Chapter 9 - The Last Ghost of the DeLuca Family
Roman wanted to cancel the wedding.
I wanted to find whoever sent the photograph.
We compromised by doing neither immediately.
Marcus analyzed the image.
The paper was ordinary.
No fingerprints.
Postmarked downtown Chicago.
Security footage at the mailbox showed someone wearing a cap and sunglasses.
Nothing useful.
Then Luca noticed the angle.
“This was taken from the north ridge.”
Marcus nodded.
“About two hundred yards.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
Someone had been watching us.
Again.
For forty-eight hours, security returned to old levels.
Cars checked.
Routes changed.
Leo temporarily stayed home from school.
I hated every second.
Roman hated it more.
“This is exactly what I wanted to end.”
“We will.”
“What if there is always another person?”
“Then we deal with this one.”
Roman looked at me.
“You sound like me.”
“That is deeply concerning.”
The breakthrough came from Mrs. Alvarez.
Of all people.
She visited one afternoon carrying enough food for fifteen people.
As she entered the house, she saw the photograph on Marcus’s desk.
She stopped.
“What?”
She pointed toward the corner of the image.
A blurry reflection appeared in a parked car window.
A man.
Older.
Thin.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
Mrs. Alvarez looked confused.
“I think so.”
“Who?”
“He came to your mother’s funeral.”
I froze.
“What?”
“He stood in the back. Didn’t speak.”
“Why do you remember?”
“He cried.”
Marcus enhanced the image.
Roman stared.
Luca walked in.
Then stopped dead.
“No.”
Roman turned.
“You know him?”
Luca whispered the name.
“Father Michael.”
A priest.
Roman’s family priest for decades.
The man who baptized both brothers.
The man who presided over Luca’s empty funeral.
And Roman’s mother’s funeral.
Father Michael Corvin lived at a monastery in Indiana.
When federal agents arrived, he was gone.
His room had been emptied.
Inside the fireplace, they found burned documents.
One survived partially.
A list of bank accounts.
The amounts were enormous.
“Church donations?” I asked.
Roman shook his head.
“Insurance.”
“For what?”
Luca answered.
“For the organization.”
Father Michael had served as the family’s hidden banker.
The one man who knew where emergency funds were stored if everyone else fell.
Sebastian had not been the last ghost.
He was simply the loudest.
Michael had watched the DeLuca family from inside its most private moments.
Confessions.
Funerals.
Weddings.
Deaths.
He had known everything.
And while Sebastian built power publicly, Michael preserved the money quietly.
Nearly two hundred million dollars.
Untouched.
Marcus discovered withdrawals beginning the week Sebastian was arrested.
Michael had been rebuilding something.
Not an empire.
An escape.
“What does he want from us?” I asked.
Roman looked at the photograph.
“Silence.”
“About what?”
Luca’s face changed.
“Our mother.”
Roman looked at him.
“What about her?”
Luca hesitated.
Then revealed one final secret.
Their mother had not died only from cancer.
She had been poisoned.
Slowly.
Father Michael had administered her medication during her final months.
Roman became terrifyingly still.
“Why?”
“Because she helped me escape.”
Everything fit.
She knew too much.
She helped Luca.
She knew about the ledger.
Sebastian may have ordered it.
Michael carried it out.
Roman left the room.
I followed.
He stood in the courtyard breathing hard.
“Natalie, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Try to stop me.”
“From?”
“Finding him.”
“I’m not stopping you.”
He turned.
“You should.”
“No.”
“You know what I want to do.”
“Yes.”
His eyes were full of rage.
“I want to kill him.”
“I know.”
“He murdered my mother.”
“I know.”
“Say something.”
“I don’t think anything I say will make that hurt less.”
His face broke.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
“I didn’t protect her.”
“You were her son, Roman. Not her bodyguard.”
“I should have known.”
“She spent her final years protecting you and Luca.”
He looked away.
I moved closer.
“Do not turn her sacrifice into another reason to become the thing she was trying to save you from.”
Roman closed his eyes.
That night, Father Michael called.
He wanted the remaining flash drive.
Apparently my father’s files also contained account keys capable of exposing his hidden money.
In exchange, Michael offered a confession recorded on video.
