Chapter 6 - THE CRYPT BENEATH ST. LUKE’S
Ethan stared down at the microscopic initials inside the gold locket, then up at my face. For three heartbeats, the ruthless control freak who ran half of Chicago warred with the terrified husband who had already mourned my death once.
“If you come down those stairs with me, Claire, you stay six inches behind my right shoulder,” Ethan said, his voice rough as he pulled off his bulletproof tactical vest from under the seat and strapped it firmly over my emerald velvet gown, adjusting the Velcro straps with practiced speed. “And the second that vault door clicks, you let me handle Lucas and Marcello.”
“Deal,” I said.
I turned back to the rear bench and kissed Noah’s forehead and Sophie’s cheek.
“Russo is staying locked inside this armored truck with you and four guards,” I told them firmly. “The glass can stop a rocket-propelled grenade. Noah, you’re in charge of keeping your sister’s seatbelt buckled until your father and I walk back through that alley door. Understand?”
Noah swallowed hard, nodding seriously as he wrapped his arm around Sophie’s shoulders. “We won't move an inch, Mom.”
Then Noah looked past me at Ethan.
“Hey,” Noah said, his voice cracking just slightly before he steadied it. “Bring my mom back. Or I’m charging you twenty percent interest instead of ten.”
Ethan reached into the backseat and gripped his son’s shoulder, his gray eyes fierce. “Count on it, partner.”
Two minutes later, Ethan and I walked side by side down the worn stone steps leading beneath the sacristy of St. Luke’s Chapel.
The air smelled of damp limestone, old candle wax, and gun oil.
At the bottom of the vaulted marble crypt stood the massive brushed-steel door of the Syndicate’s archival safe, built directly into the foundation wall behind the altar tombs.
Four of Dante Marcello’s harbor gunmen stood flanking the marble pillars with submachine guns aimed at the stairs.
In the center of the stone floor, Victoria Sullivan knelt with her wrists zip-tied behind her back, her white gown smeared with dust, a dark bruise swelling across her cheekbone where Dante had struck her to force the gold Sullivan signet ring off her finger.
Standing directly in front of the vault’s digital console was Lucas—holding the dark blue biometric tablet with Noah and Sophie’s stored fingerprints.
When I looked at Lucas—the man who had eaten Thanksgiving dinner at my table for eight years—something cold and hard settled inside my chest.
“You told me you were protecting us, Lucas,” I said, stopping beside Ethan ten feet from the vault door. “You watched Noah take his first steps. You bought Sophie her first bicycle. Were we just livestock you were keeping alive until the ten-year trust maturity date hit this week?”
Lucas didn't flinch, though a shadow of genuine exhaustion crossed his face beneath the fluorescent vault lights.
“Look around you, Claire,” Lucas said softly. “My father and your father spent thirty years cleaning blood money for the Sullivans and the Marcellos. When they tried to turn state’s evidence in 2016, the Outfit didn't let them retire—your father died of ‘heart failure’ in a federal holding cell, and mine died broke in a motel room in Arizona. Thirty million dollars of the money inside that vault belonged to our fathers’ pension skims. I kept you and the twins alive in Milwaukee when Dante’s first crew came looking for you—and yes, I waited ten years for the trust lock to mature so I could take back what this family stole from ours.”
“By putting a sniper’s laser on a ten-year-old boy’s chest tonight?” Ethan asked, his voice deadly calm as he stood half a step in front of me, his hands open at his sides.
Lucas’s jaw tightened, glancing sharply at Dante Marcello. “The sniper was only supposed to fire into the chandelier to create a distraction so we could grab Victoria in the panic! Dante’s shooter went rogue.”
“Kids are a liability once the biometrics are captured on the drive, Vancetti,” Dante Marcello sneered, stepping forward with a heavy silver .45 aimed squarely at Ethan’s chest while holding out his left hand. “Toss the gold locket over here, Ethan. Let’s not waste time—your harbor crews are still pinned down at Navy Pier, and my helicopter is on the hospital roof across the street.”
Victoria looked up from the stone floor, tears cutting tracks through her ruined makeup as she looked at me and Ethan.
“Don't give it to him, Ethan!” Victoria cried out, her voice raw and broken. “They’re going to kill all three of us the second that vault opens! Claire—I’m sorry! God forgive me, I thought I was protecting my son’s legacy ten years ago, I didn't know they killed your father!”
Dante kicked the back of Victoria’s chair, sending her sprawling onto her side against the marble sarcophagus, and cocked the hammer of his .45 at her head.
“Wait!” I shouted, stepping half an inch to the side so Lucas could see the gold swan in Ethan’s hand. “We brought the code! The twelve digits are 07-18-17-94-02-11. Punch them in, Lucas—they’re the twins’ birth date and my father’s badge number.”
Lucas tapped the twelve digits rapidly onto the vault keypad, plugged the blue tablet into the USB port to transmit Noah and Sophie’s genetic hash, and pressed Victoria’s gold signet ring into the brass cylinder lock.
The heavy steel bolts inside the vault door clanked backward.
Then a red LED screen above the handle flashed: SECONDARY AUDIO VERIFICATION REQUIRED. STATE PASS-PHRASE OR INCENDIARY PURGE IN 15 SECONDS.
14… 13… 12…
Dante’s eyes bulged. He swung his .45 from Victoria to my head. “Speak into the mic, Claire! Now!”
I walked slowly toward the console, Ethan shadowing me within arm’s reach as the four gunmen tensed around the pillars.
9… 8… 7…
I leaned toward the brushed-steel microphone grille beside Lucas.
I knew my father. When I was a little girl in South Chicago, whenever we played hide-and-seek or locked our treehouse box, he only ever used one secret phrase—the name of my mother’s favorite lullaby.
Wait. If I spoke the real pass-phrase right now, the vault would open calmly, the incendiary trap would disarm, and Dante’s four gunmen would shoot Ethan, Victoria, and me in the back of the head before walking out with three hundred million dollars.
I looked at the reflection in the polished steel vault door.
Behind the four gunmen, high up on the darkened organ stairs leading from the main chapel nave, the stone sacristy door had just eased open half an inch—revealing the dark barrel of Russo’s suppressed rifle.
We didn't need to disarm the trap. We just needed three seconds of blinding smoke.
4… 3…
I looked straight into Lucas’s eyes and spoke clearly into the microphone:
May you like
“Burn in hell, Lucas.”
The vault console shrieked with a piercing crimson alarm as compressed white anti-tamper smoke and tear gas blasted straight out of the exterior security vents into Lucas’s and Dante’s faces!
