Chapter 29 - The Final Shadow
The twin engines roared through the black waves of Lake Michigan, spray soaking us as the shoreline of the Moretti estate burned like a beacon in the stormy midnight sky. Fire trucks and police sirens began to wail in the far distance, faint howls carried over the freezing water.
Luca lay on the leather bench of the cockpit, his head resting in my lap. I pressed a wad of emergency gauze against the deep shrapnel wounds on his shoulder, tears mixing with the rain on my cheeks.
Barnaby sat beside us, his heavy muzzle resting against Luca’s boots, his flanks heaving with exhaustion, singed fur smelling of smoke and lake water, but alive. Whole. Unbroken.
"We did it," Clara sobbed, steering the boat toward our designated rendezvous point in Milwaukee. "Luca... he’s dead. We saw the flames take the boathouse. The monster is finally dead."
Luca looked up at me through half-lidded eyes, reaching up with a trembling, bloodied hand to touch my cheek. "You... you saved us, Elena. You and this damn dog."
"You saved yourself, Luca," I whispered, kissing his cold forehead. "We're going to get you to a doctor. We have the offshore accounts. We can leave this life behind. All of it."
For a few fleeting moments, beneath the roar of the engines and the rhythm of the crashing waves, a fragile peace seemed to descend over our battered world. Salvatore was gone. The nightmare that had haunted the Moretti family for twenty-two years had been consumed by the very fire he used to destroy his victims.
Then, Luca’s satellite phone in his jacket pocket began to ring.
The sound was sharp, relentless, cutting through the hum of the boat's motors.
Luca groaned, looking toward his coat. "Give it... give it to me."
I reached into his wet pocket and pulled out the encrypted phone. The caller ID did not show a number. It showed a single, ominous symbol: a black wolf.
Luca’s eyes widened in horror. With shaking hands, he accepted the phone and hit the speaker button.
A crackle of static filled the cockpit.
Then, a voice spoke through the speaker—not the raspy, arrogant voice of Salvatore, but the smooth, chillingly calm voice of a woman speaking in fluent, aristocratic Italian:
"Good evening, little brother," the voice whispered.
Clara gasped, dropping the throttle by half, almost throwing the boat off course. "Sofia...?"
"You always were so easily distracted by our father’s theatrics, Luca," the voice continued, smooth as poisoned silk. "You thought Salvatore came back to take Chicago? Poor boy. Salvatore was just the diversion to pull your capos into the courtyard. While you burned down the lake house, my syndicate took the port. We took the downtown banks. We took the Commission."
A cold dread deeper than the midnight lake washed over every inch of my body. Barnaby’s ears pinned back, his low growl returning, vibrating through the cockpit.
"Father did his part," Sofia purred through the speaker, the sound of champagne pouring softly in the background. "He burned out the weak wood. Now, the true heir has arrived to claim Chicago. Run as far as you want, Luca. But remember: wherever you dock... I will be waiting."
May you like
The line went dead.
Luca stared at the phone in his trembling hands, the blood draining from his face, as the lights of the distant Milwaukee skyline appeared on the horizon—surrounded by four black patrol boats emerging silently from the fog, blocking every route to the shore.
