Chapter 6 - THE GRAVESTONE'S SECRET
The wrought-iron gates of St. Jude's Cemetery loomed in the gray afternoon mist.
It was a sprawling, ancient graveyard reserved for Chicago's wealthiest and most notorious families. The Moretti family plot sat at the highest point of the hill, a massive marble mausoleum surrounded by towering statues of grieving saints.
Matteo parked the stolen sedan behind a row of crypts to keep us out of sight.
I left Sophie sleeping in the backseat, locking the doors. I couldn't bear to bring her into the freezing rain among the dead.
Adrian led the way, his long black coat snapping in the wind. He walked with a heavy, purposeful stride, navigating the rows of headstones until we reached the Moretti plot.
He stopped in front of two graves set slightly apart from the main mausoleum.
The headstones were pristine white marble.
One read: Lucia Moretti. Beloved Wife and Mother.
The other, much smaller, read: Elena Moretti. Taken Too Soon.
Tears pricked my eyes as I stared at my own gravestone. It was a surreal, horrifying feeling to look at the spot where I was supposed to be buried.
Standing between the two graves was a life-sized stone angel. Its head was bowed in sorrow, and its right wing was cleanly snapped off near the shoulder.
The angel with the broken wing.
"Carlo had this statue commissioned after the fire," Adrian said bitterly, staring at the stone face. "He played the grieving brother-in-law perfectly. The broken wing was supposed to symbolize a family torn apart."
"How did my mother know about a statue built after she supposedly died?" I asked, pulling my jacket tighter against the cold.
"She must have come back," Matteo said, stepping up beside us, holding a crowbar. "She watched her own funeral from the shadows. She waited until the stone was set, and she hid the ledger."
Adrian took the crowbar from Matteo.
He didn't hesitate. He jammed the heavy iron bar into the small crevice between the angel's stone pedestal and the base of my fake gravestone.
With a sharp grunt, Adrian threw his weight against the bar.
The heavy stone base groaned, then cracked.
Adrian pushed harder. The marble slab shifted backward, revealing a dark, hollow cavity beneath the fake grave.
I held my breath.
Adrian reached his hand into the dark, damp earth.
When he pulled it out, he was holding a heavy object wrapped in layers of thick, waterproof oilcloth.
He set it on top of my gravestone and unwrapped it.
Inside was a thick, black leather-bound ledger.
It was pristine. Preserved perfectly against the elements for two decades.
Adrian flipped the book open. The pages were filled with Carlo's meticulous, arrogant handwriting.
"It's all here," Adrian whispered, his eyes scanning the columns of numbers and names. "Payoffs to judges. Bribes to the Mayor's office. The exact payment to the arsonist who provided the chemical accelerant for the nursery fire. He documented his own treason."
"This is a death warrant," Matteo said, a cruel smile touching his scarred face. "If the Commission in New York sees a single page of this, Carlo is a dead man."
"We don't have time to get this to New York," I said, panic rising as I remembered the phone call. "Carlo has Mrs. Higgins. He said if I don't bring him the ledger at midnight, he'll kill her."
Adrian slammed the book shut.
"You aren't taking it to him, Elena," Adrian said firmly. "Carlo doesn't want the ledger to destroy it. He wants to lure you out to execute you. He knows as long as you breathe, you're a threat to his claim on the family."
"But I have to!" I cried. "She's an innocent old woman! I can't let her burn because of my family's secrets!"
Adrian gripped my shoulders. "I won't let her die. But I will not trade my sister's life for hers. We go to the steel mill tonight. Together."
Suddenly, the sound of a twig snapping echoed through the quiet cemetery.
Matteo spun around, drawing both his revolvers in a flash of motion.
Standing ten yards away, stepping out from behind a massive oak tree, was Vanessa.
She was alone. She looked completely disheveled, her expensive coat muddy at the hem, her hair blowing wildly in the wind.
She raised her hands in surrender, her eyes wide with terror.
"Don't shoot!" Vanessa cried, taking a slow step forward. "Adrian, please. I came to help you."
"Help us?" Adrian sneered, raising his own weapon and pointing it directly at her chest. "You set my sister up. You hired her so Carlo could kill her. Why should I believe a word you say?"
Vanessa fell to her knees in the wet grass.
"Because Carlo is going to kill me too!" she sobbed, her composure entirely shattered. "After he found out you escaped last night, he went insane. He blamed me for letting you get away. He told his men that once he gets the ledger tonight, he's wiping the slate clean. That includes me."
I stared at her. The arrogant, cruel woman who had ripped the chair away from my five-year-old daughter was now begging for her life in the mud.
"Where is Carlo holding the old woman?" Matteo demanded, keeping his guns steady.
"He doesn't have her," Vanessa blurted out.
I froze. "What?"
"He doesn't have Mrs. Higgins," Vanessa repeated, looking frantically at me. "He sent men to her house, but she wasn't there. She had already left to visit her sister in Ohio. Carlo lied to you, Elena. He just needed bait to get you to the steel mill."
Relief washed over me so powerfully my knees buckled. Adrian caught me before I hit the ground. Mrs. Higgins was safe.
"If Carlo doesn't have a hostage," Adrian said, his eyes narrowing, "then he has nothing to bargain with."
"He has three dozen armed men waiting at the mill," Vanessa warned, wiping the rain from her face. "It's an ambush. If you walk in there tonight, you'll be slaughtered."
Adrian looked down at the black ledger resting on my gravestone.
"I'm not walking into his ambush," Adrian said softly. The dangerous, calculated mafia boss had fully returned. He looked at Vanessa. "You are going to walk in for me."
Vanessa paled. "He'll kill me the second he sees me."
"Not if you bring him exactly what he wants," Adrian said. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, heavy object.
It was his father's cracked silver pocket watch.
"You're going to give him this," Adrian instructed.
"A broken watch?" Vanessa stammered. "He wants the ledger!"
"He wants power," Adrian corrected. "And inside the casing of that watch is the one thing Carlo desires more than my death."
Adrian popped the back of the watch open, revealing a tiny, hidden micro-SD card glued to the metal.
"What is that?" I asked.
Adrian looked at me, a cold fire in his eyes.
"It's the digital access codes to the entire Moretti family offshore fortune," Adrian revealed. "Two billion dollars. Untraceable."
May you like
Matteo gasped. "You're giving Carlo the entire empire?"
"I'm giving him the bait," Adrian said darkly. "Because once he logs into that account, every alarm in the New York Commission's headquarters will ring. They'll know exactly where he is. And they'll send their own executioners."
