Chapter 3 - THE SAINT CHRISTOPHER MEDAL
Sal caught the boy easily, lifting him off the wet pavement before his bare feet could get any colder. Without thinking, the seventy-one-year-old driver unbuttoned the top of his dark wool coat and wrapped the warm fabric around the boy’s small shoulders.
“Hey there, little man,” Sal murmured, his voice thick with an emotion he didn’t even try to hide. “What are you doing out here with no shoes on?”
“I heard the big car,” the boy said, burying his face for a second against Sal’s collarbone before looking at his hands. “Did you bring the peppermints?”
Luca stood completely frozen at the bottom of the porch steps. The color had drained from his face. He looked from the little boy’s profile—that unmistakable Moretti jawline and the dark, heavy-lidded eyes—to the old man who had practically raised him.
“Sal,” Luca said, and the single word sounded like glass breaking. “He knows you.”
Sal didn’t flinch. Keeping one arm securely under the boy, he walked slowly up the walk until he was standing under the porch roof, out of the mist. He set the boy down on the dry wooden floorboards right in front of the older woman in the flannel robe.
“Mrs. Gable,” Sal said gently, “why don’t you take Gio inside and put some warm socks on him? Bring him a cup of warm milk.”
“Yes, Mr. Russo,” the woman said hurriedly, shooting a nervous glance at Vanessa and Luca.
Wait. Gio.
G.M.
“I don’t want milk,” the boy protested, his small hand reaching up to grab the silver chain hanging inside the open collar of Sal’s shirt. He pulled out a worn, round silver Saint Christopher medal and held it between his fingers. “I wanna stay with Uncle Sal.”
Luca’s eyes dropped to that silver medal. I saw his throat work as he swallowed hard.
“Go on inside for five minutes, Gio,” Sal promised, gently slipping the medal back inside his collar and ruffling the boy’s dark curls. “I’ll come in and read you the truck book before I leave. Deal?”
“Deal,” Gio said, nodding solemnly before letting Mrs. Gable lead him back through the front door.
The moment the latch clicked shut, the silence on the porch became suffocating.
Luca stepped onto the bottom stair, his gaze locked on Sal. All the warmth and protective gratitude he had shown the old driver in the dining room twenty minutes earlier had vanished, replaced by a terrible, wounded stillness.
“That’s my father’s Saint Christopher medal,” Luca said quietly. “You told me you lost it the night we buried him.”
“I didn’t lose it, Luca,” Sal said, meeting his eyes squarely. “I kept it near the boy. He gets nightmares when the thunder rolls in off the lake, and holding it helps him sleep.”
Luca’s chest rose and fell sharply. “How long have you been coming to this house, Sal?”
“Every Thursday afternoon on my lunch hour for the last four years,” Sal answered without hesitation. “Since the day Mrs. Gable brought him back to Chicago.”
I stood by the porch railing, clutching the cardboard box against my coat, my mind spinning. Sal hadn’t discovered this house on Tuesday night when he drove Vanessa here after midnight. He had already known the address by heart. He had used Tuesday night’s trip—and the red mitten in the back seat—to force Luca to this porch tonight.
“You set me up!” Vanessa’s voice rose to a shrill whisper as she backed against the brick wall of the house. She pointed a shaking finger at Sal. “You knew about this place the whole time! When I made you drive me here Tuesday night because my car was in the shop, you pretended you didn’t even know the neighborhood! You left that mitten in the box on purpose so Emma would bring you into the dining room!”
“I didn’t plan on Miss Emma bringing me into the dining room,” Sal corrected calmly. “I was going to leave the mitten and the address on Luca’s desk before I walked out the back door. Miss Emma just sped things along.”
Luca didn’t even look at Vanessa. He took another step up the stairs toward Sal, his hands clenched at his sides. “Who is that boy, Sal? Why did his mitten have the initials G.M.? And why did he call Vanessa ‘Mom’ on Tuesday night?”
“He didn’t call her Mom,” Sal said, his voice dropping an octave as he looked at Vanessa with quiet disgust. “I lied about that in the dining room because I knew it was the only thing that would make you get in the car tonight instead of listening to her excuses.”
A cold wind blew across the porch, rattling the chains of the swing.
“Then what did he call her?” Luca demanded.
“He didn’t call her anything,” Sal said. “He doesn’t even know who she is. Tuesday night, he was sitting on that swing waiting for Mrs. Gable to bring his jacket, and when Vanessa walked up the steps with the payoff envelope, he dropped his mitten and ran inside because she scared him.”
My stomach dropped. Everything we had believed when we walked out of that dining room was turning upside down. If Gio wasn’t Vanessa’s son, why was Vanessa coming here after midnight with cash?
Luca turned slowly toward his fiancée. In the dim yellow light of the porch, he looked every inch the man who ran the Moretti family businesses across three states.
“Why are you paying the woman taking care of that child, Vanessa?” Luca asked. “And why does he have my father’s face?”
Vanessa’s chin trembled, tears finally spilling over her dark lashes, though whether they were from fear or anger was impossible to tell. “I’m paying her because if I didn’t, you never would have married me!”
“Whose son is he?” Luca stepped right in front of her, towering over her against the brick wall. “Tell me right now, or I swear to God I will walk through that door and ask Mrs. Gable myself.”
“He’s yours!” Vanessa sobbed, throwing the words at him like a weapon. “His name is Giovanni Moretti! He’s your five-year-old son, Luca!”
Luca staggered back half a step as if she had struck him across the chest. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Vanessa wiped her cheek furiously with the back of her hand, her fear suddenly giving way to bitter resentment. “Five years ago, right before your father died, there was a woman you wanted to marry. Elena Vance! The little nobody violinist from the symphony whom your father and my father spent six months trying to buy off!”
At the mention of the name Elena, Luca went completely rigid. Even Sal lowered his gaze to the porch floor.
“Elena left Chicago five years ago,” Luca whispered, his voice raw. “She took the fifty thousand dollars my father offered her and moved to Milan without even saying goodbye to me.”
“She didn’t go to Milan, kid,” Sal said softly, reaching into the cardboard box I was holding. He pulled out the silver-framed 1992 photograph and slipped the yellowed receipt I had noticed earlier out from behind the cardboard backing. He held it out to Luca. “She went to a clinic in Milwaukee to have your baby where Victor Bellini couldn’t find her.”
Luca stared at the slip of paper in Sal’s gloved hand, his breathing ragged. “Where is she now, Sal? Where is Elena?”
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Before Sal could answer, Vanessa let out a harsh, broken laugh.
“You think Sal is your loyal saint, Luca?” Vanessa spat, pointing at the old driver. “Ask him who actually drove Elena out of Chicago that night five years ago! And ask him why Elena hasn’t come to see her own son in three years!”
