Chapter 3 - The Second VerseDarkness swallowed the penthouse before Caterina finished the last note.
For half a second, no one moved.
Then everything happened at once.
Someone shouted near the elevator. A body slammed into furniture. Dante barked an order I could not understand over the sudden pounding of my own heart. My mother grabbed me and pulled me down behind the marble island while Rosalia cursed in Sicilian with enough force to make the dead ashamed of themselves.
“Mateo!” I screamed.
The wall monitor was black now.
The image of my brother had disappeared with the lights, but it had burned itself into my mind.
His pale face.
The bruise along his temple.
The terror in his eyes.
Caterina beside him.
Alive.
Singing.
I lunged toward the screen as if I could somehow climb through it.
My mother caught my shirt.
“No.”
“He’s there!”
“We don’t know where there is.”
“I don’t care!”
A hand closed around my shoulder.
Vincenzo.
Even in the darkness, I knew him by the pressure of his grip.
“Stay down.”
I jerked away. “Don’t tell me to stay down when my brother is being held somewhere!”
His voice came colder.
“If you get shot, you become another problem I have to solve.”
“Then solve the one on the screen.”
A flash of emergency lighting blinked red along the floor.
For the first time I saw the room clearly.
Russo men had formed a perimeter around the windows and elevators. Moreno was still on his knees near the wall, one hand clamped over his bleeding shoulder. One of his bodyguards had attempted to move during the blackout and now lay face-down with Dante’s knee between his shoulder blades.
Rosalia stood completely upright.
Of course she did.
The woman had faked her own death, dismantled criminal banking networks, hidden daughters, lied to grandchildren, and walked into a room full of armed mafia men as if she were correcting a grocery bill.
Darkness apparently did not impress her.
Vincenzo turned toward Dante.
“Backup power.”
“Not responding.”
“Generators?”
“Dead.”
“External cut?”
Dante checked something on his phone, frowned, and shook his head. “Everything local is compromised. This isn’t ComEd.”
Moreno laughed.
It sounded wet and ugly.
“You think this is your building anymore?”
Vincenzo crossed the room.
I barely saw the movement.
One second Moreno was laughing.
The next Vincenzo had him by the throat.
“Where is my mother?”
Moreno smiled despite the blood on his teeth.
“If I knew that, do you think I would have walked into your house carrying paper?”
Vincenzo tightened his grip.
Rosalia spoke sharply.
“He doesn’t know.”
Vincenzo did not look at her.
“You have lied about almost everything else.”
“Yes.”
At least she did not defend herself.
“But I am not lying now.”
He released Moreno with enough force to send him crashing back against the wall.
My mother stood.
“Elena,” Rosalia warned.
“No.” Mom’s voice shook, but she stepped into the red emergency light. “No more warnings. No more half-truths. Mateo is there because of us.”
I stared at her.
“Because of what?”
She looked at me.
Her face changed.
A mother’s face.
Not the stranger from the elevator.
Not the woman I had hated for twelve years.
My mother.
And suddenly I knew I was about to hear something I would not survive unchanged.
“The system Rosalia built had three living keys,” Mom said. “Rosalia. Caterina. Me.”
I swallowed.
“And now me.”
“Yes.”
Rosalia stepped closer. “There was never supposed to be a fourth.”
“Then why am I one?”
Neither woman answered immediately.
That silence frightened me more than the guns.
“Why am I one?” I repeated.
My mother closed her eyes.
“Because your father was not who you think he was.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I laughed once.
It was becoming a habit when my life became too absurd for crying.
“My father died when I was six.”
“That part is true.”
“He was a mechanic.”
“No.”
“He worked at Marino Auto in Queens.”
“He owned the building as a cover.”
I looked at Rosalia.
She did not deny it.
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
“What was his name?”
Mom whispered, “Gabriel Bellandi.”
I stared at her.
“My name is Marino.”
“It became Marino.”
“No.”
“Lucia—”
“No!”
The word echoed off the glass.
I had spent my whole life knowing exactly who I was.
Poor.
Tired.
Responsible.
Lucia Marino.
