Chapter 4 - Shadows of the Past
The sound of an explosion rocked the foundation above them. Dust fell like snow from the brick ceiling. The steel door at the top of the stairs groaned under the impact of a breaching charge.
"We have to move!" Eric growled, snatching the leather-bound book and shoving the photograph into his pocket. He grabbed Emma’s wrist, pulling her toward a narrow drainage tunnel at the back of the crypt that led out toward the riverbank.
They crawled through the wet, cramped tunnel, the icy water soaking Emma’s knees and hands, until they burst out onto the muddy banks of the Chicago River. Rain was pouring in torrents now, washing away the blood on Eric’s arm.
A sleek black speed launch was idling quietly in the dark water near the rusty support pillars of the 18th Street bridge.
"Over here!" a voice called from the boat. It was Frank, covered in mud, holding an assault rifle across his chest. "Dominick took out three of them on the perimeter! The rest are falling back!"
They scrambled aboard the vessel. Frank immediately slammed the throttles forward, and the twin engines roared to life, shooting the boat out into the dark, churning waters of the river, leaving the flashing red lights and burning ruins of the chapel behind.
Inside the enclosed cabin of the speed launch, the roar of the engine was reduced to a steady hum. Eric collapsed onto the leather bench, his face deathly pale. Emma immediately grabbed the boat’s first-aid kit, popping open the plastic latches with shaking fingers.
"Sit still," she ordered, her voice firm with an authority she didn't know she possessed.
Eric looked up at her, a faint, amused smile playing on his lips despite the pain. "You're taking charge now, Miss Hayes?"
"You're bleeding on a ten-million-dollar jacket," she retorted, ripping open a package of sterile gauze and pressing it directly against the bullet graze on his forearm. "And if you faint from blood loss, I don't know how to steer this boat."
Eric winced as she applied pressure, but he didn't pull away. He stared at her face, illuminated by the green glow of the radar screen. "You knew him," Eric said softly.
Emma paused, her hands trembling over the bandages. "What?"
"The photo," Eric said, pulling the damp, yellowed picture from his pocket and laying it flat on the table between them. "My uncle. Anthony Greco. And Giuseppe Aiello. Your grandfather wasn't just a mason who happened to speak an obscure Calabrese dialect, Emma. He was there."
Emma stared at the old photo. Her grandfather looked so young, his hair dark, his expression stern, holding a four-year-old girl with big brown eyes in his arms.
"That’s my mother," Emma whispered, tears suddenly prickling her eyes. "He... he never talked about those years. He always told me he worked construction in New York before moving to Chicago. He said my parents died in a car crash when I was two."
"Look at the back," Eric said quietly.
Emma flipped the photograph over. Written in faded blue fountain pen ink were four names and a date: May 14, 1996. The Four Pillars: Moretti, Greco, Aiello, Vance.
Emma’s breath hitched. "Aiello. He wasn't just a worker. He was... one of them?"
"The Moretti empire wasn't built by one family," Eric explained, his voice dipping low. "Thirty years ago, four men created the network that controlled every piece of cargo entering the Midwest. My father was the brain. Greco was the muscle. Your grandfather, Giuseppe, was the vault-keeper. He designed the secure safe-houses, the hidden ledgers, the distribution channels. And the fourth man... Arthur Vance. They called him 'The Bishop.'"
"Why have I never heard of Arthur Vance?" Emma asked, wrapping a tight layer of medical tape around Eric’s arm.
"Because my uncle killed him in 1998," Eric replied, his eyes darkening. "Or at least, that’s what everyone in Chicago was made to believe. Vance was supposed to have died in a boat explosion on Lake Michigan after he tried to sell out the syndicate to the federal government."
Eric opened the oilskin wrapper on the table, revealing the leather-bound ledger they had just pulled from the crypt. He flipped open the cover.
The pages were dense with handwritten numbers, dates, offshore bank codes, and long passages written in the same cryptic mix of Grecanico Calabrese and Genoese slang that Emma had read at the restaurant.
"My uncle didn't write this before he died," Eric said, his realization chilling the room. "He didn't have time to write two hundred pages while bleeding out in an alley. This book was written thirty years ago. It’s your grandfather's journal."
Emma touched the cracked leather cover. The handwriting was unmistakably her grandfather's—the tight, precise script of a man who drew architectural blueprints by hand.
"If this is my grandfather's journal," Emma said slowly, looking up into Eric’s gray eyes, "then why did your uncle die holding a note written in the exact same handwriting?"
May you like
Eric didn't answer immediately. He picked up the original bloodstained letter from his pocket and placed it beside the thirty-year-old ledger. The handwriting matched perfectly.
"Because Giuseppe Aiello didn't die three months ago in St. Anthony’s Hospital," Eric said, the words falling like lead stones into the quiet cabin. "Your grandfather is still alive. And he’s the one who sent my uncle to his death."
