Chapter 7 - The Translation of Blood
The silence in the library was so complete that the crackle of a burning cedar log sounded like the crack of a whip.
Marcus Vance stared at Eleanor’s hands as though two venomous vipers had suddenly reared up from the folds of her cashmere blanket. His eyes darted frantically between the old woman and the two lawyers flanking him, the paper portfolio in his grip beginning to crinkle under the strain of his white-knuckled fingers.
"She's having a spasm," Vance rasped, his voice high and thin. "It's an involuntary muscular contraction. The doctors noted it in the chart three months ago—"
Marcus, Eleanor signed, her movements broad, rhythmic, and devastatingly clear. You brought the blue box. You told me my son was dead.
I stepped forward into the circle of firelight, my voice ringing out through the vast room with absolute, unyielding clarity.
"She says your name is Marcus," I translated, looking straight into the traitor's bulging eyes. "She says you brought the blue box. She says you told her that her son died in a car crash on the Skyway eight months ago."
Luca didn't move a muscle, but the temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero. The shadows cast by the fire seemed to lengthen across the limestone walls, wrapping around his silhouette like an executioner’s cloak.
"That's a lie!" Vance shouted, pointing a trembling finger at me. "Who the hell is this girl? Luca, you're listening to a temp agency scrubber? She’s coaching her! She’s putting words in a senile woman's mouth to extort you!"
Eleanor’s hands moved again, faster now, cutting through the air with the precision of surgical steel.
You put the cold grease on my thumb, she signed, her gaze locked on Vance with an intensity that made the man take a half-step backward. You held my hand down on the white paper while Patricia pinched my neck. You said if I didn't stop fighting, you would take my grandson too.
"She says you put ink on her thumb," I translated, each word falling like an iron weight upon the floor. "She says you forced her hand onto the legal documents while Patricia held her down. And she says you threatened to murder Luca if she fought back."
Vance’s breathing had become shallow and ragged. The smooth, corporate facade had peeled away completely, revealing the cornered predator beneath.
He didn't look at Luca. He looked at the two armed enforcers standing behind him near the double doors.
"Get the old woman," Vance hissed through clenched teeth. "Take her to the car. Now."
The two men in leather jackets reached inside their coats.
They never cleared leather.
From the shadows behind the towering bookshelves, Marco and three Moretti soldiers appeared like wraiths. There were no shouts, no warnings.
The dull, heavy thwump of four suppressed gunshots spat through the quiet room.
Both of Vance’s enforcers collapsed forward onto the Persian carpet with sickening thuds, red blossoms spreading across their shoulder blades as they groaned in agony, their weapons skittering uselessly across the parquet floor.
The two lawyers dropped their briefcases instantly, falling to their knees with their hands locked behind their heads, weeping in terror.
Vance stood alone in the center of the room, frozen, his expensive camel-hair coat splattered with the blood of his fallen guards.
Luca stepped forward.
He didn't run. He walked with that terrifying, measured stride that had made three generations of Chicago gangsters lower their eyes. He stopped six inches from Vance’s chest, towering over him, smelling of rain and cold tobacco.
Luca reached out with his left hand, gently taking the leather portfolio from Vance’s paralyzed arm. He tossed it into the roaring hearth behind him.
The blue leather caught fire instantly, the forged signatures curling into black ash within seconds.
"You told my mother I was dead, Marcus?" Luca whispered.
The question wasn't loud. It was a murmur, meant only for the four people standing around the hearth. But it carried the finality of an open grave.
"Luca... please," Vance whimpered, his knees buckling until he fell onto the floor, looking up at his Don through a veil of cold sweat. "It wasn't my idea. It was the New York families! They wanted the North Shore shipping hub! They promised me sixty percent of the freight revenue if I cleared the title through the probate court! They said you were turning legitimate—they said you were going to dissolve the syndicate!"
Luca reached down, took Vance by the throat with one hand, and lifted the two-hundred-pound man four inches off the carpet, slamming his spine back against the solid mahogany frame of the desk.
Vance choked, his hands clawing desperately at Luca’s wrists, his feet dangling uselessly in the air.
"My father gave you a home when the South Side crews wanted your head on a pike," Luca whispered into the man's bulging, bloodshot eyes. "My mother baked bread for your wedding. And you came into her room in the dark and stole her voice."
Eleanor’s hands moved from the arm of her wheelchair.
Luca, she signed, her movements soft, slow, and solemn.
Luca kept his iron grip on Vance’s windpipe, but his eyes flicked toward his mother.
"What is she saying, Claire?" Luca commanded, his voice tight with the strain of holding back a slaughter.
I watched Eleanor’s fingers carefully. A tear tracked down her wrinkled cheek, catching the golden firelight.
"She says... don't do it in front of the child," I translated softly, gesturing toward the sofa where Sophie had begun to stir beneath her blanket. "She says the blood has stayed in this house for forty years. Don't let it touch the little girl who brought her back to you."
Luca froze.
He looked from his mother’s pleading face to the sofa, where my daughter was rubbing her sleepy eyes, looking around the room with innocent, silent wonder.
For three long seconds, the fate of Marcus Vance hung by a thread thinner than cobweb.
Slowly, deliberately, Luca lowered Vance back to the floor. He didn't let go of his collar until the traitor was slumped against the base of the desk, gasping for air like a dying fish.
"Marco," Luca said without turning around.
"Boss?"
"Take him to the Calumet marsh," Luca ordered, his voice cold as a winter tomb. "Strip him of his passport, his phones, and his shoes. Tell the New York families that if Marcus Vance is ever seen west of the Hudson River again, I will personally burn every barge they own between Buffalo and Chicago."
May you like
"Understood, boss."
Marco dragged the sobbing, broken underboss out through the double doors, followed by the two terrified lawyers, leaving the library in absolute, echoing silence once more.
