Chapter 12 - THE BLOODLINE COMPROMISE
A feral, agonizing roar tore from Luca's throat.
He smashed his fist into the wall, cracking the plaster, the mafia boss facade completely fracturing under the weight of a father’s worst nightmare.
"Mason!" Luca screamed out the open window into the pouring rain.
Only the thunder answered him.
I stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the dark brown wooden bead on the pillow. The bead that represented the nights Luca came home early to read Mason a bedtime story.
Michael had left it there on purpose. A psychological knife twisted directly into Luca's heart.
Luca spun around, his gun drawn, his eyes wild and dangerous. For a terrifying second, he looked at me not as the woman he loved, but as the sister of the man who just stole his child.
"Luca, I swear to God, I didn't know," I pleaded, holding my hands up, the fifty-bead bracelet sliding down my wrist. "I will help you find him. Kill me afterward if you want, but let me help you get Mason back."
Luca stared at the bracelet on my wrist. His breathing slowed just a fraction. He lowered the gun.
"He left the bead," Luca said, his mind racing, shifting back into the tactical genius that ruled Chicago. "He’s leaving a trail. Michael doesn't want to just kill Mason. He wants me to watch."
He grabbed his radio. "Vito! Wake up, damn it!"
Static.
Luca threw the radio across the room. "We're completely cut off. He jammed the frequency."
"Where would he take him?" I asked frantically. "If he wants you to watch, it has to be somewhere significant to your family. Somewhere Antonio Moretti hurt our father."
Luca’s eyes widened. "The waterfront. The Castiglione warehouse. Where my father massacred the third family twenty years ago. It’s been abandoned ever since."
"Let's go," I said, running toward the stairs.
We didn't take an SUV. Luca grabbed the keys to a black, unmarked sedan from the garage. He drove like a demon possessed, tearing through the flooded streets of Chicago, blowing through red lights, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth would shatter.
"If he harms a single hair on Mason's head," Luca said, his voice a dead, emotionless void, "I will not just kill your brother, Melissa. I will take him apart piece by piece."
"I know," I whispered. And God help me, I wanted him to.
We arrived at the docks thirty minutes later. The rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring the massive rusted cranes and rotting wooden piers. At the end of the dock sat a massive, dilapidated brick warehouse. The Castiglione ruins.
A single light flickered on the top floor.
Luca killed the headlights and parked a block away. He popped the trunk and pulled out an assault rifle, handing me a small, heavy Glock.
"Do you know how to use this?" he asked.
"Safety off. Point. Pull," I said, my hands shaking as I took the weapon.
"If you see Michael, and he is holding my son, you shoot," Luca commanded, looking deep into my eyes. "You shoot your blood to save mine. Can you do it?"
I looked at the fifty-bead bracelet on my wrist. I thought of the little boy who loved chocolate and saved gold beads for his father.
"Yes," I said.
We moved through the shadows of the shipping containers, slipping through a rusted side door of the warehouse.
Inside, it was a cavern of rotting wood and rusted machinery. Water dripped from the ceiling.
"Luca Moretti," a voice echoed through the cavernous space.
We looked up.
On a metal catwalk suspended thirty feet above the concrete floor, Michael stood in his black trench coat.
And sitting on the grated floor next to him, his hands tied behind his back, was Mason.
"Daddy!" Mason cried out, his voice echoing in the dark.
Luca raised his rifle, aiming directly at Michael’s chest. "Let him go, Carter! This is between me and you! The boy has no part in the old wars!"
"He has the Moretti blood!" Michael shouted back, his voice tinged with madness. "That's all that matters! Your father burned my father’s life to ashes! He forced me into this life to protect my sister! Now, I take your legacy!"
Michael reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy steel revolver. He pointed it down at Mason’s head.
"No!" I screamed, stepping out of the shadows, raising my pistol. "Michael, stop!"
Michael froze. He looked down at me, his eyes widening in shock.
"Melissa? What the hell are you doing? I told you to run! Why are you standing with him?"
"Because he is a good man!" I yelled, tears mixing with the rain dripping from the ceiling. "And Mason is an innocent child! Dad wouldn't want this, Michael! He faked his death so we could be safe, not so you could become a monster!"
"You don't understand the things I've done for you!" Michael roared, his hand shaking. "I killed Elena Moretti so Vanessa would pay for mom's clinic! I set up Antonio to clear the board! I did it all for our family!"
"You killed a mother!" I sobbed. "You are not my family anymore!"
I raised the gun, aiming it directly at my brother.
"Let the boy go, Michael. Or I swear to God, I will shoot you myself."
Michael stared at me. The betrayal in his eyes was absolute. For ten seconds, the only sound in the warehouse was the pouring rain.
Slowly, Michael lowered his revolver.
He looked at Mason.
Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver key.
"You want the boy?" Michael called out, his voice hollow. "Take him."
He tossed the key off the catwalk. It clattered onto the concrete floor below.
Then, Michael stepped back into the shadows of the catwalk.
"This isn't over, Luca," Michael’s voice echoed from the darkness. "The Viper never dies."
A heavy metal door slammed shut somewhere above us. Michael was gone.
Luca dropped his rifle and sprinted up the rusted metal stairs. I was right behind him.
He reached the catwalk and fell to his knees, grabbing the silver key from the floor and unlocking the heavy cuffs on Mason's wrists.
Mason threw his arms around Luca’s neck, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I got you, buddy. I got you," Luca chanted, burying his face in his son's shoulder.
I stood a few feet away, lowering my gun, my entire body shaking with the adrenaline crash. I had almost killed my brother. I had lost my only living family member to the darkness.
Luca stood up, holding Mason against his chest. He looked at me. He saw the devastation in my eyes, the tears streaming down my face.
He walked over to me, wrapped his free arm around my waist, and pulled me tight against him and his son.
"You didn't lose your family tonight, Melissa," Luca whispered into my hair, holding me fiercely. "You just saved ours."
We walked out of the warehouse into the rain, alive.
But as we reached the car, Luca stopped.
Tucked under the windshield wiper of the sedan was a white envelope.
Luca handed Mason to me. He pulled the envelope free and opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
It was a picture of my mother, sitting in her new cottage in Ohio, smiling at the camera.
May you like
Written in red ink across the bottom were four words:
See you soon, Sister.
