Chapter 3 - The Midnight Extraction
The phone call ended with a sharp click.
Rachel stood frozen, the dead phone pressed to her ear. The room was spinning. The bodies on the floor, the blood on the carpet, the revelations of her father’s murder—it was all burying her alive.
“What did she say?” Vincent demanded, stepping away from Frank.
“She has my mother,” Rachel choked out, tears finally spilling hot and fast down her cheeks. “Isabella. She said if I don’t walk out of here alone, she’ll kill her.”
Vincent swore loudly in Italian, kicking a wooden side table so hard it shattered against the wall.
“You aren’t going anywhere alone,” Vincent snapped. “Isabella is Moretti blood. I should have known. Her family has been trying to swallow our territory for a decade. The wedding was a Trojan horse. She was going to marry me, wait for me to take a bullet in an alley, and inherit the Rossi empire as my grieving widow.”
“But you found out about Rachel,” Frank interjected, his voice steadying. “Isabella realized Rachel was the true heir to Daniel’s half of the empire. If Rachel stepped forward, Isabella’s inheritance would be cut in half. She needed the waitress dead before the wedding.”
“I don’t care about the empire!” Rachel screamed, surprising everyone in the room, most of all herself. The fear was suddenly burning away, replaced by a fierce, protective rage. “I care about my mother! We have to go to my apartment. Now.”
Vincent looked at her. Really looked at her. For the first time, he saw the Rossi fire in her eyes. The same fire his uncle Daniel had.
“Marcus,” Vincent barked. “Get the cars. We use the freight elevator. Nobody sees us leave.”
Ten minutes later, a convoy of three black armored SUVs tore through the rain-slicked streets of Philadelphia.
Rachel sat in the backseat of the lead car, sandwiched between Vincent and Frank. She stared out the tinted window as they crossed into South Philly. The glittering skyscrapers of Vincent’s world faded into the gritty, neon-lit streets of her own.
They pulled up to Rachel’s small apartment building. The streetlights were completely shot out.
“Stay behind me,” Vincent ordered, drawing his weapon again.
They moved up the narrow staircase. The smell of cheap cooking oil and damp wood filled the air.
Rachel’s apartment door was ajar. The lock had been violently splintered.
Vincent pushed the door open, sweeping the room with his gun.
“Clear,” he called out softly.
Rachel rushed inside. It was completely destroyed. The sofa was slashed. The cheap thrift-store vases her mother loved were shattered across the linoleum. The small wooden dresser where the photo of her father had been kept was smashed to pieces.
“Mom!” Rachel cried out, running toward the small bedroom.
Empty.
“She’s gone,” Rachel whispered, falling to her knees amidst the wreckage of her life.
Frank knelt beside her, his old knees popping. He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.
“Look,” Frank said, pointing to the shattered dresser.
Hidden beneath the false bottom of the broken drawer was a small, black leather ledger. It had been concealed there for over two decades.
Vincent stepped forward, picking it up. He flipped through the yellowed pages.
“This is it,” Vincent said, his voice filled with awe. “My father’s original ledgers. Every politician he bought. Every judge he owned. Every hit he ordered.”
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He looked down at Rachel.
“Your mother wasn’t just hiding you, Rachel. She was holding the gun to my father’s head. And now Isabella has both.”
