Chapter 5 - THE SISTER’S FLIGHT
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The black Cadillac Escalades tore through the rainy streets of Chicago like a pack of wolves hunting in the dark.
Luca sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, his eyes fixed on the streaming red taillights ahead.
Behind us, in the second vehicle, Vanessa sat handcuffed between two armed guards, sobbing hysterically into her ruined veil.
I sat in the back of the lead car, holding a small thermos of hot broth for Rosa, who remained under twenty-four-hour medical guard back at the fortified estate.
Luca had refused to leave me behind.
“You kept my mother alive when everyone else was blind, Claire,” he had told me before we left the mansion.
“You stand beside me until this account is settled.”
The storm over Lake Michigan had intensified, whipping heavy sheets of rain against the armored windows.
Marco adjusted the radio frequency on the dashboard console.
“Boss, terminal security at the municipal executive airport reports the Gulfstream jet is currently taxiing toward runway four.”
“Mia Bellini boarded with three flight cases ten minutes ago.”
“She presented diplomatic clearance paperwork forged under the Bellini import company seal.”
Luca checked the chamber of his polished black sidearm with practiced ease.
“Did they clear the runway for takeoff?”
“Air traffic control gave them a five-minute departure window,” Marco answered, stepping on the gas.
“The pilot is trying to beat the storm front before the tower grounds all civilian flights.”
“Ram the security perimeter,” Luca said calmly.
The driver didn't hesitate.
Two minutes later, the heavy iron security gates of the private aviation terminal appeared through the blinding sheets of rain.
The lead Escalade accelerated to sixty miles per hour, its reinforced steel bumper smashing through the wooden security arm and metal fencing with a deafening crash of tearing metal.
Tires screeched across the wet tarmac as the convoy swerved onto the active taxiway.
Ahead of us, the twin jet engines of a sleek white Gulfstream were roaring, spraying mist into the air as the aircraft turned toward the main runway.
Our lead vehicle surged forward, cutting directly across the jet’s path and slamming on the brakes twenty feet in front of the nose cone.
The second and third SUVs boxed in the landing gear from both sides.
The jet’s engines whined in protest before suddenly spooling down into an idle hum.
Luca stepped out into the pouring rain, ignoring the water soaking his formal white dress shirt and black trousers.
He walked toward the aircraft’s main cabin door with the relentless momentum of an approaching storm.
Two guards raised pneumatic breaching tools against the exterior door latch.
With a sharp hiss of pneumatic pressure, the aircraft door popped open and folded down into boarding stairs.
Luca climbed the metal steps, and I followed closely behind, clutching the documents Rosa had given me.
Inside the luxurious leather-lined cabin, Mia Bellini was screaming on her cell phone.
She was still wearing the hideous gray wig and the oversized floral coat she had used to disguise herself as Rosa at the bank.
Three heavy aluminum lockboxes were strapped securely onto the passenger seats beside her.
When she saw Luca step into the cabin doorway, the phone slipped from her fingers and crashed onto the carpet.
“Luca!” she shrieked, backing toward the rear emergency lavatory.
“Stay away from me!”
“This isn't what it looks like!”
Luca stepped into the warm cabin, the rain dripping from his dark hair onto the plush carpet.
“You look remarkably like my mother from behind, Mia,” Luca said, his voice deceptively gentle.
“The bent posture.”
“The cheap wig.”
“The floral coat she bought at Sears twenty years ago because she refused to spend my money on designer clothes.”
Mia began to tremble so violently that her knees buckled, and she collapsed into an armchair.
“Vanessa made me do it!” Mia wept, pointing a shaking finger toward the open door where Vanessa was being dragged up the steps by Marco.
“Vanessa said you would kill our father if we didn't pay his debts!”
“She said Rosa was going to die soon anyway!”
“She said nobody would care about an old woman losing money she never spent!”
Vanessa stepped into the cabin, her hands bound behind her back, her face twisted in utter contempt.
“Shut up, you idiot!” Vanessa screamed at her sister.
“Don't beg to him!”
“He’s a monster!”
“He was always going to discard us!”
Luca didn't even look at Vanessa.
He walked over to the first aluminum lockbox, reached out with one gloved hand, and ripped the brass latch clean off the hinges with brute force.
The lid swung open.
Inside lay stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills, velvet pouches containing antique Moretti family heirloom diamonds, and the original deed to Rosa’s first family bakery in Little Italy.
Luca picked up the faded, yellowed bakery deed.
His father’s signature was on the bottom line, dated forty years ago.
“My father died with four dollars in his pocket,” Luca said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
“He left this bakery to my mother so she would never have to beg anyone for a meal.”
“You tried to steal the memory of my dead father from a woman who loved him for fifty years.”
Luca turned toward Marco.
“Unload the boxes into my trunk.”
Then he looked at both sisters, his eyes colder than the storm raging outside the airplane windows.
“Now, let us discuss who gave you the offshore account numbers.”
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“Because two bankrupt socialites don't know how to route one hundred and twenty million dollars through Swiss accounts in forty minutes.”
“Who is backing you?”
