Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Bruno
The screen glows in the dim light of Pietro's office.
A map. Red dot. Timestamp.
"Last ping was here." Liam points to a spot on the monitor. "Forty-seven minutes ago. Her phone went dark after that."
I stare at the location.
Warehouse district.
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. I know that area. We all do. It's a maze of abandoned buildings, shipping containers, and dead-end streets. The kind of place where people disappear and bodies turn up weeks later in the river.
"How many buildings?" My voice comes out steady. Controlled. The opposite of what's happening inside my chest.
"Dozens." Liam pulls up a satellite image. "Most are abandoned. Some are still operational—shipping companies, storage facilities. A few are owned by shell corporations we haven't been able to trace."
Pietro leans over the desk, studying the map. "We can't search them all. Not fast enough."
"Then we narrow it down." I wheel closer to the screen. "Cross-reference with known associates of anyone who has a grudge against this family. Check property records, rental agreements, utility bills—anything that shows recent activity in buildings that should be empty."
Nico appears in the doorway. "Carlo's dead."
The words hang in the air.
"Where?" I ask.
"Alley behind the orphanage. Single gunshot to the head.
Valentino enters carrying a phone. New. Still in the packaging.
"Your number's being transferred," he says, handing it to me. "Should be active in—"
The phone rings.
Everyone freezes.
Unknown number.
I look at Pietro. He nods.
I answer and put it on speaker.
Silence for a moment. Then a voice. Male. Calm. Slightly accented—Italian, but not from Chicago. Somewhere else. Sicily, maybe. Or further south.
"Bruno Sartori."
Not a question. A statement.
"Who is this?"
"That doesn't matter." The voice is smooth. Almost pleasant. Like we're discussing the weather instead of my wife's life. "What matters is that I have something you want. And you have something I need."
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache.
"If you've hurt her—"
"She's alive." He cuts me off. "For now. Whether she stays that way depends entirely on you."
Pietro's hand lands on my shoulder. A warning. Stay calm. Don't give them anything.
I force myself to breathe.
"What do you want?"
"Straight to business. I appreciate that." There's a smile in his voice. I can hear it. "This can end very easily, Mr. Sartori. No one else needs to die. Your wife can come home to you tonight, unharmed. Well—" A pause. "Mostly unharmed. We had to take her ring. I hope you understand."
The bloody fabric in the envelope.
Her ring.
They cut it off her finger.
Red clouds the edges of my vision. My hands shake with the effort of not screaming.
"Tell me what you want."
"The Morelli ledgers."
The room goes still.
I look at Pietro. His face has gone pale.
The Morelli ledgers.
When we absorbed the Morelli family's debts—including Eraldo Romano's—we also acquired their records. Every transaction. Every bribe. Every dirty deal they'd made over the past thirty years. Names, dates, amounts. Enough information to bring down half the corrupt officials in Chicago.
We've been using those ledgers as leverage. Insurance. A guarantee that certain people in power will look the other way when we need them to.
"You have forty-eight hours," the voice continues. "Deliver the ledgers to a location I'll specify. Once I've verified they're authentic and complete, your wife will be released."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand.
Forty-eight hours.
The Morelli ledgers.
My wife's life.
The silence stretches.
No one moves. No one speaks.
I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. The phone sits in my palm like a grenade with the pin pulled.
I close my eyes.
Think.
Don't feel. Think.
"Bruno." Pietro's voice is careful. Measured. "We need to discuss—"
"I need Vittoria."
The words come out flat. Certain.
Pietro blinks. "What?"
"Vittoria." I look up at him. "Get her on a secure line. Now."
Nico steps forward. "Bruno, we need to talk about what we're going to do. The ledgers—"
"I know what the ledgers are worth." I cut him off. "I know what losing them means. I also know my wife is pregnant and bleeding in some room while we stand here with our thumbs up our asses."
The room goes quiet again.
I wheel myself closer to the desk, closer to the screens showing that useless red dot where Antonella's phone died.
"We have forty-eight hours," I say. "That's not nothing. That's time. And I'm not spending it deciding whether to hand over our leverage or let them kill her."
"Then what are you suggesting?" Pietro asks.
