Chapter 7 - THE WEDDING RING IN THE ASHES
The SUV tore through the slick streets of Chicago, blowing past red lights in a desperate race against time.
“Where is the safe house?” Daniel demanded from the driver’s seat, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“St. Agnes Cathedral,” Luca said, his eyes glued to the GPS. “The old rectory behind the church. Helen must have taken my mother there to hide.”
“Why a church?” I asked, holding Leo tight against my side. My little boy was exhausted, his head resting heavily on my shoulder.
“Because the priest there owed my father his life,” Luca replied tightly. “Helen knew it was the one place Marco’s men wouldn't expect a Mafia boss’s mother to be hiding.”
Ten minutes later, we screeched to a halt outside the towering gothic cathedral. The rain was coming down in sheets, hiding the moon and cloaking the courtyard in deep shadows.
We left Leo asleep in the locked, bulletproof car. Daniel stayed behind to guard him, his rifle resting on the window ledge.
Luca and I sprinted toward the rear of the cathedral, navigating the wet cobblestones toward the small stone rectory.
The front door was already kicked open.
“No,” Luca breathed, drawing his weapon.
We stepped inside. The rectory was dark, smelling of incense and old paper. The living room was in shambles. Chairs were overturned, lamps shattered.
But it was empty. Marco’s men had already come and gone.
“Mom!” Luca shouted, his voice cracking with a desperate panic I had never heard from him. “Mom, it’s Luca!”
Silence.
I moved through the debris, my heart breaking for the man who had lost his mother twice. I walked toward the small stone fireplace. The embers were still glowing, casting a faint orange light across the hearth.
I knelt down, scanning the ashes.
Something gleamed in the dim light.
I reached out with my uninjured hand and brushed the gray ash away.
It was a wedding ring.
A plain, thick gold band.
I gasped, snatching it up. “Luca.”
He rushed to my side, staring at the ring in my palm.
“That’s Helen’s,” I whispered, tears springing to my eyes. “Vanessa didn't steal it from her room. Helen gave it to her.”
“Why would Helen give Vanessa her wedding ring?” Luca asked, bewildered.
The pieces suddenly slammed together in my mind. The brilliant, desperate reversal of Helen’s actions.
“Because Helen knew Marco had eyes inside the mansion,” I realized, my voice rising in excitement. “If Helen just walked out the door yesterday, Marco’s spies would have followed her. She needed an excuse to be thrown out. She needed to make a scene.”
Luca stared at me. “She picked a fight with Vanessa so she’d be fired. It was a cover to get out of the house without being followed.”
“Yes!” I cried. “And Vanessa played along. She took the ring to make it look like a punishment. They were working together to get your mother out safely.”
Luca closed his eyes, leaning heavily against the stone mantle. The relief washing over his face was profound. His mother wasn't dead. His housekeeper wasn't a traitor. And his fiancée, despite her cruelty to me, had risked her life to help save his mother from a monster.
“Then where are they?” Luca whispered.
Before I could answer, a soft, shuffling sound came from behind the heavy velvet curtains covering the rectory windows.
Luca raised his gun, stepping in front of me.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
The curtain slowly pulled back.
Stepping out from the shadows was a woman. She was thin, frail, wearing an oversized woolen sweater. Her hair was stark white, falling in loose waves around her pale, lined face.
But her eyes—dark, intense, and deeply familiar—locked instantly onto Luca.
“Luca?” the woman whispered.
Luca dropped his gun. It clattered loudly against the stone floor.
“Mom,” he choked out.
He crossed the room in two massive strides, dropping to his knees in front of her and wrapping his arms around her fragile waist. He buried his face in her stomach, sobbing like a child.
Isabella Moretti stroked her son’s dark hair, tears spilling down her cheeks. “My beautiful boy. Look how big you’ve grown.”
I stood by the fireplace, wiping my own tears away, overwhelmed by the profound beauty of the reunion. Ten years of lies, erased in a single embrace.
But the moment was shattered by the sound of slow, mocking applause from the doorway.
We turned.
Standing in the entrance of the rectory, flanked by three massive enforcers, was Uncle Marco.
“How touching,” Marco sneered, holding a gleaming silver pistol. “A family reunion. It’s a shame it has to be your last.”
He raised the gun, pointing it directly at Isabella’s chest.
“You survived the sanatorium, Isabella,” Marco smiled coldly. “But you won't survive tonight.”
Before Marco could pull the trigger, a voice rang out from the darkness behind him.
“Neither will you, Marco.”
May you like
Marco froze.
Stepping into the light from the rain-soaked courtyard, holding a shotgun steady against her hip, was Helen Carter.
