Chapter 5 - THE RED PAGES
By 2:00 AM, the estate was entirely sealed off. The heavy steel shutters over the windows had been lowered, and the perimeter patrol had doubled.
Sophie and Toby had been moved to the East Wing guest suite, a room larger than their entire apartment. Toby, exhausted by the adrenaline and the late hour, was fast asleep in the massive king-sized bed, clutching his inhaler like a talisman.
Sophie stood by the reinforced glass window, staring out at the snow falling over the dark gardens. She still wore her oversized maid uniform. She felt dirty, terrified, and entirely out of her depth.
The door clicked open. Lorenzo stepped in, carrying a tray with two mugs of hot tea and a plate of sandwiches.
“Eat,” he said, setting the tray on the small table near the window.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve been on your feet for fifteen hours, you nearly got slapped by a senator’s wife, and you just found out a hitman was at your door. You’re running on cortisol. Eat.”
It was an order, not a suggestion. Sophie took a sandwich and sat down.
Lorenzo sat opposite her. He looked exhausted, the lines around his eyes deepening in the dim light.
“The lighter Toby found belongs to a man named Vance,” Lorenzo said quietly. “He’s Senator Vane’s problem solver. Vane is a petty, vindictive man. You embarrassed his wife, so he sent someone to make an example of you.”
Sophie stopped chewing. “Make an example?”
“Burn your apartment down. Break your legs. Whatever sent a message.” Lorenzo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But it goes deeper than a spilled glass of wine. Vane has been trying to push my family out of the South Side port developments for a year. He thinks I’m weak because I spend half my time dealing with my mother’s illness.”
“And Nurse Hopkins?” Sophie asked softly.
Lorenzo’s jaw ticked. “I had Silas toss her room. We found offshore bank statements hidden in her luggage. Someone has been making deposits of ten thousand dollars a month into an account in the Caymans. I’ll let you guess who.”
Sophie felt sick. “She’s not just a bad nurse. She’s planted.”
“Yes.” Lorenzo looked at Sophie, a profound sense of guilt flashing in his dark eyes. “You saved my mother tonight. And in return, I dragged you into a war. I’m sorry.”
The apology hung in the air. Sophie realized then that the monster the press wrote about—the cold, calculating Architect of Chicago’s underworld—was also just a son desperately trying to protect his sick mother.
Before Sophie could respond, the bedroom door creaked open again.
Isabella stood in the doorway. She was wearing a silk nightgown, her white hair loose around her shoulders. She looked lost, holding a small, worn leather-bound book against her chest.
“Mamma,” Lorenzo said, standing up quickly. “You should be asleep. Where is the guard?”
“He was looking at his phone. I was quiet,” Isabella whispered. She walked past Lorenzo, ignoring him entirely, and stopped in front of Sophie.
She held out the leather book.
“Read the red pages,” Isabella said, her voice eerily steady. It wasn't the voice of a confused dementia patient. It was the voice of the old mafia matriarch she used to be. “Before the nurse burns them.”
Sophie took the book. She looked at Lorenzo, who seemed just as stunned.
Isabella turned and walked back out into the hallway.
Sophie opened the journal. It was an old diary. Most of the pages were blank, or filled with scribbled, nonsensical loops—the tragic evidence of a deteriorating mind. But halfway through the book, there were several pages bordered in red ink.
Sophie began to read aloud.
“May 14th. The yellow pills make the fog worse. I spit them into the napkin when she isn't looking. When I don't take them, the fog lifts. She is trying to erase me. I heard her on the phone today. She said ‘The old woman won’t last the winter, tell Vane the port is his.’ I have to hide the key. If I forget who I am, I need to make sure the boy gets the key.”
Sophie stopped reading. The room was dead silent.
Lorenzo was staring at the wall, his chest rising and falling in sharp, jagged breaths. The realization that his mother’s rapid decline was not entirely natural, but chemically induced by a woman he had paid to protect her, was breaking him apart in real time.
Sophie reached into her shoe and pulled out the heavy brass key Isabella had given her in the SUV. She set it on the table next to the journal.
“She didn't trust anyone else with it,” Sophie whispered. “Because she thought everyone worked for you. And she thought you trusted the nurse.”
Lorenzo picked up the key. He recognized it immediately. It was the key to a safety deposit box at a private Swiss bank—the box that held the original blackmail files his father had used to control politicians for decades. Files Lorenzo thought were destroyed.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the hallway, followed by the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor.
Lorenzo drew his gun in a flash of motion so fast Sophie barely registered it.
Toby bolted upright in bed, gasping.
May you like
The door to the suite swung open, and Nurse Hopkins stood there. She wasn't wearing her scrubs. She was wearing a dark coat, and in her hand, she held a suppressed 9mm pistol.
“Hand over the key, Lorenzo,” Hopkins said, aiming the gun directly at Toby.