"I'm suggesting we use the next two hours to scan every page of those ledgers." I turn to face them all. "Vittoria can digitize them faster than anyone. Cross-reference every name, every transaction, every dirty secret in those books against known associates of every crime family in Chicago."
Nico shakes his head. "Bruno, it could be anyone. The Morellis had their fingers in everything. Half the city's power structure is in those ledgers. Politicians, judges, police captains, businessmen—"
"And crime families," I finish for him. "Other organizations who would kill to get their hands on that information. Or kill to make sure it never sees the light of day."
"That's dozens of potential suspects," Nico argues. "Maybe hundreds. We don't have time to investigate them all."
"We don't need to investigate them all." I grip the armrests of my wheelchair. "We need to find the one with the biggest need. The one who can't afford to let those ledgers exist. Someone desperate enough to kidnap a pregnant woman from an orphanage in broad daylight."
Liam clears his throat. "He's right. This wasn't a random grab. They knew where she'd be, when she'd be there, and they had an exit strategy planned. This took resources. Planning. Money."
"And a specific motivation," I add. "Someone in those ledgers has something to lose. Something big enough that they're willing to start a war with us to get it back."
Pietro runs a hand through his hair. He looks exhausted.
"Even if Vittoria can narrow it down," he says slowly, "what then? We still don't know where they're holding her."
"One problem at a time." I meet his eyes. "First, we figure out who. Then we figure out where. Then we get her back."
"And the ledgers?"
"We find a way to keep them." My voice hardens. "I'm not handing over thirty years of leverage because some bastard thinks he can threaten my family. We've faced worse. We've faced war. We'll do it again."
Nico crosses his arms. "You're talking about going up against an unknown enemy with unknown resources while your wife is their hostage. That's not strategy. That's suicide."
"No." I wheel toward him until we're face to face. "Suicide is giving them exactly what they want and hoping they keep their word. You think they'll let her go once they have the ledgers? You think they'll just walk away and leave us alone?"
Nico doesn't answer.
"They won't," I continue. "Because we'll still be a threat. We'll still know they exist. We'll still be able to come after them. The only way this ends cleanly for them is if we're all dead."
The truth of it settles over the room like a shroud.
"So we fight," Valentino says quietly. "Smart and quick."
I nod. "Smart and quick."
Pietro pulls out his phone. "I'll call Vittoria. She's on vacation, but she can access our systems remotely."
"Tell her I need everything she can find in two hours," I say. "Every name in those ledgers that connects to organized crime. Every transaction that looks like a payoff or a bribe. Every secret that someone might kill to protect."
Pietro nods and steps away to make the call.
Nico still hasn't moved. He's watching me with that calculating expression I know too well.
"You really think we can pull this off?" he asks. "Find them, rescue her, and keep the ledgers?"
"I think we don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice, Bruno."
"Not this time." I hold his gaze. "She's carrying my child. She's my wife. And I will burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone take her from me."
"Then we'd better get started," he says.
Liam moves to the computer, pulling up the digital archives where we store copies of the Morelli records. Valentino positions himself by the door, already on his phone coordinating with our people on the ground.
And I sit in my wheelchair, staring at that red dot on the map.
Forty-seven minutes ago, my wife was there.
Now she could be anywhere.
But I will find her.
I will find whoever took her.
And I will make them wish they had never heard the name Sartori.
Antonella
They took my shoes. I don't know why. Maybe to make running harder. Maybe just because they could.
My eyes burn. Heavy. The kind of tired that seeps into your bones and makes everything feel distant and unreal.
I can't sleep.
I won't sleep.
The guard sits in the corner, scrolling through his phone. The blue light from the screen illuminates his face in the darkness. He hasn't looked at me in twenty minutes.
I shift in the chair, trying to find a position that doesn't make my shoulders scream. The zip ties bite into my wrists every time I move. My left hand throbs where they cut off my ring. The bleeding has stopped, but the wound pulses with my heartbeat.
Close your eyes.
No.
I can't. If I close my eyes, I might drift off. And if I drift off, I won't know what's happening. I won't be ready.
Ready for what?
I don't know. But I need to stay awake.
