Chapter 5 - THE BURNING PENTHOUSE
"Get the cars!" I roared, sprinting toward the heavy metal doors of the warehouse before Dante could even process my command.
The drive back to the city center was a blur of adrenaline and raw terror. Paula had paid a cartel hitman to rig my armored SUV with explosives. She knew I had cut off her funds. She knew her extortion empire was crumbling. Her final, desperate move was to wipe me out and claim control of the DeLuca assets as my next of kin.
And she didn't care that my innocent daughter was sleeping directly above the blast zone.
We screeched to a halt outside the luxury high-rise just as a massive, deafening explosion shook the very foundation of the building.
The shockwave blew out the glass doors of the lobby. Car alarms wailed into the freezing Chicago night. Plumes of thick, black smoke began billowing from the underground parking garage vents, rising rapidly up the sides of the towering skyscraper.
"Renee!" I screamed, lunging out of the car.
"Boss, wait! The structural integrity is compromised!" Dante yelled, grabbing my arm.
I shoved him off with enough force to send him stumbling backward. "That’s my daughter up there!"
I sprinted through the shattered lobby, ignoring the panicked residents fleeing down the emergency stairwells. The elevators were dead. I hit the fire stairs, taking them three at a time, my lungs burning as I pushed my body to its absolute limits. Fifty floors. I didn't stop. I didn't slow down. All I could see was Renee's innocent face, her small hands raw from washing dishes for a family that wanted her dead.
I kicked open the heavy metal door to the fiftieth floor. Thick smoke was already creeping down the opulent hallway, setting off a symphony of blaring fire alarms.
I reached my penthouse door. It was locked, but the blast had warped the frame. I took a few steps back and threw my entire weight against the heavy mahogany wood. It splintered and gave way.
"Renee!" I coughed, the acrid smoke stinging my eyes.
The living room was in shambles, expensive art knocked off the walls by the tremor. I ran down the long corridor toward her bedroom.
I threw her door open.
Her bed was empty.
Panic, cold and absolute, gripped my heart. "Renee! Princess, where are you?!"
"Daddy?" a tiny, terrified voice whimpered from inside the walk-in closet.
I dropped to my knees, throwing the closet doors open. Renee was huddled in the corner, clutching her stuffed bear, coughing as the smoke began to thicken.
"I've got you," I gasped, pulling her tightly against my chest, burying her face in my heavy wool coat to shield her lungs. "Daddy’s got you. Close your eyes, sweetie. We're going for a ride."
I stood up, carrying her securely, and sprinted out of the apartment. By the time we reached the lobby, Dante and my men had secured the perimeter. Fire trucks were wailing in the distance, their red and blue lights flashing against the falling snow.
I sat on the bumper of an ambulance, holding Renee as a paramedic placed a small oxygen mask over her face. She was shaken, but unharmed. I kissed her forehead, an overwhelming wave of relief crashing over me.
But as I watched my fortress burn, a new realization struck me. A massive reversal of logic.
Paula was shallow, greedy, and cruel. But she was a coward. She didn't have the stomach to orchestrate a bombing of a high-rise building, nor did she have the connections to hire a cartel hitman. My father controlled the underworld contacts. Paula was just a spoiled princess playing with dirty money.
Someone else had masterminded this. Someone who wanted me dead, Paula framed, and the DeLuca empire consolidated under their control.
"Dante," I said, my voice cold as ice.
Dante approached, his face grim. "The fire department confirmed it was an IED strapped to the undercarriage of your SUV, boss. If you had started that engine, you’d be ash."
"Paula didn't orchestrate this," I said, standing up. "She doesn't have the intellect for an assassination of this magnitude. Someone is using her."
Before Dante could answer, my phone rang. The caller ID displayed an unknown number.
I answered it, putting it on speaker.
"Michael," the voice was calm, cultured, and chillingly familiar.
It was Carmen. My mother.
"Mom," I said, the truth finally snapping into place.
"I warned you not to open that letter, Michael," my mother said smoothly. "I warned you that some doors should remain closed. You just had to go digging for a ghost."
"You killed Clara," I whispered, the horrifying magnitude of her betrayal making me sick to my stomach. "You used Paula’s greed to cover your tracks. You poisoned her, and you blamed it on my sister."
"Paula is an idiot," my mother scoffed. "She thought she was so clever, blackmailing me. I let her think she was in control while I used her bank accounts to pay the hitmen and the doctors. It made the paper trail point entirely to her. And when you confronted her tonight, she panicked exactly as I knew she would."
"Why?" I demanded, gripping the phone tightly. "Clara loved me! She carried your granddaughter!"
"Clara wasn't a nobody, Michael!" my mother suddenly hissed, her calm facade breaking. "You thought she was just a sweet schoolteacher. But I had her investigated before you proposed. Clara’s real name was Clara Rossi. She was the daughter of an undercover FBI agent who was building a RICO case against our family!"
My mind reeled. Clara? An informant's daughter?
"If she married you, she would have dismantled the empire from the inside!" my mother continued, her voice dripping with venom. "I did what had to be done to protect our legacy! I ordered her death, I ordered the baby sold, and tonight, I ordered the bomb. The DeLuca empire requires a strong leader, Michael. And you proved tonight that you are too weak to rule."
"Where are you, Carmen?" I asked, completely dropping the title of 'mother'.
"I'm at the private airstrip," she laughed coldly. "I'm leaving the country with the family's offshore accounts. Enjoy the ashes of your life, Michael."
The line went dead.
I looked at Dante. "Get every man we have. We're going to the airstrip."
"Boss," Dante hesitated, looking at a small, silver object he had just pulled from the wreckage of the lobby. "You need to see this first."
He handed me a charred safe deposit box key. It had a numbered tag attached to it: Box 402.
"The firemen found this strapped to the remains of the bomb casing," Dante explained. "It’s a message. From the hitman."
Box 402. I knew that box. It was a private vault Clara and I had rented years ago to store our love letters.
"She didn't just hide your daughter, Michael," a voice gasped from behind us.
May you like
We turned. It was Dr. Elias Vance, the clinic doctor, bleeding from a superficial wound, escorted by my men.
"I didn't tell you everything," the doctor coughed, holding his ribs. "Clara didn't have one baby, Mr. DeLuca. She had twins. She hid your son to protect him from your mother."
