Chapter 1 - The Ghost in the Pew
The air inside the abandoned church smelled of old incense,
damp wood,
and the metallic tang of poverty.
The boy sat on a crate,
clutching the plastic container Beatrice had filled with my stolen food.
He looked at me,
not with fear,
but with a recognition that chilled my blood.
"Nico,"
he whispered.
The name hit me like a physical blow.
Nobody had called me Nico since the day I buried my soul,
and took the title of Don Caruso.
Twenty years of blood,
twenty years of silence,
and yet this child knew the name my mother used to call me.
Beatrice stepped between us,
her hand moving toward a hidden blade in her waistband.
"Don't come any closer,"
she warned,
her voice no longer the submissive tone of a maid.
She was a predator now,
protecting her cub.
I ignored the threat,
my eyes locked on the boy.
He had my brother’s eyes,
wide,
dark,
and full of a quiet intelligence.
"Lorenzo told me they died,"
I said,
my voice sounding hollow in the vast,
broken sanctuary.
"He told me the warehouse fire took them all."
The boy stood up,
setting the food aside.
"My mother said you would never come for us,"
he said,
stepping into the faint moonlight.
"She said the empire had consumed the man you used to be."
I looked at the dozens of other children,
shivering under thin blankets.
"Who are they?"
I asked.
Beatrice didn't lower her guard.
"The children of the men your empire discarded,"
she replied.
"The orphans of your wars,"
"the families of the soldiers Lorenzo executed behind your back."
I felt the foundation of my world begin to crumble.
Everything I thought I knew about my leadership was a lie.
Lorenzo,
my most trusted advisor,
hadn't just been cleaning up messes.
He had been erasing people,
while telling me they had simply vanished or turned traitor.
"How long?"
I demanded.
"How long have you been hiding them here?"
Beatrice took a step forward,
her eyes fierce.
"Since the night I pulled Leo from the flames,"
"while you were busy mourning a lie."
The boy,
Leo,
walked toward me.
"Are you the monster they say you are?"
he asked,
stopping just inches from my coat.
I looked at his small hands,
then at the scars on his neck from a fire I thought I had failed to prevent.
"I used to think I wasn't,"
I whispered,
dropping to one knee.
"But standing here,"
"in this freezing dark,"
"I see that I was worse."
"I was a fool."
The wind howled through the broken stained glass,
sounding like the screams of the ghosts I had ignored.
I realized then that catching a maid stealing food wasn't an accident.
It was a reckoning.
The past had come to claim its due,
and it was wearing the face of a ten-year-old boy.
I stood up,
my resolve hardening.
"Pack their things,"
I ordered.
Beatrice laughed,
a bitter,
sharp sound.
"And take them where?"
"To your basement?"
"To the place where people disappear?"
I looked at her,
letting the power of my office show in my gaze.
"No,"
"To my home."
"If Lorenzo wants to erase them,"
"he’ll have to go through me first."
She hesitated,
searching my face for a trap.
"You'll be starting a war within your own house,"
she said.
"I’ve spent twenty years winning wars for the wrong reasons,"
I replied.
"It’s time I fought one for the right one."
I pulled out my phone and sent a single encrypted text.
May you like
The night was about to get much colder,
and the streets of Chicago were about to run red.
