Chapter 11 - THE SHADOW-BOOK
The phone went dead.
I stared at the black van on the security monitor. The three men in tactical gear were already attaching something metallic and heavy to the center of the steel security shutter.
Breaching charges.
They were going to blow the front of the restaurant wide open.
My mind raced. Luca and Matteo were trapped. Vanessa was going to kill them as soon as she got the book. If I stayed inside, we would all die in the blast. If I went outside with the book, she would kill Luca anyway.
“Hannah?”
I spun around. My mother was standing in the doorway of the back office, leaning heavily on her cane. Teresa was right behind her, holding young Leo’s hand.
“What is happening?” Teresa asked, her voice tight with fear.
“Vanessa has Luca,” I said, my voice trembling but my resolve hardening. “Her men are outside.”
Teresa gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth.
I looked at the locked, leather-bound shadow-book sitting on the bar counter.
“I have to give it to them,” I said.
“No!” Matteo’s voice echoed in my memory. Whoever holds it controls the city. If Vanessa got that book, she wouldn’t just kill Luca. She would rebuild her father’s empire and slaughter anyone who stood in her way.
I stared at the silver lock on the binding.
An idea—a desperate, reckless, terrifying idea—flashed into my mind.
I grabbed a heavy kitchen knife from the prep station behind the bar.
“Mom, Teresa, take Leo down into the cellar. Lock the trapdoor from the inside. Do not come up until you hear Luca’s voice.”
“Hannah, what are you going to do?” my mother cried, limping toward me.
“I’m going to buy Luca some time,” I said.
I wedged the tip of the kitchen knife under the silver lock on the shadow-book. I slammed the heel of my hand against the handle. The blade snapped, but the cheap silver lock splintered and broke open.
I ripped the cover back.
The pages were filled with names, dates, and bank account numbers. It was decades of mafia corruption.
I grabbed a fistful of the pages and tore them out.
“Hannah!” Teresa shrieked.
I ran to the industrial sink behind the bar, threw the ripped pages in, and turned on the hot water. The ink began to bleed immediately.
I tore out another handful. And another.
“Go to the cellar! Now!” I screamed.
My mother didn’t argue this time. She grabbed Teresa and Leo, and they rushed into the kitchen. I heard the heavy thud of the trapdoor slamming shut, followed by the metallic clink of the lock.
I grabbed the ruined, soaking wet pages from the sink, shoved them back into the leather binding, and slammed the book shut.
I checked the monitor. Ten seconds.
I took a deep breath, grabbed the ruined shadow-book, and ran to the front door.
I unlocked the deadbolt and hit the button to raise the steel shutters.
The heavy metal groaned as it rolled upward.
Before it was even halfway up, two laser sights cut through the darkness and pinned themselves directly to my chest.
“Don’t move!” a voice barked from the sidewalk.
I stood frozen in the doorway, holding the dripping leather book up in the cold night air.
“I have the book!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the brick buildings. “Call Vanessa! Tell her I want to make a deal!”
The lead mercenary scoffed. He kept his rifle aimed at my heart while pulling a radio from his vest.
“We don’t make deals with maids,” he sneered. “Toss the book.”
“Call her!” I screamed, stepping entirely out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk. “If you shoot me, you’ll be wiping this book off the pavement. Tell her if she doesn’t put Luca on the phone right now, I throw it down the storm drain!”
I took two steps to my left, standing directly over the iron grate of the street sewer. I dangled the heavy leather book over the dark abyss.
The mercenary hesitated. He knew Vanessa wanted this book intact.
He keyed his radio. “Boss. The girl has the book. She’s threatening to dump it in the sewer if she doesn’t speak to Moretti.”
A moment of static crackled.
Then, Vanessa’s furious voice came through the mercenary’s radio, loud enough for me to hear.
“Put the phone on speaker,” Vanessa snarled.
The mercenary pulled out a cell phone, tapped the screen, and held it up.
