Chapter 10 - THE SILVER ROSARY
The heavy oak doors of Luca’s study were shut tight, but the tension inside the room was thick enough to choke on.
Luca stared at the tarnished silver rosary resting on his mahogany desk. He hadn’t spoken a word in five minutes. The warmth and peace that had settled over the estate over the last week vanished, replaced by a suffocating, icy dread.
"Who is The Viper?" I finally asked, breaking the silence.
Luca didn't look up. He reached out and touched the crucifix at the end of the beads. His finger traced a small, jagged crack across the silver of Jesus’s face.
"The Viper isn't a person," Luca said, his voice entirely hollow. "It’s a ghost. A myth from the old country."
"Myth?" I asked, stepping closer to the desk. The three wooden beads and the full fifty-bead bracelet clicked softly on my wrist. "It came through the U.S. Postal Service, Mr. Moretti. Ghosts don't use stamps."
Luca finally looked at me. The vulnerability he had shown me yesterday in the kitchen was locked away. The mafia boss was back.
"Twenty years ago, before my father solidified his control over Chicago, there was a third family. The Castigliones. They were ruthless. Their enforcer was a man named Lorenzo. They called him La Vipera—The Viper—because he never left a trace, only venom."
"What happened to him?"
"My father wiped them out," Luca said grimly. "A massacre at a waterfront warehouse. The Castiglione bloodline was erased. Lorenzo was presumed dead in the fire. But they never found his body. Only this."
Luca tapped the silver rosary. "This belonged to the Castiglione boss. My father kept it as a trophy for years, until it was stolen from his private vault a decade ago."
A chill ran down my spine. "If your father wiped them out, why are they sending this to Mason? The note said the debt isn't paid."
"Because in our world, sins travel down the bloodline," Luca explained, standing up and pacing to the window. "With my father in a Rossi prison, whoever sent this thinks the debt falls to me. And they know the only way to truly hurt me is through my son."
The door to the study burst open.
Vito stormed in, his face pale. "Boss, we have a problem."
"Did you trace the package?" Luca demanded.
"Postmarked from a drop box in Little Italy. No cameras. But that's not the problem." Vito swallowed hard. "Two of our soldiers guarding the Southside port were found dead this morning. Shot cleanly through the eye. Professional hits."
Luca closed his eyes, cursing softly in Italian. "They're testing our defenses."
"What do we do, Boss?"
"Lock down the estate. Level four security. Nobody goes to school, nobody goes to the market. I want armed men at every gate, every door, every window. Melissa," Luca turned to me, "you and Mason do not leave the second floor."
"Luca," I said, using his first name without thinking. "If this Viper is a ghost, how do you fight him?"
"I don't," Luca said coldly. "I draw him out. And I kill him."
For the next forty-eight hours, the Moretti estate became a military bunker. SUV patrols circled the perimeter every fifteen minutes. Mason was confined to his playroom and bedroom. He didn't complain; the boy was too used to the terrifying realities of his father's life, though I did my best to distract him with board games and movies.
On the third night, I was walking down the dimly lit second-floor hallway, carrying a tray of untouched sandwiches back from Mason’s room.
I paused by the grand window overlooking the back gardens. It was raining again, a torrential downpour that obscured the manicured hedges.
Suddenly, a flash of lightning illuminated the courtyard below.
I froze.
Standing perfectly still in the center of the rain-soaked lawn, looking directly up at the second-floor window, was a man.
He wore a long black trench coat. He held no umbrella.
But it wasn't the man's presence that made my blood run cold.
It was the fact that I recognized him.
The lightning flashed again, illuminating his face for a fraction of a second.
My heart completely stopped. The tray of sandwiches slipped from my hands, crashing to the hardwood floor with a deafening clatter.
Vito and two guards came sprinting down the hallway, guns drawn. "Melissa! What is it?"
I couldn't speak. I just pointed a shaking finger at the window.
Vito rushed to the glass, peering out into the darkness. "There's nothing there. The yard is empty."
"He was there," I gasped, clutching my chest, struggling to pull air into my lungs. "A man in a black coat."
Luca appeared at the top of the stairs, taking them two at a time. "Vito, sweep the grounds! Now!"
He ran to me, grabbing my shoulders. "Melissa, look at me. Are you hurt?"
"No," I sobbed, the shock paralyzing my muscles. "Luca... the man in the garden."
"Did you see his face?" Luca asked urgently. "Was it an older man? Was it The Viper?"
I shook my head, tears of pure disbelief spilling over my cheeks.
"It wasn't an old man, Luca."
"Then who was it?"
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I looked up into the eyes of the man I was falling in love with, the man whose family I had sworn to protect, and delivered the one sentence that would shatter everything.
"It was Michael," I whispered. "It was my brother."
