CHAPTER 6 THE CHAPEL OF BONES
Dante did not return Luca’s call.
He ordered the convoy away from the estate and toward a secure apartment above an old Rossi-owned restaurant in the North End.
The building had no electronic security system, no smart locks, and no network connected to the outside world.
Angelo Rossi had purchased it during a time when safety depended on brick walls, loyal neighbors, and the ability to see both ends of the street.
Aria sat at a scarred kitchen table while Marco checked every room.
The red ledger lay between her and Dante.
Smoke from the Vale Foundation still clung to their clothing.
Dante placed his pistol beside the book and looked at Aria.
“You should hear everything before we decide what to do.”
She took the recorder from her pocket.
“My mother said Luca ordered your father’s murder.”
Dante’s face revealed nothing.
“Play it.”
Aria did.
Evelyn’s voice filled the old apartment.
When the message ended, Dante remained silent for a long time.
Marco stood near the window, watching the street through the blinds.
“Did you suspect Luca?” Aria asked.
“No.”
The admission seemed to cost him.
“He raised me after my father died.”
“He taught me how to run the family.”
“He stood beside me when I buried the men I believed had killed Angelo.”
Aria touched the red cover of the ledger.
“If Luca arranged the murder, he helped you punish innocent people.”
“Not innocent.”
Dante’s voice was flat.
“But perhaps innocent of that particular crime.”
He opened the ledger to the page marked L.R.
The entry listed a payment routed through a shipping company controlled by Luca.
The money had reached the four gunmen three days before Angelo’s death.
A second notation referred to M.K.
Michael Kane.
Aria’s biological father.
Beside his name was a date six months earlier and the word TRANSFERRED.
“What does transferred mean?” she asked.
“In old Rossi ledgers, it usually meant a prisoner was moved.”
Dante turned the page.
“No destination is listed.”
“Then Luca may know whether Michael Kane was killed.”
“Your mother said he was.”
“My mother also let me believe she was dead.”
Dante did not defend Evelyn.
He understood the difference between sacrifice and abandonment was not always visible to the child left behind.
Marco’s phone vibrated.
He read the message and placed the device on the table.
A video began automatically.
Noah Hale sat tied to a chair beneath a stone crucifix.
His mouth was bleeding.
Behind him stood Luca Rossi.
Luca was sixty-two, silver-haired, elegant, and still broad through the shoulders.
He wore the same charcoal suit from the wedding, but his tie was gone.
“Dante,” he said into the camera.
“You have until sunset.”
“Bring the ledger to Saint Michael’s Chapel in Waltham.”
“Come with your wife and no more than one guard.”
“If I see additional vehicles, the boy dies.”
Luca rested one hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“If you attempt to copy the ledger, the boy dies.”
“If you contact law enforcement, several law enforcement officers on my payroll will tell me, and the boy dies.”
Noah stared into the camera.
He tapped one heel against the floor.
Three short taps.
Two long.
Three short.
Aria leaned closer.
“He is signaling.”
“SOS,” Marco said.
“No.”
Aria watched the pattern repeat.
“Three, two, three.”
“My mother taught us location codes in groups of three.”
“What does it mean?” Dante asked.
“Third building, second level, third room.”
Luca continued speaking.
“Do not mistake this for betrayal, nephew.”
“I preserved what your father was too weak to protect.”
“I preserved you.”
The video ended.
Marco searched old property maps.
Saint Michael’s Chapel had been abandoned after a fire twelve years earlier.
The chapel itself was the first building on the grounds.
Two smaller structures stood behind it.
A rectory.
A stone maintenance house.
The third building was the maintenance house.
It had a basement level and an upper storage floor.
Third room on the second level.
Noah had told them where he was being held.
Dante closed the ledger.
“I will take a false copy into the chapel.”
“Marco will enter the maintenance house from the eastern woods.”
Aria shook her head.
“Luca demanded I come.”
“You are not going.”
“He will know if I am not there.”
“He may kill Noah before Marco reaches him.”
Dante stood.
“I will not use you as bait.”
“You are not using me.”
“I am choosing to go.”
“Choice made under threat is not freedom.”
Aria rose as well.
“Then neither of us is free.”
“He has the boy because of me.”
“He has the ledger because of both our families.”