I focus on my breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slow and steady.
The memory surfaces before I can stop it.
I was seven. Maybe eight. A summer storm had rolled in from the lake, the kind that turned the sky green and made the windows rattle in their frames. I'd crawled into my parents' bed, wedging myself between them like I could disappear into their warmth.
"Shh, bambina." Mama's voice was soft. Her hand stroked my hair. "It's just noise. The thunder can't hurt you."
"But it's so loud."
"Loud doesn't mean dangerous." She pulled me closer. "Sometimes the loudest things are the most harmless. It's the quiet ones you have to watch."
Papa had grumbled something about letting me sleep in my own bed, but he'd wrapped his arm around both of us anyway. I fell asleep to the sound of rain against the windows and my mother's heartbeat beneath my ear.
The memory aches.
I push it away. Find another one.
I was old enough to walk Gianna to her first day of high school while Mama stayed home with Claudio, who had the flu. Gianna had insisted on wearing her favorite dress even though it was too cold for it.
"What if no one likes me?" she'd asked, her small hand gripping mine so tight her knuckles went white.
"Everyone will like you."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're you." I'd crouched down to her level, straightening the collar of her coat. "And anyone who doesn't like you is stupid."
She'd giggled at that. Gianna always giggled when I said words I wasn't supposed to say.
"Will you pick me up?"
"I'll be right here at three o'clock."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
I'd watched her walk through those doors, her yellow dress disappearing into the crowd of children. And I'd stood there on the sidewalk until the bell rang, just in case she changed her mind and came running back out.
She didn't.
I went to school.
And I was there at three o'clock. Just like I promised.
The guard coughs.
I flinch.
He doesn't look up from his phone.
I exhale slowly.
Keep thinking. Keep your mind moving.
Think about something else.
Nonna's kitchen.
The smell of garlic and tomatoes simmering on the stove. Flour dusting every surface. Nonna's hands, wrinkled and strong, kneading dough like she was punishing it for something.
"You have to feel it," she'd say. "The dough tells you when it's ready. You just have to listen."
I never understood what she meant. Not until years later, when I was sixteen and trying to recreate her bread recipe from memory. I'd kneaded and kneaded, frustrated and sweating, ready to throw the whole mess in the trash.
And then I felt it.
The moment the dough went from sticky and resistant to smooth and elastic. The moment it stopped fighting me and started cooperating.
The dough tells you when it's ready.
I'd cried. Standing alone in our kitchen at midnight, covered in flour, crying over bread.
Mama had found me like that. She hadn't asked questions. She'd just pulled up a chair and watched me shape the loaves, her presence steady and warm.
"She'd be proud of you," Mama had said.
"It's just bread."
"It's never just bread."
The guard shifts in his chair.
I hold my breath.
He stands up, stretches, and walks to the door. Opens it. Steps outside.
The door closes behind him.
I'm alone.
My heart pounds. This could be my chance. This could be—
The door opens again.
He's back. Holding a bottle of water.
He doesn't offer me any.
I let out the breath I was holding.
Not yet. Not my chance yet.
But it will come.
I just have to stay awake. Stay ready.
I close my eyes for just a second.
No.
I force them open.
Think about something else.
The first time I saw snow.
I was four. We'd driven up to Wisconsin to visit Papa's cousins, and I'd woken up to a world transformed. Everything white and glittering and impossibly beautiful.
I'd run outside in my pajamas, barefoot, before anyone could stop me. The cold had shocked me, but I hadn't cared. I'd stood there with my arms spread wide, catching snowflakes on my tongue, laughing at nothing and everything.
Papa had scooped me up and carried me back inside, scolding me the whole way. But he'd been smiling. I remember that. He'd been smiling.
Before Mama got sick.
Before the gambling.
Before everything fell apart.
He used to smile.
I used to make him smile.
My throat tightens.
I won't cry. I won't give them the satisfaction.
I think about Bruno instead.
The way he looked at me when I told him I was pregnant. The shock. The disbelief. And then—underneath all of it—something that looked like hope.
He wants this baby.
He wants me.
He'll come for us.
I know he will.
I just have to stay awake until he does.