Chapter 5 - THE REGISTRY
“Teresa Moretti,” I read aloud, my voice shaking.
Luca ripped the registry book from my hands. He stared at his mother’s signature, the bold, sloping cursive he had seen his entire life.
“That’s impossible,” Luca said, stepping back. “My mother is at the estate. I left her twenty minutes ago.”
“It was her!” the headmistress cried, struggling against her ropes. Marco quickly began untying her. “She was an older woman, very elegant. She wore a black coat and a silk scarf. She said the boy was in danger and she needed to take him home.”
I looked at Luca. “Could she have left the estate after we did?”
“To come here?” Luca ran a hand through his damp hair. “How would she get past the guards? And why wouldn’t she call me?”
Marco freed the woman’s hands. “Did anyone else come with her?”
The headmistress rubbed her wrists, her hands shaking. “No. Just her. The boy went with her willingly. He called her ‘Nonna.’”
Luca’s expression softened for a fraction of a second at the word, before hardening again into pure panic.
“Show me the room where they kept him,” Luca ordered.
The headmistress scrambled to her feet and led us up a narrow, creaking staircase to the third floor. She unlocked a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall.
The room was tiny and cold, illuminated only by a single streetlamp outside the barred window. There was a narrow cot in the corner, a small dresser, and a wooden chair.
Luca walked slowly to the cot.
The blankets were rumpled.
He reached out and touched the pillow. “It’s still warm. They haven’t been gone long.”
I walked toward the small dresser. There was a glass of water, half-empty. Beside it, lying coiled on the scratched wood, was a string of black wooden beads.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly.
Luca turned.
I picked up the beads. A silver crucifix dangled from the end.
“A rosary,” Luca said, stepping closer.
“It’s not just any rosary,” I said, turning the crucifix over in my palm. The silver was tarnished, and the letter E was engraved on the back. “This belonged to my mother. She bought it in Rome twenty years ago. She never went anywhere without it.”
Luca frowned. “If Elizabeth gave this to the boy… why would he leave it behind?”
“He didn’t leave it behind,” I said, looking closely at the chain. “Look at the clasp. It’s broken. It was pulled off.”
Marco stepped forward, examining the room with professional precision. He crouched near the doorframe.
“Boss,” Marco said. “There’s a scuff mark here on the baseboard. Size eleven shoe. Men’s dress shoe. The headmistress said your mother came alone.”
Luca looked at the headmistress. “Are you sure she was alone?”
The woman looked terrified. “I swear! I only saw her!”
“Then someone was waiting in the hallway,” Marco concluded. “Someone who broke the boy’s rosary pulling him out the door.”
Luca pulled out his phone. He dialed the security gate at his estate.
“This is Luca. Check my mother’s location right now.”
He put the phone on speaker.
A guard answered, his voice breathless. “Sir… we have a situation.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “What situation?”
“The wine cellar is empty. Carlo and Vanessa are gone. The two guards you posted at the door were found unconscious.”
Luca gripped the edge of the dresser. “Where is my mother?”
“We’re searching the house now, sir. But… her car is missing from the garage.”
I felt the room spinning.
Teresa hadn’t come to the orphanage to rescue the boy.
Carlo had forced her to come. He used her face to get past the headmistress without raising an alarm.
“Carlo has my son and my mother,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly calm.
“Sir,” Marco said, standing up. “Look at this.”
Marco was pointing to the floor, near the broken clasp of the rosary.
Lying flat against the dusty wooden planks was a small rectangular piece of paper. It must have fallen from Carlo’s pocket during the struggle at the door.
Luca picked it up.
It was a train ticket stub.
“Union Station,” Luca read. “Platform 4.”
I looked over his shoulder. The ticket was old, the ink faded and the edges yellowed.
“Why would Carlo be carrying a train ticket?” I asked.
Luca flipped the ticket over. There was no return trip listed. It was a one-way cargo transit pass.
“This isn’t for a passenger train,” Luca realized. “Platform 4 at Union Station was decommissioned a decade ago. It’s a dead track used for abandoned freight cars.”
He looked at the date stamped on the front.
His eyes widened.
“Marco,” Luca said. “Look at the date.”
Marco stepped closer. “October 14th, 2011.”
My breath caught in my throat. I stumbled backward, hitting the wall.
“Rachel?” Luca asked, looking at me. “What is it?”
“October 14th, 2011,” I whispered, tears suddenly flooding my eyes. “That’s the day my father died.”
Luca stared at me. “Your father died in a car accident.”
“That’s what the police told us,” I said, my voice cracking. “His truck stalled on the train tracks. He was hit by a freight train. On Platform 4.”
The room went dead silent.
Marco looked at Luca. “Boss. Carlo didn’t drop this by accident. He kept this ticket as a trophy.”
Luca’s expression shifted from panic to absolute, unbridled fury.
May you like
He didn’t just want to save his son anymore. He wanted blood.
“Carlo is taking them to the rail yard,” Luca said. He looked at me, his eyes dark with a promise of vengeance. “He’s going to use the boy and my mother to buy his way out of the cartel debt with Vincent. We’re going to the tracks. And tonight, Rachel, you’re going to get justice for your family.”
