Chapter 9 - The Daughter of a GhostChicago looked exactly the same.
Sarah hated it for that.
After everything they had survived, the skyline still glittered. Traffic still crawled. People still complained about weather. Restaurants still served dinner. Couples still argued on sidewalks.
The city had not noticed their deaths.
They entered under Canadian passports.
Lorenzo wore glasses and a beard trimmed differently. Sarah had dyed her hair auburn.
Sal met them in an underground parking garage.
He stared.
“Boss.”
Lorenzo hugged him.
Sarah smiled.
“Aw.”
Both men glared at her.
“What? It was sweet.”
Sal explained what happened after the gala.
Marco vanished before the Sterlings reached him.
Federal raids hit Moretti properties.
Several captains fled.
Others joined rival families.
The empire had disintegrated.
“And Isabella?” Lorenzo asked.
Sal hesitated.
“I found her.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo exhaled.
“She attends a private school in Lincoln Park. Lives with a guardian named Margaret Romano.”
“Alessandra’s sister,” Lorenzo said.
“You knew her?”
“Yes.”
Sarah watched him.
“How did you never know Alessandra was pregnant?”
“She left me.”
“Why?”
“She said she couldn’t live around violence.”
Lorenzo looked away.
“I thought she moved to California.”
Sal handed him photographs.
Isabella leaving school.
Isabella at a coffee shop.
Isabella laughing with friends.
Lorenzo stared at them for a long time.
“She looks like her mother.”
Sarah saw something in him she had never seen.
Fear.
Not fear of bullets.
Fear of approaching a child.
“Does she know who her father is?” Sarah asked.
Sal shook his head.
“Margaret told her he died before she was born.”
“Technically convenient,” Sarah said.
They watched Isabella the next afternoon.
Lorenzo sat inside a parked car across from her school.
When she emerged, he stopped breathing.
Sarah touched his arm.
“You don’t have to meet her today.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“The Custodian knows about her.”
“That means we protect her first.”
Lorenzo nodded.
Isabella entered a bookstore.
Sarah and Lorenzo followed separately.
Inside, Isabella browsed mystery novels.
Sarah almost laughed.
Of course.
Lorenzo stood three aisles away, frozen.
Sarah approached him.
“You’ve threatened senators.”
“Yes.”
“You shot Arthur Sterling.”
“Yes.”
“You jumped off a roof.”
“Yes.”
“Go talk to your daughter.”
“No.”
Sarah stared.
“Unbelievable.”
She walked away.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing this.”
Sarah approached Isabella.
“Excuse me.”
The girl looked up.
“Yes?”
Sarah held up a book.
“Have you read this author?”
Ten minutes later they were talking comfortably.
Lorenzo watched in horror.
Sarah waved him over.
He considered fleeing.
Instead he approached.
“This is my friend Lorenzo,” Sarah said.
Isabella smiled.
“Hi.”
Lorenzo stared.
“Hello.”
Sarah resisted laughing.
Isabella frowned.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“He has social problems,” Sarah said.
“Sarah.”
“What?”
Isabella laughed.
That laugh hit Lorenzo like a bullet.
Alessandra.
Same laugh.
Same small wrinkle beside the nose.
Then the bookstore door opened.
Sarah noticed the man immediately.
Dark coat.
Earpiece.
Another entered behind him.
“Lorenzo.”
He saw them.
They moved.
Sarah grabbed Isabella.
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“Now.”
Gunfire shattered the front window.
Customers screamed.
Lorenzo tackled one attacker.
Sarah dragged Isabella through the stockroom.
“Who are you?”
“Complicated.”
“Why are people shooting?”
“Also complicated.”
They escaped through an alley.
Sal arrived.
Everyone jumped into the vehicle.
Isabella screamed.
“Let me out!”
Lorenzo turned.
“We can’t.”
“Who are you people?”
Sarah looked at Lorenzo.
His moment.
He failed.
Sarah sighed.
“He’s your father.”
Silence.