“And he believes I am still a frightened woman who obeys whoever speaks with the deepest voice.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“He is wrong.”
“Yes.”
Aria met his gaze.
“Let me prove it.”
They reached Saint Michael’s just before sunset.
Snow had begun mixing with rain, dusting the dead grass around the burned chapel.
The bell tower leaned against a colorless sky.
Half the stained-glass windows were broken.
Dante carried a copied ledger inside a leather case.
Aria walked beside him wearing a bulletproof vest beneath her coat.
Marco disappeared into the woods with a suppressed pistol and a radio transmitter no larger than a shirt button.
Inside the chapel, candles burned along the ruined altar.
Luca stood beneath the crucifix.
Two armed men waited in the shadows.
Noah was not with them.
Luca smiled when Aria entered.
“Evelyn’s daughter.”
Aria stopped ten feet away.
“You knew my mother.”
“I knew all of you before you knew yourselves.”
Dante placed the case on a pew.
“Release the boy.”
Luca glanced at the case.
“Open it.”
Dante did.
Luca did not approach.
“Page ninety-three.”
Dante turned to it.
“Read the first entry.”
“March fourteenth.”
“Payment to Harbor Light Shipping.”
Luca’s expression changed slightly.
The false ledger contained pages photographed from the original, but Marco had altered several numbers.
Dante watched Luca calculate whether the copy was genuine.
Then a muffled explosion sounded from behind the chapel.
One of Luca’s men raised his radio.
Marco’s voice came through Dante’s earpiece.
“Maintenance house clear.”
“Noah is gone.”
Luca smiled.
“You assumed the boy’s signal was meant for you.”
Aria’s stomach dropped.
“Who was it meant for?”
“For his father.”
Luca stepped aside.
Dr. Samuel Hale emerged from behind the altar.
His right hand was bandaged.
In his left, he held a pistol against Noah’s neck.
The boy’s wrists were bound.
“You gave my father the code,” Noah said to Aria.
“I did not know he was listening.”
Hale’s face twisted with shame.
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Dante said.
“Not when Victor has your wife.”
Hale pressed the gun closer to Noah.
“My son for my wife.”
“Luca promised.”
Luca laughed.
“I promised to consider it.”
Aria looked from Noah to Hale.
“Where is your wife?”
Hale’s eyes flicked toward the floor.
Beneath the chapel.
Aria remembered old churches often had crypts.
She slowly moved one hand toward the pendant beneath her coat.
The heart-shaped device had activated the Vale safe.
Marco had discovered it also transmitted a short-range signal.
Aria pressed it once.
Dante saw the movement.
He continued speaking to keep Luca focused.
“My father trusted you.”
“Your father trusted principles,” Luca replied.
“Principles are what weak men use when they lack the courage to seize power.”
“You killed him.”
“I saved the family from him.”
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Angelo intended to dismantle the organization and hand evidence to Michael Kane.”
“He would have sent us all to prison.”
“So you killed Kane too?” Aria asked.
Luca looked at her.
“No.”
“Victor did.”
“Angelo tried to stop it.”
“He failed.”
Dante glanced toward the side aisle.
A shadow moved beneath the broken windows.
Marco had entered.
Luca noticed Dante’s eyes shift.
He reached inside his coat.
Aria threw herself sideways.
Gunfire shattered the chapel.
Dante overturned a pew and pulled her behind it.
Marco fired from the aisle.
One of Luca’s men fell.
The second fled toward the sacristy.
Hale screamed and dragged Noah toward the altar.
Aria crawled behind the pews while Dante exchanged fire with Luca.
She reached the stone steps leading beneath the chapel.
A locked iron gate blocked the crypt.
The black key Caleb carried fit the lock.
Aria opened it.
The smell below was damp earth and antiseptic.
A woman lay on a cot inside the first chamber.
Her hair was gray at the temples.
A deep scar crossed her wrist.
Aria stopped on the final step.
The woman opened her eyes.
For nine years, Aria had imagined this face beneath burned wreckage, inside a closed casket, and in dreams she never admitted having.
Now Evelyn Sterling looked at her daughter and whispered one word.
“Run.”
A figure stepped from behind the crypt door.
The barrel of a rifle pressed against Aria’s spine.
May you like
Victor Sterling’s voice came softly beside her ear.
“You never did learn to obey your mother.”
