Chapter 6 - The Time Capsule
The door swung inward with a soft, groaning creak, releasing a wave of trapped air that smelled powerfully of dried lavender, old paper, and a faint, lingering trace of woodsmoke.
I stepped into the room behind my father, my hand resting on the wooden doorframe to steady myself.
It was a time capsule.
The heavy velvet drapes were still drawn shut across the tall windows, blocking out the moonlight. The bed was neatly made, a floral quilt spread smoothly across the mattress, exactly as my grandmother had left it the morning she died.
On the mahogany vanity table, a hairbrush rested beside a row of glass perfume bottles, a fine layer of gray dust coating every surface.
Dad walked slowly into the center of the room. He ran his hand over the back of the floral armchair near the fireplace, his fingers tracing the wood.
“She sat here every evening,” Dad whispered, his voice cracking. “Reading her ledgers. Drinking her tea. Waiting for me to come home from the docks.”
He stopped near the small fireplace. Resting on the mantel was a framed photograph.
I walked over and picked it up, brushing the dust off the glass with my thumb.
It was a picture of my father, my uncle Michael, and my grandmother, taken on a sunny afternoon in this exact backyard thirty-five years ago. All three of them were smiling, their arms wrapped around each other, completely unaware of the brutal storms that would eventually tear their family apart.
“She loved you both so much,” I said softly, holding the photograph out toward my father and uncle.
Dad took it from my hand, his thumb gently caressing the glass over his mother’s face.
Behind us, standing near the doorway, my mother finally broke down completely. She didn't try to hide her face or muffle her cries anymore. She slid down the doorframe, sitting on the hallway carpet, weeping with the raw, agonizing despair of a woman who had lost everything she had ever schemed to protect.
Dominic stood over her, staring into the room, his eyes hollow.
“Mom,” Dominic whispered, his voice breaking. “Why did you do it? Why did you make me help you?”
Isabella looked up, her mascara running in black streaks down her cheeks. “Because your father was blind, Dominic! He thought he could rule the city with honor! Honor doesn't survive in the Chicago underworld! I was trying to secure our place before someone else put a bullet in all of our heads!”
“By trading your own daughter?” Dad’s voice cut through her excuses like a razor blade.
He turned around, facing his wife for the first time since the truth had come to light. His dark eyes were devoid of anger now. They held something much worse—absolute, irreversible indifference.
“Vincent... please,” Isabella choked out, crawling forward on her knees across the threshold into the bedroom. “I made mistakes, yes, but I’m still your wife. I gave you forty years.”
“You gave me forty years of lies,” Dad corrected quietly. “You murdered my mother in spirit, and you tried to sell my daughter into bondage to save your own skin.”
He walked past her, not even glancing down as she clutched at the hem of his trousers.
“Dominic,” Dad called out, stopping in the doorway.
My brother flinched. “Yes, Dad?”
“Pack your bags tonight,” Dad said, his voice absolute. “Take your mother with you. You have twenty-four hours to clear out of this estate. If you are ever seen within city limits again, I won't hesitate to enforce the family code.”
Dominic went completely pale. “Dad... where are we supposed to go?”
“I don't care,” Dad replied coldly. “Go to the North Side. Go to the Outfit you tried to sell your sister to. Just get out of my sight.”
He didn't wait for a reply. He walked past them down the hallway, heading toward his private study on the opposite wing of the estate.
Michael lingered for a moment, looking down at my mother with a quiet, sorrowful expression, before following my father down the stairs.
I stood alone in the center of my grandmother’s bedroom.
May you like
I looked at the vanity table, at the floral quilt, and down at the small silver locket clutched in my hand. The nightmare that had haunted our family for eighteen years was finally over, but the silence left in its wake was heavier than I ever could have imagined.
I took a deep breath, wiped the remaining tears from my cheeks, and walked out of the room, closing the heavy oak door behind me for the very last time.