Isabella stared.
“What?”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
“Sarah.”
“You were taking too long.”
Isabella laughed nervously.
“My father is dead.”
“So was he until recently.”
“Sarah.”
“What?”
Isabella looked from one to another.
“You’re insane.”
Lorenzo removed his glasses.
“Your mother was Alessandra Romano.”
Isabella froze.
“She loved jazz records. She hated roses because she said they smelled like funerals. She had a scar behind her left knee from falling off a bicycle when she was nine.”
Isabella’s face changed.
“Margaret told you.”
“No.”
“She could have.”
“She used to put cinnamon in coffee. Too much. She sang when she cooked but always forgot lyrics.”
Tears filled Isabella’s eyes.
Lorenzo continued.
“I loved her.”
“Then where were you?”
The question destroyed him.
“I didn’t know.”
Isabella slapped him.
Sarah looked away.
Lorenzo accepted it.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“To keep you alive.”
“I was alive before you showed up!”
Lorenzo had no answer.
Sarah did.
“No. You were being watched.”
She showed Isabella the photograph sent by the Custodian.
Isabella went pale.
“This was taken yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“Who took it?”
“People who want something from Lorenzo.”
“Because he’s my father?”
“Because they think you matter to him.”
Isabella looked at Lorenzo.
“Do I?”
He answered instantly.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
“Then how?”
Lorenzo’s voice broke.
“Because I lost seventeen years in one photograph.”
Isabella looked away.
They took her to an old safe apartment.
Margaret arrived two hours later.
When she saw Lorenzo, she struck him.
“Seems popular today,” Sarah muttered.
Margaret cried.
“You were supposed to be dead.”
“So was everyone, apparently.”
“Alessandra made me promise.”
Lorenzo stared.
“She knew I was alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she was afraid Isabella would become part of your world.”
Lorenzo looked around the safe house.
“She was right.”
Margaret handed him an envelope.
“Alessandra left this for you.”
He opened it.
A letter.
Lorenzo,
If you are reading this, then Isabella is in danger or I have failed to keep her away from the Moretti name.
She is yours.
I found out I was pregnant the week after I left.
I wanted to tell you every day.
But then a man visited me.
He said his name was Marco Vain.
Lorenzo’s face changed.
Sarah leaned closer.
Marco had known.
For seventeen years.
The letter continued.
Marco told Alessandra that if Lorenzo ever learned about the child, enemies would use her. He offered protection in exchange for silence.
“He knew,” Lorenzo whispered.
Sarah’s anger rose.
“Marco knew everything.”
At the bottom of the letter was another revelation.
Marco had visited periodically.
The last time was six months before Alessandra died.
He asked whether Alessandra possessed something Vittorio had given Lorenzo years earlier.
A silver medallion.
Lorenzo froze.
“What medallion?”
Margaret looked at Isabella.
Isabella touched her necklace.
A silver pendant hung beneath her shirt.
“My mom gave me this.”
Lorenzo stared.
Vittorio had given the medallion to Alessandra?
Why?
Sarah examined it.
Seven stars surrounded a central circle.
The Council.
She twisted it.
It opened.
Inside was a tiny chip.
Everyone stared.
Sarah whispered, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Lorenzo looked at Isabella.
The Custodian didn’t merely want her as leverage.
She had been carrying part of the Registry around her neck.
A phone rang.
Isabella’s.
Unknown number.
Sarah answered.
The Custodian’s altered voice.
“Now you understand.”
Sarah put it on speaker.
“What do you want?”
“Midnight. Moretti estate.”
Lorenzo looked toward the ruins of his old home.
“Why there?”
“Because every story should end where it began.”
The call disconnected.
Isabella looked terrified.
Lorenzo knelt before her.
“You’re not going.”
“What if they come here?”
“They won’t find you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
Lorenzo looked at Sarah.
“But I know how to make them stop searching.”
Sarah understood.
They would go to the ruins.
May you like
But not to surrender.
To finish everything.
