Chapter 10 - THE MATERNAL GHOST
The bustling noise of the new kitchen seemed to instantly mute. The clatter of plates, the hiss of garlic hitting hot oil, the laughter from the dining room—it all faded into a dull, rushing sound in my ears.
Luca stared at the small card in his hand. His knuckles were white.
“Your mother?” I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. “Luca, you told me your mother died in a car accident when you were a child.”
“She did,” he said softly, unable to tear his eyes away from the black onyx rosary. “I was seven. The police said it was black ice on Lake Shore Drive. Her car went over the embankment.”
My mother, Sarah, walked back into the kitchen, carrying an empty tray. She took one look at our faces and stopped dead in her tracks.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, setting the tray down.
I handed her the card. She read it, her face paling beneath the warm kitchen lights.
“Arthur never talked about her,” my mother murmured, looking at Luca. “Eleanor was a ghost in that house long before she died. But Arthur always maintained the accident was just… an accident.”
“Apparently, her family doesn’t think so,” Luca said grimly. He picked up the black rosary. “This crest belongs to the Marchesi family. They run the ports in Genoa. They’re old blood. Ruthless.”
“Why are they sending this now?” I asked, my chest tightening with a new, unfamiliar dread. We had just found peace. We had just rebuilt our lives. “Why today?”
Luca pulled his phone from his pocket. “Because Vincenzo’s trial started this morning. The Five Families are distracted. It’s the perfect time for the Marchesis to make a move.”
He dialed his head of security. “I need a perimeter check. Now. And pull the courier footage from the front door cameras.”
Michael walked through the swinging doors, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “What’s going on? You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“We might have,” I said, pointing to the velvet box.
Michael looked at the rosary and the note. His logistical mind immediately snapped into focus. The relaxed brother vanished, replaced by the tactical operator.
“If the Marchesi family is reaching out after thirty years, it means they want something Arthur hid,” Michael said quickly. “Or they want revenge for Eleanor’s death.”
“But Arthur didn’t kill her,” my mother said firmly. “He loved her.”
“Did he?” Luca asked, his voice cracking slightly. He looked at my mother. “You were with him, Sarah. You knew him better than anyone. Did he love her, or was it an arranged marriage to keep the peace with Genoa?”
My mother hesitated. She looked down at her hands.
“It was arranged,” she admitted softly. “But he tried, Luca. He really did. But Eleanor… she was troubled. She carried a darkness with her. She used to come to the old restaurant at night and just sit in the dark, clutching that exact rosary.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “I need to know what really happened on Lake Shore Drive.”
“How?” Michael asked. “The police records from thirty years ago are buried.”
“Not all of them,” Julian Vance’s voice echoed as he stepped into the kitchen, having followed Michael from the dining room. He adjusted his glasses, looking at the black rosary. “Before Arthur died, he paid a private investigator a small fortune to keep a safety deposit box at the Federal Reserve building entirely off the books.”
“Another box?” I asked, my head spinning.
Julian nodded. “Arthur told me to never open it unless the Genoa wolves came knocking. He said it contained Eleanor’s final confession.”
Luca didn’t hesitate. He stripped off his apron and grabbed his jacket.
“Mike, lock down the restaurant. Nobody leaves until we know the perimeter is secure,” Luca ordered. “Emily, stay here with Sarah.”
“No,” I said, grabbing my own coat from the hook. I stepped right up to him. “I’m not sitting in a kitchen waiting to find out if someone is coming to kill us. We’re partners, remember?”
Luca looked into my eyes. The fierce protectiveness in his gaze battled with his respect for me.
Finally, he nodded. “Stay close.”
Twenty minutes later, Luca, Julian, and I were standing in the sterile, heavily guarded basement of the Federal Reserve. The air was freezing. The security was impenetrable.
An armed guard escorted us to a massive wall of steel boxes and unlocked Box 814. He handed Luca the long metal tin and stepped back to give us privacy.
Luca set the box on a small metal table. He took a deep breath, his hand resting on the lid.
“Whatever is in here,” I said gently, covering his hand with mine, “it doesn’t change who you are. Your father raised you to be a good man.”
Luca gave me a tight, grateful smile. He popped the lid open.
Inside was a single, sealed envelope, and a worn leather journal.
Luca picked up the journal. He opened it to the first page. The handwriting was elegant, looping, and frantic.
They think I am crazy, the first line read. Arthur thinks I am depressed. But I know what my father is planning. The Marchesi family doesn’t want peace with Chicago. They want to consume it. And they are going to use my son to do it.
Luca’s breath hitched. He quickly flipped through the pages.
“She wasn’t troubled,” Luca whispered, reading his mother’s frantic thoughts from thirty years ago. “She was terrified. Her family was using her to spy on Arthur. When she refused to cooperate, they threatened to kidnap me.”
I felt sick. A mother, trapped between a violent syndicate and the safety of her child.
“Look at the last entry,” Julian pointed.
Luca flipped to the back of the book. The date was exactly one day before she died.
I cannot let them take Luca. I have packed a bag. I am taking the car tonight. If I can make it to the airstrip, I can disappear. If they catch me, I will make sure it looks like an accident. I love you, Arthur. Forgive me.
Tears filled Luca’s eyes. He slammed the journal shut.
“She didn’t hit black ice,” Luca said, his voice shaking with thirty years of repressed grief. “She was running away to protect me. And her own family ran her off the road to stop her.”
“They killed their own daughter?” I asked in horror.
“And Arthur knew,” Julian said softly. “He knew, but he couldn’t prove it. So he spent the next thirty years building a legitimate fortress to make sure they could never touch you.”
Luca stared at the steel wall. The sadness in his eyes was rapidly hardening into something else. Something dangerous.
“They sent the rosary today to scare me,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “They think I’m weak because I went legitimate. They think they can finally finish what they started.”
He reached into the box and picked up the sealed envelope.
He ripped it open.
Inside wasn’t a document. It was a photograph of a massive, heavily fortified estate. Written on the back was a single address in Genoa, Italy.
And beneath the address was a note in Arthur’s handwriting.
If they ever come back, Luca, burn them to the ground.
Suddenly, Luca’s phone buzzed aggressively in his pocket.
He pulled it out. It was Michael.
Luca put it on speaker. “Mike, is the restaurant secure?”
“The restaurant is fine,” Michael’s voice was tight, breathing heavily. “But Mom isn’t.”
My heart stopped. “What happened to my mother?” I yelled at the phone.
“She went out the back door to take the trash to the alley,” Michael said, his voice thick with panic. “I turned my back for two seconds, Emily. I swear to God, it was two seconds.”
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“Where is she, Michael?” Luca demanded.
“She’s gone,” Michael said. “They took her. And they left a plane ticket to Genoa nailed to the back door.”
