Chapter 8 - THE RUSSIAN DEBT AND THE BOY IN THE BASEMENT
The cold wind whipped across the abandoned tarmac, howling through the tall cornstalks.
Luca lowered his gun from Clara’s forehead, but he didn’t put it away. He stared at the child’s drawing in Audrey’s trembling hands.
“Blood for blood,” Luca repeated, the words tasting like ash.
He knew exactly what it meant. Ten years ago, his father had waged a brutal turf war against the Chicago Bratva. Lives were lost on both sides. The peace treaty had been fragile, maintained only by strict borders.
Vanessa, in her desperate greed, had crossed those borders. She had promised them the boy as collateral for her gambling debts.
“Where did they take him, Clara?” Luca asked. His voice was no longer a shout. It was the calm, dead tone of a man preparing for war.
Clara sobbed on her knees. “I don’t know! They don’t tell me anything! I just broker the payments! Please, Luca, I was just trying to leave the country!”
“Marco,” Luca said, not looking at him. “Put her in the trunk. Deal with her later.”
Two men hauled a screaming Clara away.
Luca turned to his men. “Call every capo. Wake up the soldiers. If the Russians think they can take Moretti blood, we burn their half of the city to the ground tonight.”
The men scrambled, pulling out phones and racking shotguns.
But as the chaos erupted around us, I looked down at the child’s drawing.
Audrey was tracing the lines of the black wolf with her finger. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, and signed rapidly.
Emily. Look at the back of the paper.
I flipped the drawing over.
It was drawn on a piece of heavy, watermarked stationary. I held it up to the headlights of the SUV.
There was a faint logo printed at the top.
The Starlight Motel. Room 42.
“Mr. Moretti!” I shouted over the noise of the engines.
Luca spun around.
“Look at the paper,” I said, handing it to him. “This is hotel stationery. They didn’t take him to a safehouse. They took him to a cheap motel to wait for extraction.”
Marco looked over Luca’s shoulder. “Boss, The Starlight Motel is in Cicero. It’s less than twenty minutes from here. It’s a known Bratva transit hub.”
Luca’s eyes flared with a lethal, burning light.
“We go now,” he commanded.
I climbed back into the SUV with Audrey. The convoy tore out of the airfield, leaving the idling private jet behind in the dark.
The drive to Cicero was a terrifying blur. Luca was in the front seat, issuing quiet, deadly orders through his radio. He was coordinating a surgical strike. No police. No negotiations. Just sheer, overwhelming force.
We pulled into the parking lot of The Starlight Motel. It was a run-down, neon-lit dump surrounded by cracked asphalt and overflowing dumpsters.
“Stay in the car,” Luca ordered me and Audrey. “Keep your heads down.”
He racked his weapon and stepped out into the rain that had just begun to fall.
Marco and ten heavily armed men followed him. They moved like ghosts in the shadows, stacking up outside the door of Room 42 on the ground floor.
I watched through the rain-streaked window, my heart in my throat. Audrey gripped my hand so hard her nails dug into my skin.
Luca kicked the door.
It splintered inward with a deafening CRACK.
The men flooded into the room.
I heard shouts. The sound of a brief struggle, but no gunshots.
Two minutes later, Marco dragged two large, tattooed men out of the room by their collars, throwing them face-down onto the wet pavement and zip-tying their wrists.
But Luca didn’t come out.
I couldn’t wait anymore. I pushed the SUV door open.
“Emily, stay here!” the driver yelled, but I ignored him. Audrey followed right behind me.
We ran across the parking lot and stepped into the shattered doorway of Room 42.
The room was trashed. Mattresses overturned, lamps smashed.
In the corner, sitting on the dirty carpet, was Luca.
He had dropped his gun.
He was kneeling in front of a small closet door that had been ripped off its hinges.
Hiding inside the dark closet was a little boy.
He was six years old, wearing oversized pajamas. He looked exactly like the photograph, with dark hair and Luca’s piercing eyes.
But he was terrified. He was pressed as far back into the corner as he could go, his arms wrapped around his knees. In his small hands, he was clutching a worn, wooden rosary.
Luca reached a trembling hand out toward the boy.
“Leo,” Luca whispered, tears finally breaking free and spilling down his cheeks. “It’s okay. I’m your Uncle Luca. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The boy didn’t move. He looked at Luca’s dark suit, at the men with guns standing outside, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“My mom said the bad man would come,” Leo whimpered, his voice small and broken. He pointed a shaking finger directly at Luca. “She said the bad man in the suit would come take me away.”
Luca flinched as if he had been shot in the chest. Vanessa had poisoned the boy’s mind against him before he even knew the child existed.
Luca dropped his hand. He looked defeated, shattered.
Audrey stepped into the room.
She walked slowly past her brother and knelt on the dirty carpet right in front of the closet.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t reach for him.
She simply raised her hands and began to sign.
Hello, Leo.
The boy opened his eyes. He stared at Audrey’s hands.
He hesitated. Then, slowly, the little boy raised his own hands.
You know how to talk like my daddy? Leo signed back, his small fingers forming the words perfectly.
I gasped.
May you like
Matteo had taught him ASL before he died.
Audrey smiled through her tears. She signed, Yes. I am your daddy’s sister. And we are taking you home.
