Chapter 7 - The Church BellBy morning, three hundred armed men wanted Vincent Romano dead.
By noon, the number had probably doubled.
Giancarlo Moretti’s funeral had not even been scheduled when accusations began spreading through the Midwest Council.
Photographs leaked anonymously showed fragments of detonators recovered from his destroyed vehicle.
Serial numbers traced the devices to an old Romano weapons cache seized eight years earlier.
The evidence was impossible.
And devastating.
“Vale got them from police evidence,” Lydia said.
Vincent nodded.
“Reed.”
“Or Mercer.”
Bruno paced.
“Caruso called an emergency vote.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Vincent understood.
“They’ll authorize retaliation.”
Lydia looked at the broken bedroom window, now covered with temporary boarding.
“What happens if they do?”
Bruno answered.
“Chicago burns.”
Vincent made a decision.
“I attend Moretti’s family mass.”
Bruno stared.
“That’s suicide.”
“It’s respect.”
“It’s a church full of men who think you blew up their boss.”
“Exactly.”
Lydia stepped forward.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You’re beginning to sound repetitive.”
“And you are beginning to enjoy ignoring me.”
“Yes.”
The memorial mass took place at St. Catherine’s Basilica.
Moretti had worshipped there for fifty years.
By late afternoon, armored vehicles lined the surrounding streets disguised as luxury SUVs.
Men in black suits stood beneath stone saints.
Nobody smiled.
Vincent entered without visible weapons.
Lydia walked beside him.
Every head turned.
Moretti’s eldest son, Luca, approached.
His face was hollow with grief.
“You have courage coming here.”
Vincent met his eyes.
“I respected your father.”
“My father is in pieces.”
“I know.”
“Your equipment was found in his car.”
“It wasn’t mine.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Leave before I forget we’re in a church.”
Lydia gently touched Vincent’s sleeve.
They moved toward a rear pew.
The mass began.
Rain struck the stained-glass windows.
The priest spoke about grief.
About anger.
About the danger of confusing vengeance with justice.
Lydia almost looked at Vincent.
She did not need to.
His hand found hers.
Then the church bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Vincent looked upward.
“It’s not supposed to ring during mass.”
Lydia saw movement in the choir loft.
A shadow.
Metal.
“Vincent!”
The first shot hit the marble column.
Panic exploded.
The second struck Luca Moretti’s bodyguard.
The third was aimed directly at Vincent.
Lydia pulled him sideways.
Vincent dragged her behind the pew.
Gunfire erupted from multiple directions.
Not one shooter.
Four.
Maybe five.
The assassins wore black suits identical to the mourners.
Chaos became total.
People screamed.
Security men drew weapons.
Nobody knew who belonged to whom.
Exactly as Vale intended.
Make angry men predictable.
Make frightened men shoot each other.
Lydia crawled beneath the pews.
Vincent grabbed her ankle.
“What are you doing?”
“Look!”
One shooter near the altar fired toward Caruso’s men.
Another fired toward Romano security.
Each side believed the other had attacked.
“They’re creating crossfire!”
Vincent understood.
He stood behind the stone column and roared with a voice that cut through everything.
“ROMANO MEN, WEAPONS DOWN!”
Bruno stared.
“Boss!”
“DOWN!”
One by one, Romano soldiers lowered their guns.
The assassins continued firing.
And suddenly the pattern became visible.
Luca Moretti saw it.
Caruso saw it.
The attackers were shooting everyone.
“Take the loft!” Luca shouted.
The families turned together.
Within minutes, three shooters were dead.
One escaped.
The fifth was captured alive.
Then Lydia looked down.
Blood covered her dress.
Vincent saw it.
His face changed completely.
“Lydia.”
She touched her side.
Pain arrived all at once.
A bullet had grazed across her ribs.
Not deep.
But bloody.
Vincent caught her as her knees weakened.
“Bruno!”
“I’m okay,” Lydia gasped.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a graze.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can feel it.”
“Ambulance!”
“No.”
His eyes were wild.
For all the violence Vincent had witnessed, Lydia suddenly realized he could not tolerate seeing her blood.
“It’s superficial.”
His hands shook.
“Vincent.”
He pressed his forehead against hers.
“Stay with me.”
“I am literally arguing with you.”
“Keep doing that.”
“I intend to.”
The captured shooter was dragged into a side chapel.
Luca Moretti tore off the man’s sleeve.
A tattoo appeared.
A wolf surrounded by a crown.
Bruno recognized it.
“Vale Security.”
Private military contractors.
Luca looked at Vincent.
“My father?”
Vincent met his eyes.
“Same men.”
The war changed instantly.
Anthony Caruso did not look relieved.
Lydia noticed.
During the confusion, she saw him step away.
He whispered urgently into his phone.
Then he caught her watching.
His face went blank.
Lydia knew.
She whispered to Vincent.
“Caruso.”
“What?”
“He knew.”
Vincent’s gaze followed hers.
Caruso disappeared through a side door.
Bruno moved.
“Alive,” Vincent ordered.
Caruso reached the alley.
He never made it to his car.
Bruno returned ten minutes later dragging him by the collar.
Council members gathered in the church basement.
Lydia sat with a medical compress against her side while a discreet doctor stitched the wound.
Caruso faced six furious bosses.
“I don’t work for Vale.”
Lydia opened his financial file.
“No?”
“No.”
“Your debt says otherwise.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Your phone will.”
Caruso smiled.
“You think I’m stupid enough to call Vale?”
“No.”
Lydia watched his face.
“You call Julian Mercer.”
The smile disappeared.
Vincent understood.
Mercer was still alive.
Still operating.