“Hannah,” Vanessa’s voice hissed over the speaker. “You think you’re brave? I have Luca on his knees with a gun to his head.”
“Let me hear him,” I demanded.
A second of silence. Then, a heavy thud, followed by a groan.
“Hannah?” Luca’s voice crackled through the phone. He sounded breathless, in pain, but alive. “Don’t give it to them. Run.”
“I’m right here, Luca,” I said, tears pricking my eyes.
“How touching,” Vanessa interrupted. “Now, drop the book on the sidewalk and step back, or I pull the trigger.”
“I opened it, Vanessa,” I said, my voice turning to ice.
Silence on the other end of the line.
“What did you say?” Vanessa whispered.
“I broke the lock,” I said, making sure my voice carried clearly over the phone. “I read the first three pages. I know the names. I know the accounts. I know which judges your father was paying off.”
“You’re lying,” Vanessa snapped.
“Am I?” I shot back. “The judge presiding over the waterfront zoning permits. Honorable Thomas Vance. Account number 884-219.”
I had memorized it in the three seconds before I threw the page into the sink.
Vanessa sucked in a breath.
“If you kill Luca,” I yelled into the night, “I’ll tell the police everything. I’ll tell the FBI. I’ll burn your father’s legacy to the ground before you even get your hands on it. You bring Luca and Matteo to this restaurant right now, and you can have the book. That’s the trade.”
The mercenaries on the sidewalk shifted uncomfortably, waiting for orders.
“You stupid girl,” Vanessa said softly over the phone. “You just signed your own death warrant. Don’t move.”
The phone clicked dead.
I stood over the sewer grate, shivering in the cold wind, the ruined book heavy in my hand. I had played my only card. If she realized the book was destroyed, she would kill us all.
Five excruciating minutes passed.
Then, headlights slashed through the darkness at the end of the street.
A black SUV sped down Taylor Street, screeching to a halt right next to the mercenaries’ van.
The back doors flew open.
Matteo was shoved out first, his hands zip-tied behind his back, a nasty cut bleeding above his eye.
Then, Luca was dragged out. His white shirt was torn and stained with blood, but he was on his feet, his eyes instantly locking onto mine.
Vanessa stepped out of the passenger side, a silver pistol gleaming in her hand. She looked manic, her hair wild, her eyes blazing with desperate greed.
“There,” Vanessa spat, pointing the gun at Luca’s spine. “You see him. Now give me the book.”
“Let them walk over to me first,” I said, gripping the book tighter.
“Walk,” Vanessa barked.
Luca and Matteo stumbled across the pavement. The moment Luca reached me, he stepped in front of my body, shielding me from the mercenaries.
“You shouldn’t have done this, Hannah,” Luca whispered, his chest heaving.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I whispered back.
Vanessa stormed up to us, stopping five feet away. She held out her free hand.
“The book. Now.”
I took a deep breath.
I tossed the heavy leather book onto the pavement at her feet.
Vanessa’s eyes lit up with triumph. She holstered her gun and dropped to her knees, frantically grabbing the ledger.
She ripped the cover open.
Her smile vanished instantly.
She stared at the clump of soaked, bleeding, illegible ink and torn paper.
“What is this?” Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling with rising hysteria. “What did you do?!”
She clawed at the wet pages, but they fell apart in her hands, turning into worthless mush. The evidence. The leverage. Her entire ticket back to power. Destroyed.
Vanessa looked up at me, her face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
“Kill them!” Vanessa screamed to the mercenaries. “Kill them all!”
The three men raised their assault rifles.
But before a single trigger could be pulled, a booming voice echoed from the shadows of the alleyway beside the restaurant.
“I wouldn’t do that, boys.”
The mercenaries froze.
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From the darkness of the alley, a dozen men stepped out into the streetlights. They were all wearing tailored suits. They were all holding shotguns.
And walking slowly down the center of the street, leaning heavily on his silver-tipped cane, was Don Roberto.
