Chapter 3 - THE GHOST IN THE LEATHER SEAT
The black sedan was idling at the far end of the alley, its headlights off, blending into the heavy Chicago rain that had just begun to fall.
Elena moved fast, practically dragging me by the arm. The pain in my ribs was a sharp, biting fire with every step, but the adrenaline masked the worst of it. The cold metal of Franco’s lighter burned a hole in my palm.
“Get in the back,” Elena ordered, yanking open the heavy rear door.
I didn’t argue. I slid into the dark leather interior, pulling my weapon from my shoulder holster and resting it on my thigh. The driver, a shadow in a flat cap, didn’t turn around. He simply shifted the car into drive the second Elena slammed the passenger door shut.
We tore out of the alley, the tires gripping the wet asphalt, leaving the blazing inferno of the restaurant behind us.
The silence inside the car was suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic squeak of the windshield wipers.
I stared at the back of Elena’s head. She was pressing a napkin to the bleeding cut on her forehead, her shoulders rising and falling with ragged breaths.
I gave her three blocks. Three blocks to catch her breath. To realize she was sitting in a car with the most dangerous man in the city, who had just lost his men, his fiancée, and his empire in a single violent heartbeat.
As we crossed the bridge over the river, I raised the barrel of my gun, resting it against the back of her headrest.
“Talk,” I commanded. The coldness in my voice surprised even me. “Start with the lighter. Then tell me who you are. Because if you miss a single detail, I’ll have the driver pull over, and I will leave you in the river.”
Elena slowly lowered the bloody napkin. She didn't look back. She looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“My name is Elena Russo,” she said quietly. “My father was Dominic Russo.”
The name hit me like a physical blow.
Dominic Russo. 'Dom the Ghost.' He had been one of the most prolific hitmen for the rival Calabrese family twenty years ago. He was a phantom, a man who never left a trace.
He was also the man who had pulled the trigger on my brother, Franco.
My finger tightened instinctively on the trigger of my gun. The barrel pressed harder into the fabric of her seat.
“Your father murdered my brother,” I stated, the words tasting like ash. “He took that lighter from his body.”
“He did,” Elena admitted, her voice trembling but refusing to break. “He took it as a trophy. He was a monster, Mr. Moretti. I won't defend him. But he's dead. He died of cancer six months ago in a hospice in Gary, Indiana.”
“Good,” I spat. “He should have burned.”
“Before he died,” she continued, turning in her seat to face me, ignoring the gun pointed directly at her chest, “he confessed. To everything. He told me he kept journals. Records of every job, every payoff, every betrayal.”
She reached into her soaked apron and pulled out a small, worn leather notebook, holding it up in the dim streetlights.
“He didn't just kill your brother because the Calabrese family ordered it,” Elena said softly. “He killed him because someone inside your own family paid him triple to make sure Franco never took over as Boss.”
I stared at the small leather book. My heart pounded against my bruised ribs.
Franco had been the golden child. The heir apparent. When he was murdered, the blame fell entirely on the Calabrese family, sparking a war that lasted three years and ended with me taking the throne.
“Who?” I demanded, my voice shaking. “Who paid him?”
Elena slowly lowered the book. “I don't know the name. My father only used initials in his journals. But he wrote down how the payoff was made. It was a wire transfer from an offshore account. The account was opened using a piece of collateral. A rare piece of jewelry.”
She looked down at her lap.
“An antique gold locket. With a crest on it.”
The air left my lungs.
My grandmother's locket.
The locket Sarah had been wearing tonight. The locket she had taken off right before the bomb detonated.
“That's impossible,” I whispered, lowering the gun slightly. “Sarah is twenty-eight years old. Twenty years ago, she was a child. She couldn't have ordered a hit.”
“No,” Elena agreed. “She couldn't have. But whoever gave her that locket did. Whoever told her to take it off tonight as a signal to the bombers… that person is the one who killed your brother. And they used Sarah to try and kill you tonight.”
My mind raced, trying to piece together the shattered fragments of my reality.
If Sarah was a pawn, who was moving her? Who had the locket twenty years ago?
I had given it to Sarah. But before that, it had been locked in the family vault. The only people who had access to that vault were me…
And my Underboss. Carlo.
Carlo, who had been sick tonight. Carlo, who had insisted I take the private table in the back. Carlo, who had introduced me to Sarah three years ago.
A sickening wave of betrayal washed over me. Carlo had been like a second father to me after Franco died. He had guided me, protected me.
Or so I thought.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice hollow.
“A safehouse,” Elena said, turning back to face the windshield. “My father’s old bunker. Nobody knows it exists. Not Carlo. Not the Calabrese family.”
“And why are you doing this?” I asked, staring at the side of her face. “Why risk your life to save mine? To bring me your father's confession?”
Elena looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together.
“Because my father left me a mountain of blood money,” she whispered. “And I want no part of it. I want out of Chicago. I want to disappear. But before he died, he told me that if Carlo ever took full control of the city, nobody would be safe. He told me to find you. To give you the lighter and the journal. He said it was his only penance.”
She looked at me through the mirror again.
“I bought you your life tonight, Mr. Moretti. Now, I need you to buy me mine.”
I leaned back against the leather seat, staring at the silver lighter in my hand. The initials F.A.M. glinted in the passing streetlights.
I had lost everything tonight. But I had gained the one thing I never thought I would find.
The truth.
“Driver,” I said quietly.
The man in the flat cap glanced in the mirror.
“Change of plans. We aren't going to the bunker.”
Elena whipped around, panic flashing in her eyes. “What are you doing? They are looking for you! We have to hide!”
“I’m done hiding,” I said, pocketing the lighter and checking the magazine of my weapon. I slammed it back into the grip with a sharp click. “Take us to the Marina District.”
Elena grabbed the headrest. “No! That’s where Sarah’s apartment is! If she was part of this, Carlo’s men will be watching it!”
“I know,” I said, staring blankly out the window at the rain. “But Sarah has a five-year-old son, Leo. He was supposed to be with a babysitter tonight.”
I turned to look at Elena, my jaw clenched.
“If Carlo is cleaning house, he won't leave loose ends. Sarah might have betrayed me, but I am not leaving a child to be slaughtered.”
Elena stared at me in shock. She opened her mouth to argue, but the ringing of a cell phone cut her off.
It wasn't her phone. It wasn't the driver's.
It was coming from my jacket pocket.
I reached in and pulled out a sleek, unfamiliar silver phone. It wasn't mine. Someone had slipped it into my pocket before the explosion.
The caller ID was blocked.
I answered it, putting it to my ear, but said nothing.
Through the static, a small, terrified voice drifted out of the speaker.
“Vincent? Are you there? The bad men are breaking the door…”
It was Leo.
And in the background, I could hear the unmistakable sound of a heavy sledgehammer crashing against wood.
Before I could speak, a man's voice cut onto the line. Deep. Familiar.
May you like
“You survived the blast, Vincent,” Carlo’s voice purred smoothly. “Impressive. But you have exactly ten minutes to come to the apartment and surrender. Or the boy pays for your mother's locket.”
The line went dead.