Roman agreed to meet.
This time we did everything through law enforcement.
No secret shootout.
No private revenge.
Roman was finished living by his father’s rules.
Michael chose an abandoned church south of the city.
Fitting.
He sat alone near the altar.
Roman walked in wearing a wire.
I watched from a federal surveillance van.
Michael looked eighty.
Fragile.
That angered me.
People expect evil to look frightening.
Sometimes it looks tired.
Sometimes respectable.
Sometimes it wears a collar.
“You’ve become weak,” Michael told Roman.
“I’ve heard.”
“You surrendered your inheritance.”
“I kept the parts worth having.”
“Your father would be ashamed.”
Roman smiled.
“That helps.”
Michael’s face hardened.
“You mock your blood.”
“No.”
Roman stepped closer.
“I finally understand it.”
Michael confessed.
Not because he was sorry.
Because arrogant men love explaining why they were right.
He had helped Sebastian.
Moved money.
Silenced witnesses.
Poisoned Isabella DeLuca after discovering she helped Luca escape.
Roman’s hands tightened.
I watched every muscle in his body react.
But he did not move.
Then Michael said something unforgivable.
“Your mother begged me to protect you.”
Roman whispered, “And you killed her.”
“She chose Luca over the family.”
“No.”
Roman’s voice steadied.
“She chose her sons over criminals.”
Federal agents entered.
Michael reached beneath his coat.
Roman reacted instantly.
He tackled him.
The object fell.
Not a gun.
A detonator.
Explosives had been placed in the church basement.
Marcus shouted over comms.
“Evacuate!”
Everyone ran.
Roman dragged Michael with him.
Even after discovering the man murdered his mother, Roman saved his life.
Seconds after they reached the street, part of the church exploded.
Windows shattered.
Stone collapsed.
Michael lay coughing.
Roman stood over him.
“You saved me,” Michael whispered.
Roman looked down.
“No.”
He glanced toward the federal agents.
“I saved myself.”
Father Michael spent the rest of his life in prison.
The final hidden accounts were seized.
A portion funded victim restitution.
Another funded addiction treatment programs in communities damaged by the narcotics network.
Roman donated his legal claim to the rest.
The DeLuca criminal organization, after nearly seventy years, ended.
No successor.
No hidden banker.
No next boss.
Just records.
Trials.
And survivors.
A month later, Roman and I stood in our kitchen reviewing wedding invitations.
“Forty people,” he said.
“Sixty.”
“Forty.”
“Fifty-five.”
“Why fifty-five?”
“Because I removed five people I don’t like.”
“That logic concerns me.”
Leo ran in.
“Can I wear sneakers?”
“No,” we said together.
He groaned.
Roman smiled.
I looked around.
No guards in the kitchen.
No secret meetings.
No blood.
Normal.
Finally.
Our wedding was scheduled for spring.
Small.
Family.
Friends.
LaRue would cater.
Luca insisted on being best man.
Marcus insisted he was more qualified.
They argued for a week.
Roman solved it by making both stand beside him.
The night before the wedding, I found Roman outside.
Nervous again.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“That sounded convincing.”
He looked toward the stars.
“I never thought I would get this.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow.”
I took his hand.
“You almost didn’t.”
“I know.”
“Because you got stabbed.”
“Yes.”
“And told me to walk away.”
“You were bad at instructions.”
“Still am.”
He smiled.
Then became serious.
“What if I disappoint you?”
“You will.”
Roman looked offended.
“So will I.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It’s marriage, Roman. Not customer service.”
He laughed.
I rested my head against him.
“We choose each other when it’s difficult.”
He kissed my hair.
“I can do that.”
“I know.”
The next morning, I put on my wedding dress.
Leo knocked.
He wore a tiny suit.
And sneakers.
I stared.
“Roman said yes.”
“Of course he did.”
Leo grinned.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we a family now?”
My heart tightened.
“We already were.”
He thought about that.
“Then what changes?”
I smiled.
“Roman gets paperwork.”
Leo nodded solemnly.
“That’s boring.”
I laughed.
Outside, music began.
May you like
I took my son’s hand.
And walked toward the man I once found bleeding alone in the rain.