Bruno placed Caruso’s phone on the table.
Encrypted.
But Marco was already attacking the system remotely.
Five minutes later, messages appeared.
JM: Moretti completed. Romano framing package delivered.
AC: Council unstable.
JM: Push retaliation before funeral.
AC: Lydia problem?
JM: Church resolves both.
Vincent read that last sentence twice.
Lydia problem.
He crossed the room.
Caruso barely had time to inhale before Vincent lifted him from his chair and slammed him against the wall.
“You gave them her location.”
Caruso struggled.
“Vincent!”
Lydia stood too quickly.
Pain tore through her side.
Vincent’s fist tightened around Caruso’s throat.
Everyone in the room watched.
This was the moment Vale had been creating for years.
An angry man.
A predictable man.
Lydia said quietly, “Vincent.”
He did not turn.
“Look at me.”
Nothing.
“Vincent.”
His breathing was ragged.
“He tried to kill you.”
“I know.”
“He put a bullet through you.”
“It grazed me.”
“He dies.”
“Maybe.”
That made him look at her.
Lydia stepped closer despite the pain.
“But not because you lost control.”
Vincent stared at her.
“Make him useful.”
The room remained silent.
Then Vincent slowly released Caruso.
He fell coughing.
Lydia crouched in front of him.
“You have one chance.”
Caruso laughed bitterly.
“Vale will kill me.”
“Vale already tried.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
Caruso looked around the room.
Fear overcame loyalty.
“Vale has a private compound beneath one of his pharmaceutical facilities.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Bruno stepped closer.
Caruso spoke faster.
“Mercer uses it. They call it Saint.”
“Saint what?”
“Just Saint.”
Lydia thought.
Hospitals.
Pharmaceutical distributors.
Medical facilities.
Her father.
Then she remembered one of the companies in James’s ledger.
Saint Aurelius Biotech.
A research facility officially closed after a contamination incident seven years earlier.
Vincent saw recognition.
“You know it.”
“Maybe.”
Marco searched.
The property sat beneath an abandoned pharmaceutical laboratory sixty miles west of Chicago.
Purchased by Vale.
Underground construction permits showed four basement levels.
Bruno smiled without humor.
“Found you.”
But Lydia shook her head.
“No.”
Vincent frowned.
“What?”
“Too easy.”
Caruso looked confused.
Lydia faced him.
“Mercer gave you the name Saint?”
“Yes.”
“Knowing your phone might eventually be compromised?”
Caruso said nothing.
Lydia looked at Vincent.
“It’s another trap.”
He swore.
“Then what is Saint?”
“I don’t know.”
That night, Lydia remained under observation at the Romano estate.
Vincent refused to leave her room.
At 3:00 a.m., she woke and found him sitting beside the window.
“You’re brooding.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You brood loudly.”
He looked at her.
“I almost lost you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I saw blood.”
She sat up carefully.
“So did I.”
“I can’t do this again.”
Her heart tightened.
“What does that mean?”
He came to the bed.
“It means maybe Isabella was wrong.”
“About?”
“Not caging you.”
Lydia stared.
“Careful.”
“I could put you somewhere Vale would never find you.”
“And I would hate you.”
“You’d be alive.”
“I would leave.”
“I’d find you.”
“I’d leave again.”
His jaw tightened.
Lydia took his hand.
“Vincent, you cannot love me by turning my life into a bunker.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
“I know intellectually.”
“That’s a start.”
He looked at the bandage beneath her shirt.
“What if the next bullet doesn’t graze you?”
Lydia had no comforting answer.
So she told him the truth.
“Then we make every day before that bullet matter.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
When he opened them, fear remained.
But so did acceptance.
He kissed her hand.
At that exact moment, every light in the estate went out.
Emergency generators failed.
Security alarms died.
Bruno shouted from downstairs.
Vincent stood.
Then the bedroom television turned on by itself.
A live video appeared.
Julian Mercer sat in a dark room.
Adrian Vale stood behind him.
For the first time, Lydia saw the architect of the nightmare.
Silver hair.
Tailored suit.
Calm eyes.
He looked more like a university president than a criminal mastermind.
Vale smiled.
“Good evening, Lydia.”
Vincent stepped in front of the screen.
Vale chuckled.
“Still protecting her with your body. Very romantic.”
“What do you want?”
Vale ignored him.
“Lydia, your father stole something from me.”
“You stole his life.”
“Perspective.”
“He died drowning in debt you created.”
“He died refusing an offer.”
“What offer?”
Vale’s smile disappeared.
“To work for me.”
Lydia’s blood went cold.
“James Harrison was the finest forensic accountant I ever encountered.”
Vale stepped closer to the camera.
“And he hid my most valuable account somewhere I have never been able to find.”
“What account?”
“A reserve fund.”
“How much?”
Vale smiled again.
“Three point two billion dollars.”
Even Vincent went still.
Vale continued.
“It does not belong to me alone. Governments, cartels, families, corporations, politicians. Everyone deposited something.”
Lydia understood.
A blackmail treasury.
Vale’s emergency foundation.
“And my father stole access.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have it.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why are you talking to me?”
“Because James designed the encryption.”
Vale’s eyes sharpened.
“And the password architecture is based on you.”
The screen changed.
A photograph appeared.
Lydia at age eight standing beside her father.
Then another.
Age twelve.
Another.
Sixteen.
College graduation.
Someone had documented her entire life.
Vale spoke softly.
“Your father turned you into the key.”
Lydia felt Vincent’s hand close around hers.
May you like
Vale smiled.
“So now, Ms. Harrison, we finally arrive at the reason you were always going to become part of this story.”
Related Stories
