Chapter 10 - THE INHERITED DEBT
The sterile luxury of the Swiss street felt suddenly suffocating.
I grabbed the edge of the car door, my knees buckling as the words echoed in my mind.
Anthony’s debts are inherited.
“My mother,” I gasped, struggling to pull air into my lungs. “She’s sick, Luca. She’s on heart monitors. If they took her off the machines, she’ll die in hours!”
Luca caught me, his strong arms holding me upright. His eyes were dark, calculating, shifting instantly back into a wartime general.
“Who has the ability to bypass my security at a private cardiac hospital?” Luca demanded into the radio, his voice lethal.
Marco, standing beside the car, looked pale.
“Boss,” Marco said quietly. “There’s only one syndicate in the country with that kind of reach that wasn't at the wedding tonight. The Outfit.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would shatter.
“The Chicago Outfit,” Luca muttered, running a hand through his dark hair.
“Who are they?” I asked, panic making my hands shake.
“The old guard,” Luca explained rapidly as he shoved me gently into the back of the car. “They don't sit on the Commission. They operate in the shadows, controlling the unions, the judges, the deep state. My father went to war with them twenty-five years ago. We thought a truce was called.”
“But the message,” I said, my voice trembling. “Anthony’s debts are inherited. What did your father owe them?”
“I don't know,” Luca said truthfully, frustration radiating from him. “But we’re going to find out. Marco, get the jet ready. We leave in five minutes.”
Ten torturous hours later, we touched down in Chicago.
The city was battered by a fresh, howling thunderstorm. The sky was pitch black, mirroring the absolute dread in my stomach.
We didn't go to the estate. We went straight to the private hospital.
The ICU room was a nightmare. The IV stands were tipped over, the heart monitors flatlining loudly, and the window was smashed.
And written across the bathroom mirror in bright, blood-red lipstick were the words:
ANTHONY'S DEBTS ARE INHERITED. BRING THE ROSARY TO THE OLD CATHEDRAL BY MIDNIGHT.
I stared at the mirror, confused.
“The rosary?” I asked, turning to Luca. “But we used it. We opened the crucifix and got the gold memory chip. Why do they want the empty necklace?”
Luca carefully pulled the heavy silver rosary from his inner jacket pocket. He hadn't left it behind.
He examined the intricately carved metal cryptex beads under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room.
“There are fifty-nine beads on a standard Catholic rosary,” Luca murmured, counting the metal cylinders. “The combination we used to open the crucifix only required the five beads corresponding to the Orion constellation.”
He looked up at me, his eyes widening with realization.
“My father didn't just hide one secret in this necklace, Megan. The rosary is a multi-layered vault. The remaining fifty-four beads hold a second cipher. A second secret.”
“And the Outfit knows about it,” Marco added grimly from the doorway. “Boss, if the Outfit wants this, it’s not just about money. It’s about power. Ultimate power.”
I didn't care about power. I cared about my mother.
“It’s eleven-thirty,” I said, looking at the clock on the wall. “We have thirty minutes to get to the old cathedral.”
“We’re not going blindly,” Luca said. He turned to Marco. “Send a scout team to the cathedral. Snipers on the rooftops. If they hurt Helen, we burn the Outfit to the ground.”
Twenty minutes later, the black SUV pulled up to the looming, gothic architecture of St. Jude’s Cathedral in downtown Chicago.
The cathedral had been abandoned for years, its stained-glass windows broken, its stone gargoyles eroding in the rain.
Luca and I walked up the massive stone steps alone. Marco’s men were hidden in the shadows, waiting for the signal.
I pushed the heavy oak doors open.
The interior was cavernous and pitch black, save for a single row of candles illuminating the altar at the far end of the nave.
Sitting in a wheelchair at the base of the altar, hooked up to a portable oxygen tank, was my mother.
“Mom!” I cried, sprinting down the center aisle, my heels echoing loudly on the stone floor.
I fell to my knees beside her wheelchair, grabbing her cold hands.
“Megan,” she wheezed, her eyes filled with terror. “You shouldn't have come. It’s a trap.”
“I’ve got you,” I sobbed, kissing her forehead. “We’re getting you out of here.”
“Touching reunion.”
A voice echoed from the shadows behind the altar.
A man stepped into the candlelight. He was in his late seventies, wearing a pristine white suit that stood in stark contrast to the grime of the abandoned church. He walked with a silver-tipped cane, his face weathered but his posture perfectly straight.
“Don Vincenzo,” Luca said, stopping five feet behind me, his hand hovering near his holster. “The head of the Chicago Outfit.”
Vincenzo smiled, a cold, reptilian gesture.
“Luca Moretti. You’ve grown into a formidable man. Destroying Carlo was a masterpiece. But you have something that belongs to me.”
“My father owed you nothing,” Luca snarled.
“Your father owed me everything!” Vincenzo roared, slamming his cane against the stone floor. The echo was deafening. “Twenty-five years ago, Anthony and I partnered to steal a shipment of weapons-grade uranium from a Russian cartel. We were supposed to split the profits. But Anthony grew a conscience. He stole the shipment from me and hid it.”
My blood ran cold. Weapons-grade uranium. This wasn't mafia money. This was international terrorism.
“Anthony swore he destroyed it,” Vincenzo sneered. “But I knew better. Anthony never destroyed leverage. He hid the coordinates to the bunker inside that silver rosary.”
Vincenzo pointed his cane directly at me.
“Hand over the rosary, girl, or I turn your mother’s oxygen off right now.”
Luca stepped in front of me, pulling the silver rosary from his pocket.
“You want it?” Luca challenged, holding it up. “Take it.”
He tossed the heavy silver necklace into the air.
It landed at Vincenzo’s feet with a loud clatter.
Vincenzo eagerly bent down, picking up the necklace with greedy, trembling hands.
“Finally,” Vincenzo breathed, examining the metal beads.
“You made a mistake, Vincenzo,” Luca said softly, taking a step backward and grabbing my hand.
“Did I?” Vincenzo mocked, still looking at the beads.
“Yes,” Luca said. “You assumed my father hid the location of the uranium in the rosary.”
Vincenzo frowned, looking up. “What do you mean?”
“My father did destroy the uranium twenty-five years ago,” Luca said, a fierce, triumphant smile crossing his face. “But he knew you would never stop looking for it. So he built a trap. And he hid the key to the trap in the rosary.”
I looked at Luca, realizing what he had done in the car ride over.
“The remaining fifty-four beads,” Luca whispered to me. “I aligned them to the date my father died.”
Vincenzo looked down at the rosary in his hands.
A tiny, microscopic red light was now blinking rapidly on the center bead.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“It’s a localized EMP detonator,” Luca said loudly.
Vincenzo gasped, dropping the rosary as if it burned him.
But it was too late.
The rosary emitted a high-frequency screech, followed by a blinding flash of blue light.
May you like
Every piece of electronic equipment Vincenzo’s men were carrying—their radios, their laser sights, their encrypted phones—sparked and died instantly.
The cathedral was plunged into absolute, chaotic darkness.