Daughter of a dead mechanic and a mother who left.
Granddaughter of an immigrant widow.
Older sister to a sick kid who needed me.
Those things had hurt, but at least they were mine.
Now even my name felt borrowed.
Vincenzo watched me from across the room.
For once, he did not interrupt.
I turned to Rosalia.
“You said Caterina was your sister.”
“She is.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Our younger brother.”
My stomach dropped.
“So my father was your brother?”
“Yes.”
My mother shook her head quickly.
“Not biologically.”
I stared at her.
That somehow made it worse.
Rosalia’s expression tightened.
“Gabriel was taken in by my father after his own family was killed. He carried the Bellandi name. He was raised as our brother. He protected Caterina. He protected me.”
“And you married him?” I asked my mother.
“Yes.”
“Why did nobody tell me any of this?”
“Because your father was murdered for it.”
Silence.
The red light seemed brighter suddenly.
I heard the city below us.
Sirens.
Car horns.
A helicopter in the distance.
Ordinary noise.
Nothing ordinary in the room.
My mother stepped closer.
“The people behind Caterina’s disappearance believed Gabriel had copied the archive Rosalia created. They thought he knew where it was hidden.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He refused to tell them.”
My breath shortened.
“How did he die?”
Mom’s eyes filled.
“The crash wasn’t an accident.”
I turned away.
I remembered rain.
A policeman at our apartment.
Nonna making tea no one drank.
My mother sitting on the floor with one of Dad’s shirts pressed against her face.
I had been six.
Mateo had been a baby.
I remembered asking when Daddy was coming home.
No one had answered.
Now I knew why.
Someone had killed him.
Not fate.
Not weather.
Not brakes that failed because machines sometimes failed.
People.
Names.
Families.
Money.
The same invisible world that had followed my grandmother from Sicily into a Queens kitchen and finally found me forty-seven floors above Chicago.
Moreno laughed again.
“Beautiful. Truly. The Bellandi reunion.”
I spun toward him.
“What did you mean when you called me the last living key?”
His smile faded.
Rosalia answered.
“Because we believed Caterina could no longer sing.”
Vincenzo’s face changed.
“What?”
Rosalia looked at him.
“When I found evidence she had survived, I also found medical records. She had been injured badly. Her vocal cords were damaged.”
“But she just sang.”
“Yes.”
“Then the records were false.”
“Or she recovered.”
“Or,” Dante said, staring at the dead monitors, “someone wanted you to believe she couldn’t.”
Vincenzo turned toward him.
Dante lifted his phone.
“I caught part of the feed before the network died. There was metadata.”
Rosalia’s eyes sharpened. “Location?”
“Not exact. The signal bounced through six private relays. But the first handshake came through one of ours.”
Vincenzo went completely still.
“One of ours?”
Dante nodded.
“Russo infrastructure.”
Moreno smiled.
And suddenly I understood why.
This was not an outside enemy forcing its way into Vincenzo’s empire.
Someone inside had opened the door.
Vincenzo’s voice dropped.
“Who has access?”
Dante looked uncomfortable.
“Seven people.”
“Names.”
“Me. You. Carlo. Stefano. Father Leone. Marco Vitale. And—”
He stopped.
Vincenzo’s eyes hardened.
“And?”
Dante looked at Rosalia.
“Alessandro Russo.”
Vincenzo’s uncle.
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
Alessandro Russo had become the public face of the family’s legitimate holdings after Vincenzo’s father died. He attended charity galas. Sat on hospital boards. Donated millions to Catholic schools. Newspapers called him a businessman with “old Chicago roots.”
Vincenzo called him Uncle Sandro.
I had seen him twice in the penthouse.
Always smiling.
Always kissing Vincenzo on both cheeks.
Always treating me like furniture.
Vincenzo said nothing.
But the room became dangerous again.
Rosalia whispered, “Paolo’s brother.”
“Yes.”
“He knew.”
Vincenzo looked at her.
“Knew what?”
“That Caterina survived.”
Moreno started laughing.
This time no one stopped him.
“You really don’t know your own family.”
