Chapter 3
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
The vehicle continued through downtown Chicago while rain struck the windows.
I stared at the blank phone.
Joseph’s face had become unreadable.
Vincent was the first to move.
He told the driver to change routes.
Then he turned to Joseph.
“Marco wants you confused.”
“He called Audrey our daughter,” Joseph said.
“He wants a reaction.”
“He got one.”
I found my voice.
“Is Marco Moretti?”
“No,” Joseph answered. “Marco worked with Moretti before he vanished.”
“Why would my mother be with either of them?”
“She isn’t with them willingly.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Joseph looked exhausted.
“Rose became involved in something larger than our relationship.”
“What?”
“A federal investigation.”
The answer made me laugh in disbelief.
“My mother teaches piano lessons to children.”
“Now.”
“What was she twenty-one years ago?”
Joseph did not answer quickly enough.
Vincent did.
“She kept records for the Salvini businesses.”
“My mother was your accountant?”
“She was a bookkeeper,” Joseph said. “And she was very good.”
Rose discovered that money was moving from Joseph’s companies into accounts controlled by judges, city officials, and police commanders.
At first, she believed Joseph had ordered the payments.
Then she found Marco’s signature.
Marco had been using Joseph’s name to build his own organization.
Rose copied the records.
Marco found out.
“She came to me,” Joseph said. “She said she wanted protection.”
“Did you protect her?”
“I put her in a house near Lake Geneva. Only five people knew the address.”
“Marco was one of them?”
“No.”
“Then how did he find her?”
Joseph looked at Vincent.
Vincent’s face tightened.
“That question has never been answered.”
The vehicle entered an underground garage beneath an old office building.
Armed men opened a steel gate.
I did not want to go inside.
But my mother was tied to a chair, and the only people who seemed able to reach her were men I had every reason to fear.
Joseph led me into an elevator.
“You said she told you the baby died,” I said.
“She did.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
“She disappeared before I could.”
The elevator doors opened into a private apartment.
The space was large but nearly empty.
No photographs.
No decorations.
Nothing that revealed who Joseph was when he was not frightening people.
A woman in a navy suit waited beside a dining table.
“This is Dr. Lena Park,” Joseph said.
I looked at him.
“You brought a doctor?”
“She can conduct a DNA test.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“My mother has been kidnapped, and you want to prove whether I belong to you?”
“I want to remove one lie from the room.”
I almost refused.
Then I remembered Marco calling me our daughter.
I needed to know.
Dr. Park collected cheek swabs from Joseph and me.
She promised preliminary results within hours.
Joseph’s men searched the video for clues.
The room around my mother contained bare concrete walls, an old radiator, and a green industrial door.
Vincent recognized the radiator design.
It had been installed in several factories near the Calumet River.
There were more than thirty possible buildings.
Joseph placed Marco’s frozen image on a large screen.
My mother’s eyes were focused on something beyond the camera.
Her left hand was closed.
“Zoom in,” I said.
Vincent enlarged the image.
Mom’s fingers moved in a pattern against the chair.
Three taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
Pause.
Four taps.
“She’s counting.”
Joseph moved closer.
“No. Rose used to do that when she was nervous.”
“It isn’t random.”
I watched the video again.
Mom taught piano through rhythm.
When I was little, she created codes to help me remember notes.
Three-two-four meant E-C-D.
“Those are letters.”
Vincent searched for industrial buildings with ECD in their names.
One appeared.
East Chicago Dye Works.
It had closed fifteen years earlier.
Joseph ordered two teams there.
“I’m coming,” I said.
“No.”
“She gave me the clue.”
“And Marco expects you to follow it.”
“Then he expects you too.”
“That is different.”
“Because you think your life matters more?”
“Because I have spent thirty years preparing for people to try to kill me.”
“And I’ve spent twenty years being raised by the woman in that room.”
Joseph stared at me.
Then he nodded.
“You stay beside Vincent.”
“I stay beside my mother.”
“If we find her.”
“When.”
Something shifted in his face.
“When,” he agreed.
Before we could leave, Joseph’s housekeeper entered carrying a small suitcase.
She was in her sixties and looked at me as if she had seen a ghost.
Her name was Teresa.
She had worked for Joseph since before I was born.
“You have Rose’s eyes,” she whispered.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Teresa reached for my hand.
Then she noticed the constellation tattoo on Joseph’s wrist.
“Show her the meaning.”
Joseph’s expression changed.
“Not now.”
“She deserves to know.”
I looked between them.
“What does it mean?”
Teresa answered.
“The Seven Stars.”
The tattoo was not romantic.
It marked seven young people who grew up together in the same neighborhood.
Joseph.
Rose.
Marco.
Vincent.
Teresa’s son Gabriel.
A police officer named David Kane.
And Victor Moretti.
They promised to protect one another after a gang killed Joseph and Marco’s father.
For years, they were like family.
Then money and fear turned them against one another.
“Does everyone have the tattoo?” I asked.
“Not everyone survived long enough to keep it,” Teresa said.
“Who died?”
“Gabriel.”
Her voice broke.
Joseph looked away.
“Who killed him?”
“No one knows.”
Teresa stared at Joseph.
“That is another lie this family keeps.”
Joseph’s phone rang.
A guard downstairs reported a visitor.
It was David Kane.
The former police officer from the Seven Stars.
