Chapter 7 - The Bloodline Broken
The war for Chicago’s underworld did not take weeks; it took forty-eight hours.
When a mafia boss of Luca Moretti’s stature moves with absolute moral certainty and ninety million dollars in forensic evidence, the city bends.
By Tuesday afternoon, the Bellini empire had ceased to exist.
Vincent Bellini was arrested in a private hangar at Gary International Airport while attempting to board a chartered flight to the Dominican Republic with three million dollars in laundered bonds. His son Marco was in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, singing like a canary to federal prosecutors to avoid a death sentence for Michael’s murder.
The Bellini warehouses along the Calumet River were padlocked by federal marshals, their supply lines absorbed into the Moretti logistics network without a single drop of civilian blood spilled on the streets.
The city newspapers called it the greatest organized crime purge since the nineteen-eighties.
The society pages called it a tragic, shocking betrayal of high society.
Inside the Moretti mansion on the Gold Coast, the house had been stripped of every trace of Vanessa Bellini.
Her designer gowns had been removed from the dressing rooms and donated to women’s shelters across the South Side; her portraits had been taken down from the gallery and burned in the courtyard furnace; her scent of expensive French jasmine had been scrubbed from the marble floors with bleach and pine oil.
I sat in the vast, sun-drenched conservatory at the rear of the estate, wearing a clean, comfortable gray wool sweater and dark trousers Mrs. Carter had bought for me.
My lower lip was nearly healed, the purple swelling reduced to a faint, pale line that barely ached when I smiled. On the small glass-topped table beside me sat my father’s medical paperwork, stamped with a bold green seal: PAID IN FULL - PERPETUAL TRUST ESTABLISHED.
Across the table sat Samuel Bennett.
The elderly music teacher was dressed in a warm tweed jacket, his unseeing eyes turned toward the glass walls where the late-autumn sunlight was melting the frost off the rosebushes. In his hands, he held a cup of Earl Grey tea, his face peaceful for the first time in nine years.
“He’s going to be all right, Emily,” Samuel murmured softly, his voice carrying the gentle, musical cadence of a choir director.
I looked at him, curious. “Mr. Moretti?”
“Luca,” Samuel nodded, smiling faintly. “For nine years, that boy carried a stone in his chest. He thought his brother died because he was too weak to protect him. Today, he knows the truth. Truth is a heavy cross to carry, child, but it’s the only thing that lets a man put his burden down.”
The French doors of the conservatory clicked open.
Luca walked in.
He had abandoned his formal three-piece suits. He wore dark denim trousers, a charcoal cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, and leather boots. The cold, lethal mask that had ruled his face since the night of the dinner had softened, the deep lines around his eyes smoothed by something that looked miraculously like peace.
When Samuel heard his footsteps, the old man set his teacup down and reached out his hand.
Luca didn't hesitate. He crossed the stone floor, knelt down on one knee beside the elderly man's chair, and took Samuel’s weathered fingers between his own massive palms.
“Michael has been laid to rest, Samuel,” Luca said softly. His voice was thick with emotion, but entirely steady. “In the family plot beside my mother. With a full requiem mass at St. Catherine’s.”
Samuel’s eyes filled with tears. He reached out with his other hand, gently touching Luca’s dark hair, just as he had done thirty years ago when Luca was a boy in the choir stalls.
“Your mother was there today, Luca,” Samuel whispered. “I could hear her in the bells.”
Luca stayed on his knees for several minutes, his head bowed against the old man's hand, allowing himself the quiet, private grief that a Don was never permitted to show the world.
Then, Luca stood up.
He turned his gray eyes to me.
The air in the conservatory suddenly felt thin. The heat that flared in his gaze was so intense, so nakedly honest, that my heart began to thud against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“Samuel,” Luca said, his eyes never leaving my face. “Daniel is waiting in the library to drive you back to the parish house. The church organ has been fully restored, and your retirement trust was ratified by the archdiocese this morning.”
Samuel smiled, a knowing, beautiful twinkle in his blind eyes as he picked up his cane.
“Thank you, son,” Samuel said, rising slowly to his feet. He took three steps toward the French doors, paused, and looked back in our direction.
“And Luca?”
May you like
“Yes, Samuel?”
“Don't let this one get away,” the old man chuckled softly. “She has your mother’s hands.”