Vincenzo walked toward him.
Moreno’s laughter disappeared.
“Careful.”
“You have five seconds to explain.”
“Your father wasn’t the only Russo who wanted Caterina contained.”
“Contained?”
Moreno shrugged despite his wound.
“She knew too much. She hated what the family had become. She threatened to go to prosecutors in Palermo. Your father wanted her brought home. Alessandro wanted her buried.”
Rosalia’s face went white.
“No.”
Moreno smiled.
“Oh, yes.”
“You said Paolo ordered—”
“I said Paolo’s order started the hunt. I never said he was the last man to touch it.”
Vincenzo grabbed Moreno’s injured shoulder.
Moreno screamed.
“Tell me.”
“All I know is Sandro paid for a second team.”
“When?”
“Thirty-three years ago.”
“Who?”
“Men who are dead.”
“Where did they take her?”
“I don’t know!”
Vincenzo pressed harder.
Moreno howled.
“I don’t know!”
My mother stepped forward.
“I do.”
Every face turned toward her.
She looked terrified.
“I know where they took her the first time.”
Rosalia stared.
“Elena?”
Mom swallowed.
“Saint Agatha.”
Rosalia’s face emptied.
Vincenzo frowned.
“What is Saint Agatha?”
“Not what,” my mother said. “Where.”
She looked at me.
“There was an abandoned convent south of the city. Not a real convent anymore. It belonged to a private foundation controlled by Russo shell companies. Gabriel found its name in a transfer ledger shortly before he died.”
Dante was already typing.
“Saint Agatha House?”
“Yes.”
His expression changed.
“It still exists.”
“Address?”
“Near Lemont.”
Vincenzo turned.
“Get cars.”
Dante hesitated. “The elevators are compromised.”
“Stairs.”
“We’re forty-seven floors up.”
Vincenzo gave him a look.
Dante nodded. “Stairs.”
I moved toward them.
Vincenzo blocked me.
“No.”
I looked up at him.
“Try saying that again.”
“You are staying here.”
“My brother is there.”
“We do not know that.”
“He was standing beside Caterina.”
“In a video feed that could have been recorded anywhere.”
“Then I’ll help find him.”
“You’ll get in the way.”
I stepped closer until barely a foot separated us.
“You grabbed me when Moreno put a gun to my head. You told him I had a name. You keep saying I’m under your roof like that means something.” My voice shook. “If it means anything, then do not ask me to sit here while Mateo is scared.”
Something moved in his expression.
I lowered my voice.
“He’s seventeen.”
Vincenzo stared at me.
“He hates hospitals. He sleeps with the TV on when his breathing gets bad because silence makes him think he’s dying. He pretends he doesn’t need me because he knows how much I work. If he is in some room with people he doesn’t know, he is terrified.”
Vincenzo looked away first.
“Dante.”
“Boss?”
“Vest for her.”
Dante almost smiled.
Almost.
Rosalia did not.
“You cannot take Lucia.”
I turned on her.
“You have officially lost the right to decide where I go.”
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
“The song is not only a key.”
“You already said that.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You made sure of that.”
Rosalia reached for me.
I backed away.
Pain crossed her face.
Good.
I wanted her to feel some fraction of mine.
“The second verse Caterina sang,” she said, “changes the activation sequence.”
Vincenzo stopped.
“What activation sequence?”
Rosalia looked at the dark monitors.
“The archive is no longer waiting to be opened.”
My mother whispered, “Rosalia.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means Caterina triggered dead-man release.”
Dante frowned. “Release to whom?”
Rosalia looked toward the windows.
“To everyone.”
My skin went cold.
“Everyone who?”
“Federal prosecutors. Italian authorities. journalists. banks. judges. families. Enemies.” Her mouth tightened. “Anyone Gabriel and I decided could destroy the network if we failed.”
Moreno lunged against the man restraining him.
“You insane old bitch.”
Rosalia looked almost amused.
“Now you understand.”
Vincenzo’s voice remained controlled.
“How long?”
“Once the second verse completes, twelve hours.”
“Twelve hours until what?”