He was now Chicago’s deputy police superintendent.
Joseph ordered security to let him up.
Kane entered without removing his coat.
He had the constellation tattoo near his thumb.
He saw me and stopped.
“Rose’s daughter.”
“You knew about me?” I asked.
“I suspected.”
Joseph moved toward him.
“You suspected for twenty years and said nothing?”
“Rose made me promise.”
“Where is she?”
“If Marco has her, the police need to handle it.”
Joseph laughed without humor.
“Your department has Moretti’s men inside it.”
Kane’s face hardened.
“And you think your men are clean?”
The room became tense.
Vincent stepped between them.
“We found a possible location.”
Kane looked at the screen.
“East Chicago Dye Works is a trap.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“A police informant reported movement there this morning. When officers arrived, the building was empty.”
“Then why would Mom give me that clue?”
Kane looked at me.
“Maybe she wasn’t giving you a location.”
I replayed the finger pattern.
Three.
Two.
Four.
E-C-D.
Kane removed his phone and opened an old map.
“Elevated Central Depot.”
It was an abandoned train maintenance station beneath the old downtown tracks.
Vincent swore.
“That’s less than ten minutes away.”
Joseph ordered everyone to move.
Kane caught his arm.
“If Marco is there, he wants you.”
“He has Rose.”
“He may have explosives.”
Joseph looked at him.
“Then stay here.”
Kane followed.
We reached the depot through a service tunnel.
Joseph’s men spread out.
Water dripped from the ceiling.
The air smelled like rust and oil.
I heard a piano melody.
Four slow notes.
My mother used to play them when she wanted me to come home from the neighbor’s apartment.
“She’s here.”
I ran ahead.
Vincent caught up beside me.
We entered a large underground platform.
An old upright piano stood beneath a hanging light.
My mother sat at it.
Her wrists were free.
She played the same four notes.
Joseph stepped into the light.
“Rose.”
She turned.
Twenty-one years disappeared from his face.
He looked like the young man in the Polaroid.
Mom stood.
Then she saw me.
“Audrey, no.”
I ran toward her.
She grabbed me and held me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“They took you.”
“They wanted you to think that.”
Joseph stopped a few feet away.
“Did Marco hurt you?”
My mother looked at him.
“Marco is dead.”
Joseph’s face changed.
“I saw him.”
“No. You saw someone made to look like him.”
Vincent scanned the platform.
“Rose, we need to leave.”
Mom shook her head.
“The doors are locked.”
Metal gates slammed at both ends of the depot.
Lights came on above us.
Men appeared along the upper walkway.
Victor Moretti stepped forward.
He was tall, silver-haired, and smiling.
Beside him stood the man from the video.
Up close, I saw the differences.
The shape of his nose.
The scars near his mouth.
He resembled Joseph, but he was not Marco.
“Who is he?” Joseph demanded.
Moretti placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“This is Nicholas Salvini.”
Joseph stared at him.
“My father had no other sons.”
“Your father did.”
Nicholas smiled.
“And unlike you, brother, I know exactly who Audrey’s father is.”
My mother moved in front of me.
Moretti held up the stolen red envelope.
“The answer is here.”
A gunshot echoed through the depot.
The envelope fell from his hand.
Chaos erupted.
Joseph pulled Mom and me behind the piano.
His men returned fire toward the upper walkway.
Vincent shouted orders.
Kane disappeared into the smoke.
The piano splintered above our heads.
I covered my mother.
“You knew this was a trap.”
“I knew they would use me to reach you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I spent twenty years keeping you away from these men.”
Joseph looked at her.
“Is Audrey mine?”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“This is not the time.”
“I waited twenty-one years.”
“And I spent those years afraid you would ask that question.”
Moretti’s voice came through the depot speakers.
“Joseph, send Audrey onto the platform. Rose leaves alive.”
Joseph shouted back.
“You know that will never happen.”
“Then perhaps the girl should hear what her mother did.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“What did you do?” I asked.
She reached into her sleeve and removed a folded photograph.
It showed a newborn wrapped in a white blanket.
On the back was a date.
October seventeenth.
Beside the baby stood Joseph.
He looked unconscious.
“What is this?” I asked.
My mother began crying.
“You were born in a private clinic.”
“Why is Joseph there?”
“He was brought in after he was shot.”
Joseph looked at her in disbelief.
“That was the night Marco died.”
Mom nodded.
“You were losing blood. The clinic had none of your type.”
Joseph touched the photograph.
“You gave me blood.”
“No.”
Mom looked at me.
“Audrey did.”
I stared at her.
“A newborn can’t donate blood.”
“Cord blood,” Vincent said quietly.
Mom nodded.
“The doctor used stem cells and an emergency transfusion from stored compatible blood. But first, they tested Audrey.”
Joseph looked confused.
“What did the test show?”
My mother swallowed.
“That Audrey was your biological daughter.”
The preliminary DNA result arrived on Dr. Park’s secure phone at that exact moment.
Vincent read it.
“Probability of paternity: 99.98 percent.”
Joseph closed his eyes.
For the first time, my mother said the words directly.
“Yes, Joseph. Audrey is your daughter.”
A loud mechanical click sounded beneath the piano.
Mom’s face went white.
“Move!”
May you like
Joseph pushed me away as the floor beneath him collapsed.
He disappeared into the darkness.
