought him home when I was seven years old. She told me he was abandoned at the hospital where she worked as a pediatric nurse.”
Teresa covered her mouth. “A nurse... Oh, dear God.”
Luca turned fully in his seat. “Mom, what is it?”
“Your father,” Teresa whispered, her voice breaking. “When your father was diagnosed with his heart condition eighteen years ago, he spent a month at St. Jude’s Hospital. He told me there was a nurse who took special care of him. A woman he trusted with his life.”
The old woman looked at me, her eyes wide with a horrifying realization.
“He didn’t just trust her with his life, Hannah,” Teresa said. “He trusted her with that baby.”
The pieces fell together with devastating clarity.
Luca’s father hadn’t just hidden Vanessa’s baby in that old house. When he realized Vanessa was too dangerous, he had smuggled the child out entirely, giving him to the one person he knew would raise him safely: my mother.
“Why?” Luca asked, his voice hardening. “If Vanessa was pregnant, why would my father take her child? Whose baby was it?”
Before Teresa could answer, my cell phone vibrated violently in my apron pocket.
I pulled it out. The caller ID was blocked.
My hands shook as I answered it and put it on speaker.
“Hello?” I whispered.
“Hannah, darling.”
Vanessa’s voice drifted through the speakers, cold, sharp, and entirely in control.
“You’re a very loyal maid,” Vanessa said. “But you really should have stayed out of family business.”
Luca leaned closer to the phone. “Where is her family, Vanessa?”
Vanessa laughed. “Luca. My brave, foolish fiancé. Did you really think you could lock me in your dining room? I run the security in that house. I walked out five minutes after you left.”
“Where are they?” Luca repeated, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper.
“They’re safe. For now,” Vanessa replied smoothly. “Your father stole something from me eighteen years ago, Luca. He stole my leverage. And now, I’m taking it back.”
“Leverage?” Luca asked. “He was protecting a child. Whose child is it?”
The line went quiet for a moment.
When Vanessa spoke again, her words completely destroyed everything Luca believed about his family.
“Did your mother never tell you the truth about your father’s little heart condition, Luca?” Vanessa mocked. “It wasn’t a medical issue. He was dying because he was poisoned.”
Teresa let out a sharp gasp.
“And the man who poisoned him,” Vanessa continued, her voice dripping with venom, “was the head of the Chicago Commission. The most powerful mafia boss in the country.”
I looked at Luca. He was frozen.
“The child isn’t mine, Luca,” Vanessa whispered. “I was never pregnant. I was just the courier. Your father kidnapped the Commission Boss’s infant son to force a truce. He used me to hide him. But he double-crossed me and gave the boy away.”
My blood ran cold.
Leo wasn’t just an abandoned baby. He was the heir to the most violent crime syndicate in America.
“I have the boy now,” Vanessa said. “And I’m going to return him to his real father to secure my place at the head of the Commission. But to do that, I need the ledger your father kept—the one proving the boy’s bloodline.”
“I don’t have a ledger,” Luca said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, I know you don’t,” Vanessa laughed softly.
Then, the line crackled, and another voice came through the speaker. A voice that made my heart stop beating entirely.
“Hannah?” my mother cried out, terrified.
May you like
“Mom!” I screamed.
“Listen to me very carefully, Hannah,” Vanessa interrupted, her voice turning deadly. “Your mother knows exactly where the ledger is. Because she’s the one who hid it.”
