Chapter 2 - The Blood On the Marble
The silence in the rear dining room of the Brass Vine was heavier than the heavy oak paneling on the walls. Broken glass glinted on the deep crimson carpet like dropped diamonds. Dominick Russo had his hand pressed firmly against his ribs beneath his jacket, his breathing shallow, his dark eyes locked on Anthony Greco. Across the table, Anthony looked like a man who had stepped off a curb without looking and suddenly realized the oncoming bus was already upon him.
Eric Moretti did not draw a weapon. He didn't have to. The air around him seemed to drop ten degrees. He reached out with two long, pale fingers and gently took the edge of the bloodstained parchment from Emma’s trembling hand. His touch was surprisingly light, carefully avoiding the places where her fingers had rested.
"You should have stayed seated, Anthony," Eric said softly. The conversational tone was far deadlier than a shout.
"She’s lying, Eric!" Anthony’s voice cracked, losing the refined composure he had maintained for forty years in the Chicago underworld. "She’s a twenty-four-year-old girl clearing breadcrumbs! You’re going to tear down fifteen years of partnership because a girl who serves tap water reads a dead man’s scrawl?"
"She didn’t just read it," Eric replied, keeping his gray eyes fixed on Anthony. "She knew the dialect. She knew Suta a petra nevura. My uncle grew up in a village of seventy people near Reggio Calabria before he came to Illinois in 1968. That village hasn't existed on an official Italian map since the landslides of 1982. Four linguists from Northwestern and Columbia spent three days telling me it was an encrypted military cipher. She read it in forty-five seconds."
Eric slowly folded the letter, sliding it into the interior pocket of his tailored charcoal blazer.
"Dom," Eric murmured.
"Yeah, boss?"
"Take Anthony to the room behind the office. Keep him comfortable. Don't touch him until I come down."
"Eric, listen to me—" Anthony started, taking a frantic step forward, but Dominick was already behind him. Dominick’s movement was smooth, practiced, and absolute. A heavy forearm locked around Anthony’s shoulder, forcing him backward toward the narrow service door concealed behind the silk tapestries. Within seconds, the heavy wooden door clicked shut, swallowing Anthony’s hushed, desperate protests.
Emma stood frozen, the silver water pitcher still clutched in her right hand like a shield. Her knuckles were stark white. The reality of her rent, her grandfather’s unpaid medical bills at St. Anthony’s Hospital, and her manager’s sleazy threats seemed to belong to a completely different lifetime. Five minutes ago, she was worrying about an eighty-dollar discrepancy in her weekly paycheck. Now, she was standing in a circle of broken glass while one of the most powerful men in the city stared at her with terrifying intensity.
"What is your name?" Eric asked.
"Emma," she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the hum of the restaurant's kitchen exhaust in the distance. "Emma Hayes."
"Emma," Eric repeated. He walked to the window, pulled down the heavy velvet blind to block the flashing red lights of a passing ambulance on Rush Street, and then turned back to her. "Your grandfather. What was his name?"
"Giuseppe," she said, her throat dry. "Giuseppe Hayes. Well... Giuseppe Aiello. He changed it when he naturalized in the fifties. He was from Bova. A tiny town in Calabria."
"He was a stone mason," Eric said, not as a question, but as a realization.
Emma nodded once. "He built the retaining walls along the riverfront near the old grain silos. He died three months ago."
Eric took a slow, deep breath, adjusting his silver cufflinks. He walked over to where Emma stood, stopping just two feet away. Up close, she could smell expensive sandalwood cologne mixed with the faint, sharp scent of iron and gunpowder that hung off him like a shadow.
"Ten million dollars is a life-changing amount of money, Miss Hayes," Eric said. "It buys islands. It clears debts. It also makes you a target for every person in this city who wants my uncle's ledger buried under six feet of concrete. Do you understand what you just did by translating those four lines?"
"I just wanted... I just saw the word for horse," Emma stammered, her voice shaking despite her efforts to stay calm. "My grandfather used to tell me stories about the horses in the hills above the coast. I didn't mean to—"
"Intentions don't matter in this room," Eric interrupted gently. "Knowledge does. Anthony Greco has three brothers, four shipping docks in South Chicago, and an army of men who realize that if you finish translating that letter, they are all going to prison or the bottom of Lake Michigan. You aren't going back to the kitchen, Emma. You aren't going home to your apartment tonight either."
"I have to go home," Emma insisted, panic finally piercing through her shock. "My cat... my apartment—"
"Your apartment is no longer safe," Eric said firmly. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick leather wallet, and extracted a sleek black card with no numbers or names printed on it. He slid it into the front pocket of her linen apron. "That gets you into the penthouse at the Drake Hotel. My personal driver, Frank, is waiting at the back alley entrance. You will go with him. You will not call anyone. You will not text anyone."
Before Emma could respond, the heavy wooden service door swung open again. Dominick walked out, wiping his hands on a clean white cloth. His face was unreadable, but his eyes were dark.
"He talked?" Eric asked without turning around.
"Not enough," Dominick muttered. "He claims he doesn't know where the ledger is. He claims he only got a call last night from someone calling themselves 'The Bishop.' Said 'The Bishop' promised him half the port authority contracts if he made sure your uncle's letter never left this room."
Eric’s eyes narrowed slightly. "'The Bishop.' That’s an old name. A dead name."
"Apparently not," Dominick said. He looked over at Emma, his expression shifting from cold authority to wary caution. "What are we doing with the waitress, Eric? She knows too much."
"She stays with me," Eric said simply. "Because without her, we're digging up every cemetery in Cook County looking for a face with no name. Miss Hayes, you said you translated the last line wrong. The part about Saint Christopher."
Emma swallowed hard, her mind racing back to the jagged script on the bloodied paper. "Yes. The script was rushed, and the ink was smeared with blood. But the dialect uses a specific contraction. It wasn't San Cristoforo. It was San Crisante. It’s an old chapel near the rail yards on 18th Street. The one that was abandoned after the fire in '94."
Eric looked at Dominick. A rare, razor-sharp smile touched the corner of Eric’s lips. "Call Frank. Have the armored SUV brought around to the kitchen exit. We’re going to 18th Street."
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"Eric," Dominick warned. "It’s a trap. If Greco’s people know about the letter—"
"If it’s a trap, we bring enough lead to spring it," Eric said calmly. He turned back to Emma, offering her his hand. "Miss Hayes, your life as a waitress ended five minutes ago. Welcome to the Moretti family business."
