Chapter 3 - THE EMPTY BLUE COAT
The words hung in the damp air of the train station, freezing the blood in my veins.
She dug up his grave.
Vanessa Bellini, the beautiful, polished socialite who threw fits over the wrong shade of white roses, had desecrated the grave of a Mafia boss.
“Why would she do that?” I whispered, my voice trembling.
“Because my father was buried with the ledger,” Luca said, his eyes darkening into twin pools of black ice. “The ledger containing every account, every bribe, every secret of the Chicago syndicate. Whoever holds the ledger controls the city.”
Rosa grasped her son’s arm. “Luca, if she has the ledger, she doesn't need you anymore. The wedding was just a cover to get into the house.”
“I don't care about the ledger,” I cried, the sheer panic for my child overriding my fear of the Mafia boss standing in front of me. I grabbed the lapels of Luca’s expensive suit, uncaring that I was crossing a massive line. “She has a picture of my son! She knows where he is!”
Luca didn't push me away. Instead, his large hands came up to grip my wrists gently, steadying my shaking frame.
“Look at me, Emma,” he commanded, his voice a low, steady rumble that commanded absolute obedience. “I am not going to let anything happen to your boy. Do you understand me? You are under my protection now.”
He didn't wait for my answer. He turned to his security detail.
“Take my mother to the safe house on Lakeshore Drive. Nobody goes in or out. If a butterfly lands on the window, you shoot it.”
Rosa kissed Luca’s cheek, tears in her eyes. “Bring the boy back, Luca.”
Luca dragged me toward the SUV. He threw me into the passenger seat and climbed behind the wheel himself. He didn't tell his driver to get in. He slammed his foot on the gas, and the heavy armored vehicle roared away from the curb, tearing through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago.
“Where do you live?” he demanded.
“South Side,” I choked out, rattling off the address of the crumbling duplex I shared with my father and Leo.
The drive took twelve minutes. It felt like twelve years. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Vanessa’s cold, triumphant smile. She had sat in that dining room tonight knowing she held my entire world in the palm of her hand.
Luca mounted the curb outside my apartment building, the tires screeching against the wet pavement.
I didn't wait for him to park. I threw open the door and sprinted across the overgrown lawn, my heart pounding so hard it bruised my ribs.
“Dad! Leo!” I screamed, bursting through the unlocked front door of our ground-floor unit.
The apartment was pitch black.
“Emma, stay behind me,” Luca ordered, stepping into the narrow hallway with a heavy black pistol drawn from his shoulder holster.
The silence in the apartment was deafening. The smell of my father’s pipe tobacco lingered in the air, mixed with something sharp and metallic.
I reached out and flicked the light switch.
The living room was destroyed.
The coffee table was smashed. The cushions on the thrift-store sofa were slashed open. The small television was shattered on the linoleum floor.
“Dad!” I shrieked, running toward the small kitchen.
I found him lying on the floor near the refrigerator. My father, a proud former accountant who had been slowly losing his mind to dementia, was unconscious. A nasty bruise was blooming on his forehead.
I dropped to my knees, sobbing as I pulled his head into my lap. “Dad! Wake up, please wake up!”
Luca checked his pulse. “He’s alive. His heartbeat is strong. They just knocked him out.”
“Leo,” I gasped, looking frantically around the small apartment. “Where is my baby?”
Luca stood up, his gun sweeping the narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms. He kicked open Leo’s door.
Empty. The bed was unmade, his favorite stuffed bear lying abandoned on the rug.
A primal, agonizing wail tore from my throat. I rocked back and forth on the kitchen floor, clutching my father. They took him. The monsters took my six-year-old boy.
“Emma,” Luca said softly.
I looked up through my tears.
Luca was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. In his hands, he held something small and navy blue.
It was Leo’s winter coat.
“They left his coat,” I sobbed. “It’s freezing outside. Why would they leave his coat?”
Luca walked over to me, kneeling on the broken glass of the kitchen floor. He held the coat up, his jaw clenched tight.
“They left it because they wanted us to find what’s inside,” he said grimly.
He reached into the small left pocket and pulled out a single, heavy cloakroom ticket.
It was made of thick, cream-colored cardstock, stamped with gold foil.
The Drake Hotel. Coat Check.
My breath caught. “The Drake? That’s downtown. Why would they take a child to a luxury hotel?”
Luca stared at the ticket, the realization dawning on him like a physical blow. The icy control he maintained began to crack, replaced by a terrifying, burning fury.
“Because Vanessa didn't take him to hide him,” Luca snarled, crushing the ticket in his massive fist. “She took him to an auction.”
I stared at him, horrified. “An auction?”
“The Drake Hotel is neutral ground for the syndicate families,” Luca explained, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Vanessa doesn't just have the ledger, Emma. She has the only witness who knows she stole it—your son.”
“Leo doesn't know anything about a ledger!” I cried.
“He knows Vanessa was in my father’s grave,” Luca corrected me gently. “Think about it. If you saw the watch yesterday, Leo might have seen it before you did. Vanessa brought him to the hotel to silence him, and to sell the ledger to my worst enemy.”
Before I could process the horror of his words, my father groaned in my lap.
His eyes fluttered open, glassy and confused.
“Emma?” he rasped.
“I’m here, Dad,” I wept, holding his face. “I’m right here.”
My father reached up with a trembling hand, grabbing the collar of my shirt. Despite the dementia that usually clouded his mind, his eyes were suddenly, terrifyingly lucid.
“Emma,” he choked out, looking past me to Luca. “She didn't take the boy because of the watch.”
Luca immediately knelt closer. “What do you mean? Why did she take Leo?”
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My father let out a ragged breath, a tear spilling into his gray hair.
“She took him because the ledger wasn't in the grave, Mr. Moretti,” my father whispered. “I know it wasn't. Because I’m the one who hid it twenty years ago.”
