Chapter 10 - THE VACUUM
I stared at the silver rosary on my bed, the black beads gleaming maliciously under the bedroom lamp.
We will see you soon, Sophie.
I spun around, scanning the shadows of my small apartment. My heart hammered against my ribs. Someone had been in my room while I was packing. Someone from the Commission—the shadowy syndicate of mafia bosses that ruled over all the families, including the Riccis and the Sterlings.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Matteo’s number. He answered on the first ring.
“Sophie?” His voice was low, laced with immediate concern. “Is everything okay with the flights?”
“Someone was in my apartment,” I said, my voice shaking. “They left a silver rosary on my bed. With a note.”
Silence stretched on the other end of the line. A terrifying, heavy silence.
“Lock your doors. Do not go near the windows,” Matteo ordered, his voice suddenly stripped of all the warmth from this morning, replaced by the lethal, calculating tone of a mafia boss. “I have two men stationed outside your building. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He hung up.
I ran to the living room where Leo was asleep on the couch. I checked the locks on the front door, my hands trembling violently.
Exactly five minutes later, a heavy knock echoed through the apartment.
“Sophie. It’s me.”
I unlocked the door, and Matteo stepped inside. He was wearing a dark trench coat over a black shirt, a gun visibly holstered at his chest. He didn’t look like the man who had bought an old woman a house this morning. He looked like a soldier preparing for war.
He walked straight to my bedroom and picked up the rosary. He read the note.
His jaw locked so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.
“Do you know who left it?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself to stop shaking.
“The Roselli family,” Matteo said grimly, crushing the note in his fist. “They run the New York syndicate. They sit at the head of the Commission.”
“Why are they threatening me?”
Matteo turned to face me. His dark eyes were filled with a mixture of rage and profound guilt.
“Because with Marcus gone, half of the Chicago territory is completely uncontrolled. A power vacuum. The Commission hates instability. They want someone to step in and absorb Marcus’s rackets. The gambling, the extortion, the ports.”
“They want you to do it,” I realized.
“Yes,” Matteo said. “If I take Marcus’s territory, I become the undisputed king of Chicago. It’s what I’ve spent my entire life preparing for. It’s what my father wanted.”
“But you don’t want it anymore,” I said softly.
Matteo looked at me, his walls dropping for a fraction of a second. “After everything I’ve learned… after seeing what this life did to my mother, to Camille, to Eleanor… I want out, Sophie.”
He took a step closer to me.
“But if I refuse the Commission,” Matteo whispered, “they will see it as weakness. They will send the Rosellis to take Chicago by force. And they will target anyone I care about to make me comply.”
He looked down at the rosary in his hand.
“They know about you, Sophie. They know you’re the reason I survived.”
“So what do we do?” I asked, trying to keep the panic from my voice.
“You go to Switzerland,” Matteo said firmly. “Tonight. I have a private jet waiting on the tarmac. You and Leo are leaving right now.”
“I’m not leaving you to fight a war alone!” I protested.
“You have to!” Matteo grabbed my shoulders, his eyes fierce. “Sophie, I can’t protect my city and protect you at the same time. If you stay, you’re a target. I need to know you are safe.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “When will you come back for us?”
Matteo swallowed hard. He reached up, his thumb gently tracing the line of my jaw. It was a heartbreakingly tender gesture from a man surrounded by violence.
“When the war is over,” he promised.
He leaned down and pressed his lips softly against my forehead. My eyes fluttered shut, memorizing the warmth of him, the scent of him, the feeling of his strong hands holding me together.
Two hours later, I was sitting on a private jet with Leo, watching the glittering skyline of Chicago shrink into the darkness.
I was safe. Leo was going to get his surgery. We had won.
But as I reached into my purse to find a tissue, my fingers brushed against something leather.
I pulled it out.
It was the charred journal. Matteo’s mother’s journal.
In the chaos of packing, I must have accidentally swept it off the dresser into my bag.
I opened it, flipping aimlessly through the water-stained pages, my heart aching for the man I left behind.
But as I turned to the very back, past the final entry, my breath caught in my throat.
There was a hidden pocket glued to the back cover. Inside it was a folded, yellowed document.
I pulled it out and unfolded it under the reading light.
It was a contract. Signed by Vincenzo Ricci, Arthur, and the head of the Roselli family thirty years ago.
May you like
And as I read the words, the ultimate, horrifying truth of Matteo’s bloodline finally revealed itself.
Matteo wasn’t Vincenzo Ricci’s son.
