Chapter 4 - THE ROSARY
The rain hit the burlap sack with a dull, heavy sound.
Lena’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“No,” she whispered, grabbing Matteo’s arm. “Is it her? Did he bring her here?”
“Stay behind me,” Matteo ordered, his gun raised as they rushed down the rusted metal stairs of the fire escape.
The alley was pitch black, illuminated only by the faint, yellow glow of a distant streetlamp. The sack twitched again. A low, muffled groan came from inside.
It wasn't a child. The shape was too large. Too broad.
Matteo knelt in the mud and used his free hand to rip the thick rope tying the sack closed. He pulled the rough fabric down.
Lena gasped, covering her mouth.
It was Jimmy.
The cook from the diner.
His apron was soaked in blood. His face was brutally beaten, one eye swollen completely shut. A dirty rag was stuffed in his mouth.
Matteo pulled the gag out.
Jimmy coughed violently, spitting blood into the mud.
“Jimmy!” Lena dropped to her knees beside him, her ruined uniform soaking up the dirty water. “Oh my god, Jimmy, who did this to you? Why?”
Jimmy looked up at Matteo with a single, terrified eye.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Romano,” Jimmy choked out, sobbing. “I’m so sorry.”
Matteo’s expression hardened. He didn't lower his gun.
“What did you tell them, Jimmy?” Matteo asked. His voice wasn't angry. It was cold. Analytical.
“They caught me... they caught me two blocks from the diner,” Jimmy wept, clutching his ribs. “They had Mrs. Patterson in the car. The guy with the crushed throat... he said he was gonna put a bullet in her head right there on the street if I didn't tell them.”
“Tell them what?” Lena asked.
“Where you go every Tuesday,” Jimmy whispered.
Lena froze.
Every Tuesday morning, for the past three years, Matteo went to St. Jude’s Parish on 5th Avenue. He told Lena he went to light a candle for his mother.
Matteo closed his eyes, swearing violently in Italian.
“What’s at the church, Matteo?” Lena asked, looking back and forth between her husband and the bleeding cook.
Matteo looked down at Jimmy. “Did they take him?”
Jimmy nodded weakly. “They took him to the railyard. The big guy said... he said, ‘Now we have the priest, too.’”
“The priest?” Lena stood up, confused and terrified. “Matteo, what is he talking about? Why does Vincent want a priest?”
Matteo holstered his gun and hauled Jimmy up by the shoulders, leaning the battered man against the brick wall.
“Vincent doesn't want a priest,” Matteo said, his jaw tight. “He wants Elias.”
“Who is Elias?”
Matteo looked at her.
“Elias is the man who smuggled your daughter out of the hospital seven years ago. He’s a former mob doctor who took holy orders to hide from Vincent. He’s the only living person who knows the exact route and contacts Vincent uses to smuggle human cargo.”
Lena’s breath hitched.
If Vincent had Elias, he didn't just have revenge. He had absolute control over where Sofia disappeared to.
“He left me here... to give you a message,” Jimmy coughed, reaching a trembling, blood-stained hand into his pocket.
He pulled out an object and held it up to Matteo.
It was a heavy, wooden rosary. The beads were dark, polished oak. But the silver crucifix at the end was snapped cleanly in half.
“The guy in the leather jacket,” Jimmy wheezed. “He said... he said the train leaves at 11:30. Not midnight. And if you don't bring the lockbox to the switching tower... he’s going to make the priest perform a funeral for the little girl.”
Lena looked at her watch.
10:45 PM.
They had forty-five minutes.
“Go to the emergency room, Jimmy,” Matteo said, tossing the cook a wad of cash from his pocket. “Tell them you got mugged. If you ever see me again, run.”
Matteo grabbed Lena’s hand and pulled her toward the truck.
“We have to hurry,” Matteo said, throwing the lockbox onto the backseat and climbing behind the wheel.
“Matteo,” Lena said as she buckled her seatbelt. Her voice was surprisingly steady. “If Elias is the only one who knows the smuggling routes... why would Vincent kidnap him? Vincent already has Sofia. He doesn't need directions.”
Matteo put the truck in drive and sped out of the alley.