“Every file is transmitted.”
Dante swore.
Moreno’s face had gone gray.
“My family—”
“Will finally meet paperwork,” Rosalia said.
Vincenzo looked at me.
“Can it be stopped?”
Rosalia nodded once.
“With the third verse.”
I stared.
“There’s a third?”
“Yes.”
“Who knows it?”
Rosalia looked toward the dead screen where Caterina had stood with Mateo.
“Only two people.”
“Who?”
“Caterina.”
She paused.
“And Mateo.”
I stopped breathing.
Rosalia’s voice became almost gentle.
“I taught him before I died.”
My knees weakened.
“You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
The hurt returned so fast I nearly choked on it.
“You went to him?”
“He knew I was alive.”
I stared at her.
No.
“He wouldn’t keep that from me.”
“He did because I asked him.”
“No.”
“He was fourteen when I told him.”
I shook my head.
“He would tell me.”
“He wanted to.”
“You’re lying.”
“Lucia—”
“No!”
I backed into the wall.
Mateo.
My Mateo.
The kid who stole my cereal.
Who left wet towels on the bathroom floor.
Who texted me memes at two in the morning.
Who knew I cried in the shower after overdue bills came.
He had known Nonna was alive.
For three years.
Vincenzo reached toward me.
I flinched.
He stopped immediately.
That small restraint hurt more than if he had touched me.
Rosalia said, “He did it to protect you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Apparently everyone destroys my life to protect me.”
Nobody answered.
A Russo soldier appeared from the hallway.
“Stairwell is secure.”
Vincenzo nodded.
Then the dead wall monitor flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Static filled the screen.
Caterina reappeared.
This time she was alone.
Her face was closer to the camera.
“Vincenzo.”
His entire body froze.
She was speaking directly to him.
“If you are seeing this, Rosalia finally failed to keep you away.”
Rosalia whispered something under her breath.
Caterina continued.
“Do not come to Saint Agatha.”
My heart stopped.
Vincenzo stepped closer to the screen.
His mother’s eyes looked almost alive through the pixels.
“Sandro wants you there. He needs Bellandi blood, Russo blood, and the final verse in one place.”
She looked off-camera.
A sound came from somewhere behind her.
A door.
Men.
Then Mateo’s voice.
“Lucia!”
I ran toward the screen.
“Mateo!”
Of course he could not hear me.
His face appeared at the edge of the frame.
“Don’t let them—”
A hand yanked him backward.
I screamed.
The feed shook.
Caterina turned.
Someone struck her.
Vincenzo made a sound I had never heard from another human being.
Not anger.
Not grief.
Something older.
The screen cut to black.
Then white text appeared.
11:42:16
The numbers began counting down.
11:42:15.
11:42:14.
Eleven hours.
Forty-two minutes.
Rosalia stared at the timer.
Vincenzo looked at Dante.
“Bring Moreno.”
Moreno laughed weakly. “Why?”
Vincenzo picked up a gun from the floor.
“Because if my mother is harmed again, you are going to introduce me to every man Alessandro Russo ever trusted.”
Then he looked at me.
“You stay beside me.”
The words should have sounded like an order.
They did not.
They sounded like a promise.
And for the first time since I had entered Vincenzo Russo’s penthouse with a bucket and a cleaning cloth, I understood something terrifying.
I trusted him.
Not because he was good.
He wasn’t.
Not because he was safe.
He was probably the most dangerous man I had ever known.
I trusted him because when the world around us became a lie, Vincenzo Russo had never pretended to be anything except what he was.
Dangerous.
Ruthless.
Broken.
And now hunting the same people I was.
We entered the stairwell together.
Forty-seven floors below us, Chicago waited.
Somewhere beyond the river, my brother was counting on me.
Somewhere in the dark, Caterina Russo had survived thirty-three years.
And somewhere between us and Saint Agatha, Vincenzo’s smiling uncle was waiting for the last members of two bloodlines to walk willingly into his hands.
The countdown continued.
Eleven hours.
May you like
Forty-one minutes.
And falling.
Related Stories
