Chapter 2 - THE SOUND OF SHATTERED CRYSTAL

The heavy steel door of the safe room hissed shut behind Evelyn, locking them in. The air grew instantly thick, suffocating beneath the weight of the impossible sight before them.

Dominic slowly lowered Leo to the ground, pushing the terrified boy behind his legs. He stared at the elderly priest, a man who had wiped his tears at his father’s funeral.

"Thomas," Dominic choked out, his voice cracking. "Tell me this is a mistake. Tell me you're here to help us."

Father Thomas didn't lower the gun. His eyes, usually filled with gentle wisdom, were hollow and defeated. "I'm sorry, my boy. Isabella promised me something you never could. She promised to stop the blood. She promised to dismantle the operations in the East End and give the neighborhood back to the parish."

"By slaughtering my family?" Dominic roared, stepping forward.

Thomas’s hand shook, but his aim remained true. "Your father built this empire on the bones of our community. You continued it. Isabella will cleanse it. It is for the greater good."

Evelyn remained perfectly still by the door. "Isabella is playing you, Father," she said, her voice calm, devoid of Dominic's volatile emotion. "You think a Costa wants peace? She's moving her family's drug trade into the East End. She just needed Dominic out of the way to do it without a turf war."

Thomas blinked, a flicker of doubt crossing his weathered face. "No. She swore on the Holy Mother..."

"She swore on power," Evelyn countered. She took a slow, deliberate step to her right, drawing the priest's eye.

"Stop moving, child," Thomas warned, turning the gun toward her.

That was the mistake.

In a blur of motion, Evelyn reached into her jacket and hurled the heavy silver pocket watch—her father’s watch—straight at the priest’s face. The heavy metal struck him squarely in the forehead. Thomas cried out, stumbling back, the gun going off with a muffled thwip that buried a bullet into the ceiling.

Dominic lunged. He tackled the old man to the ground, easily wrenching the gun from his frail grip. Dominic stood over his godfather, his chest heaving, the barrel of the gun pointed right at the priest's head.

"Uncle Dom, no!" Leo screamed, covering his ears.

Dominic froze. He looked down at the boy, then at the trembling old man on the floor. With a disgusted curse, Dominic lowered the weapon. He unlatched the heavy emergency hatch at the back of the safe room, which led to the old prohibition tunnels.

"You have to live with this, Thomas," Dominic spat. "If I ever see you again, the collar won't save you."

Dominic grabbed Leo, and he and Evelyn disappeared into the damp, dark tunnel, leaving the weeping priest behind.

They walked for two miles under the city, the only sound the dripping of groundwater and the heavy breathing of the exhausted man carrying his nephew. They finally emerged in the basement of an abandoned bakery in the industrial district. It smelled of stale flour and damp earth.

Evelyn struck a match, lighting a kerosene lantern. She set Leo down on an old cot, wrapping him in a dusty, oversized wool coat.

"We stay here until dawn," Evelyn said, moving toward the far corner of the basement. She knelt and began prying up a loose floorboard with her combat knife.

Dominic sat heavily on a wooden crate. He buried his face in his hands, completely shattered. "My fiancée. My underboss. My godfather. Everything I built... it was all a lie."

"Not everything," Evelyn said softly. She pulled a rusted iron lockbox from the dirt beneath the floorboards. "My father left me this box. He told me to open it only when the Vale empire was on the brink of collapse."

She blew the dust off the lid and broke the rusty lock with the hilt of her knife. Inside was a thick leather ledger, heavily worn. But resting on top of the ledger was a faded, glossy photograph.

Evelyn picked it up, her brow furrowing in confusion. She handed it to Dominic.

Dominic looked at the picture. His heart stopped.

It was a photograph of Isabella, taken perhaps six or seven years ago. She was sitting in a hospital bed, looking exhausted but smiling softly.

In her arms, wrapped in a blue blanket, was a newborn baby boy.