“Because Vincent isn't smuggling her out of the country,” Matteo said grimly. “He’s hiding her. He wants Elias because Elias knows where Vincent’s safehouses are. Vincent is cleaning up loose ends. He’s going to kill Elias tonight, and he’s going to kill us.”
They drove through the storm, the city blurring into streaks of neon and rain.
Lena looked down at her hands. They were covered in Jimmy’s blood.
She reached up and touched the gold locket resting against her collarbone.
A daughter.
She had a daughter. A little girl who slept with the same stuffed rabbit she had cried on as a child. A little girl who was currently sitting in the dark, terrified, surrounded by monsters.
A fierce, primal heat bloomed in Lena’s chest. The fear that had paralyzed her in the diner evaporated, burned away by the raw instinct of a mother protecting her child.
She reached into the backseat, opened the lockbox, and pulled out one of the heavy banded stacks of cash.
Matteo glanced at her. “What are you doing?”
“We need leverage,” Lena said, her eyes locked on the road ahead. “Vincent wants the lockbox. But if he gets it, he has no reason to keep us alive. Or Elias. Or Sofia.”
She rolled down her window. The freezing rain lashed against her face.
She took the stack of fifty thousand dollars and tossed it out the window into the dark street.
“Lena!” Matteo yelled, slamming the brakes.
“Drive, Matteo!” she shouted over the wind. “The cash doesn't matter! We only need the files!”
Matteo stared at her for a second. The ordinary waitress was gone.
He hit the gas.
At 11:10 PM, Matteo killed the truck's headlights and coasted to a stop beneath a rusted overpass.
A quarter-mile ahead, surrounded by towering chain-link fences and razor wire, was the South Side Railyard.
Floodlights cut through the rain, illuminating rows of idle freight cars. In the center of the yard stood a three-story brick switching tower.
Parked at the base of the tower were four black SUVs.
Matteo pulled a pair of tactical binoculars from under the seat and looked through them.
“Four guards on the perimeter,” Matteo muttered. “Two on the stairs. Vincent is inside the tower. I don't see the girl.”
He lowered the binoculars and looked at Lena.
“I go in alone,” Matteo said. “I trade the lockbox for Sofia and Elias. You stay in the truck with the engine running.”
“No,” Lena said flatly.
“Lena, this isn't a negotiation. These men are killers.”
“And I am her mother.” Lena looked him dead in the eye. “I missed six years of her life because I trusted a man to protect me. I’m not waiting in the car.”
Matteo stared at her. He saw the absolute resolve in her eyes.
He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small, snub-nosed .38 revolver, and handed it to her.
“Safety is off,” he said softly. “Aim for the chest.”
They slipped out of the truck and moved into the shadows of the rusted trains.
They crept along a line of flatbed cars, the sound of the rain masking their footsteps. They were fifty yards from the tower when Lena heard it.
A sound that made her blood turn to ice.
It was a child, crying.
Lena spun around. The sound wasn't coming from the tower. It was coming from a dark, enclosed cargo car on the track right next to them.
“Matteo,” she whispered, pointing at the heavy iron door of the train car.
Matteo frowned. He moved to the door and grabbed the iron handle. He pulled it open just an inch.
A dim lantern illuminated the inside of the car.
Sitting on a wooden crate in the center of the empty car was a small figure wrapped in a heavy red wool coat. The child’s back was to them, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.
“Sofia,” Lena gasped, tears instantly springing to her eyes.
She shoved the heavy iron door open and stepped up into the cargo car.
“Lena, wait!” Matteo hissed, grabbing her arm.
But Lena ripped away from him and ran toward the child.
“Sofia, baby, it’s okay,” Lena cried, dropping to her knees and reaching out to touch the red coat. “I’m your mommy. I’m here.”
The child stopped crying.
Slowly, the figure turned around.
Lena froze.
It wasn't a little girl.
It was a boy, no older than ten, with a terrified face smeared with dirt. He was wearing the red wool coat, swimming in its oversized folds.
“Who are you?” the boy whispered.
Before Lena could speak, a massive steel bolt slammed shut on the outside of the train car door, plunging them into absolute darkness.
A heavy, metallic voice echoed through the train car’s intercom system.
May you like
“Checkmate, little brother,” Vincent said.
Then, the train lunged forward with a violent jolt.
