Chapter 6 - THE GHOSTS OF TAYLOR STREET
The main dining room of the restaurant felt entirely different now. The warm nostalgia of the corner table had been swallowed by the suffocating presence of Don Roberto.
Luca walked up the cellar stairs first, keeping himself firmly between his uncle and the rest of us. I followed closely, my arm wrapped tightly around Teresa, who was trembling but kept her chin held high. Enzo brought up the rear, his face a mask of quiet stoicism.
Vanessa was still on the floor, weeping silently, her red silk gown ruined with dust and dirt.
Roberto sat down heavily in one of the wooden chairs in the center of the room. He leaned both hands on his silver-tipped cane, his dark, calculating eyes watching Luca drop the leather ledger onto a nearby table.
“Your father was a complicated man, Luca,” Roberto rumbled. “He hid things from me. He hid things from the commission. And he hid this.”
Roberto tapped his cane against the floorboards.
“I knew Arthur Bellini was a rat,” Roberto continued. “I’ve known for twenty years. But in our world, suspicion is a ghost. You need paper to make a grave. Your father had the paper, but he chose to bury it to protect that woman.”
Roberto’s cold eyes snapped toward me.
My breath caught in my throat. I pulled Teresa slightly behind me.
“Hannah’s mother saved my life, Uncle,” Luca said, his voice hard as steel. He stepped into Roberto’s line of sight, blocking his view of me. “My father paid a debt of honor. I will continue to pay it.”
Roberto chuckled softly. It was a terrifying sound.
“Honor is expensive, nephew. Sarah Collins took a bullet, yes. But keeping her hidden, paying her bills under the table, holding onto this deed instead of bringing it to me? That cost us territory. It cost us power.”
Vanessa suddenly lifted her head from the floor. Her mascara was smeared, her face twisted in desperate panic.
“I can help you get it back, Don Roberto!” she cried, crawling toward him. “My father’s accounts, his contacts… I know where everything is. You need me! Luca is weak! He wants to play house with the maid and the old woman. Let me serve you!”
Luca looked at her in absolute disgust.
“You sold out your own father to save your skin,” Luca said.
Vanessa glared at him. “My father left me here to die! I’m surviving, Luca. It’s what you should have done instead of digging up the past.”
She reached into her cleavage and pulled out a small, black velvet box. She snapped it open, revealing the massive, five-carat diamond engagement ring Luca had given her.
“Take it,” Vanessa spat, tossing the box onto the table next to the ledger. “I only wore it because my father forced me to. I hated every second I spent in your house, listening to your mother babble in her peasant language.”
Teresa’s eyes hardened. The fear that had gripped her all night suddenly vanished, replaced by the fiery pride of a Sicilian matriarch.
Teresa walked forward. I tried to stop her, but she pulled away from my grasp.
She walked right up to Vanessa.
Smack.
The sound of Teresa’s hand connecting with Vanessa’s cheek echoed like a gunshot in the empty restaurant.
Vanessa gasped, clutching her face in shock.
“You do not speak of my home,” Teresa said, her English suddenly sharp and flawless. “You do not speak of my husband. And you do not speak of this girl.”
Teresa pointed a shaking finger at me.
“This girl works ten hours a day to keep her mother alive. She has more honor in her dirty apron than you have in your entire bloodline.”
Roberto watched the exchange with mild amusement. He tapped his cane again.
“Enough,” Roberto said. “Vanessa Bellini, you have no value to me. Your father is currently locked in the trunk of a car at the bottom of the Chicago River. His assets belong to the family now.”
Vanessa let out a hollow, agonizing scream and buried her face in her hands.
“Enzo,” Roberto commanded.
The old man stepped forward.
“Take the trash out,” Roberto said casually, waving a hand toward Vanessa.
Enzo grabbed Vanessa by the arm, hauling her to her feet with surprising strength for an old man. She didn’t fight back. She was completely broken. Enzo dragged her toward the back door, tossing her out into the cold alleyway before locking the deadbolt behind her.
Roberto turned his attention back to Luca.
“Now, nephew. The Bellinis are gone. The debt is settled. But we have a new problem.”
Luca crossed his arms. “We don’t have a problem, Uncle. The deed is yours. The territory is yours. Take it.”
“I intend to,” Roberto said. He stood up slowly. “But I cannot leave loose ends. The secret of this ledger is out. The girl knows.”
Roberto pointed his cane directly at my chest.
“Sarah Collins survived,” Roberto said coldly. “She is a witness to a mafia hit. She knows what Arthur Bellini did. And now her daughter knows, too.”
Luca’s posture shifted. He dropped his hand into his coat pocket.
“Don’t touch her, Roberto.”
Roberto’s eyes narrowed. “You would draw a weapon on your own blood for a housekeeper?”
“She isn’t just a housekeeper,” Luca said, stepping closer to me. “She is under my protection. Her mother is under my protection. If you want them, you have to go through me.”
The tension in the room skyrocketed. I could hear the faint click of Roberto’s bodyguards drawing their weapons in the shadows.
Then, Teresa spoke.
“Roberto,” she said quietly.
She reached into her purse. Roberto’s men raised their guns, but Roberto held up a hand to stop them.
Teresa pulled out a small, crumbling piece of paper. It looked like an old receipt.
She walked over and placed it on the table next to the ledger.
“Do you know what this is, Roberto?” Teresa asked.
Roberto squinted at it. “It’s a pawn shop ticket.”
“From twenty-five years ago,” Teresa said. “The day after the hit. The day we had no money to pay the doctor who dug the bullet out of Sarah’s spine in secret.”
She looked Roberto dead in the eye.
“My husband didn’t have the cash. So he pawned something to pay the doctor.”
Roberto’s face suddenly went pale.
“Teresa… what did he pawn?”
“Look at the ticket, Roberto,” Teresa whispered.
Roberto leaned forward and read the faded ink.
His eyes widened in absolute shock.
He slowly looked up at me, then at Teresa, then back at the pawn ticket.
“He pawned the Don’s ring,” Roberto choked out.
“Yes,” Teresa said. “He pawned your father’s ring. To save Sarah Collins.”
Teresa took a step closer to the terrifying mafia boss.
“And do you know who went to the pawn shop and bought it back ten years later?” Teresa asked, her voice echoing with devastating power. “Sarah Collins did. She bought back your family’s honor. And she mailed it to you.”
Roberto stared at his own right hand, where a massive gold signet ring rested on his finger.
The ring he had worn proudly for fifteen years. The ring he thought had been recovered by his men.
He slowly looked at me, the terrifying glare melting into something resembling profound respect.
“Your mother…” Roberto whispered.
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
Roberto slammed his cane on the floor.
“Guns down!” he roared to his men in the shadows.
He looked at Luca.
“The girl and her mother are untouchable,” Roberto declared. “For as long as I draw breath.”
I let out a shuddering breath, my legs nearly giving out.
But just as the overwhelming relief washed over me, Enzo walked back into the dining room from the kitchen.
He was carrying a heavy, wooden crate covered in thick dust. It was branded with the Moretti family crest.
“Luca,” Enzo said quietly, setting the crate heavily on a nearby table. “Before your father died, he told me to give this to you when the Bellini threat was finally dead.”
May you like
Enzo handed Luca a small pry bar.
“He said it was time for you to learn what he really wanted for this family.”
