Chapter 5 - The Father They Told Me Was Dead
The cabin was surrounded by snow.
Lorenzo arrived with six guards.
I arrived terrified.
Lily stayed behind under protection.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, there was a fireplace.
A table.
Medical supplies.
And a photograph.
Me.
Taken when I was twelve.
My hands shook.
“He was here.”
Lorenzo nodded.
Then we heard a noise upstairs.
He drew his gun.
I followed.
A bedroom door opened.
An old man stood inside.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Scar across his eyebrow.
I knew him before he spoke.
“Norah.”
I collapsed into his arms.
“Dad.”
For fifteen years, I had imagined this moment.
In every version, I screamed.
I accused him.
I asked why he abandoned us.
Instead, I cried.
He held me.
“I am sorry.”
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you come home?”
“Because I couldn't.”
Lorenzo stood at the door.
My father looked at him.
“Lorenzo Rossi.”
“Patrick Sullivan.”
There was no greeting.
No handshake.
Only history.
My father sat.
He explained everything.
Giovanni had been stealing from the Rossi organization.
Patrick discovered it.
He planned to expose him.
But someone betrayed Patrick first.
Not Giovanni.
Someone else.
A person who had been placed inside the Rossi family by an outside organization.
Their goal was to control the Rossi shipping empire.
Patrick learned the name.
The Black Raven.
A secret network of financiers and assassins.
The organization had infiltrated legitimate corporations across Chicago.
Giovanni worked for them.
So did Gabriel.
And someone else.
Lorenzo's expression changed.
“Who?”
Patrick looked at him.
“You.”
Lorenzo froze.
“My father believed you were compromised.”
“I was twelve.”
“They watched you.”
“What are you saying?”
“Someone close to you has been manipulating you since childhood.”
I looked at Lorenzo.
“Who?”
Patrick shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Lorenzo's phone rang.
The signal disappeared.
Then gunfire erupted outside.
We ducked.
The cabin windows shattered.
The attack lasted less than a minute.
When it stopped, the attackers were gone.
Patrick looked at me.
“They found us.”
Lorenzo stepped outside.
A dead man lay in the snow.
In his pocket was a raven symbol.
Lorenzo stared at it.
Then he looked toward the tree line.
“They wanted Patrick.”
“No,” my father said.
“They wanted you.”
Lorenzo turned.
Patrick continued.
“They know you have the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
Patrick looked at me.
“The one your mother hid.”
I remembered the box.
The cassette.
The photographs.
The letter.
There was one final photograph.
Patrick recognized it.
“The original ledger.”
“Where?”
He smiled faintly.
“Inside the Rossi mansion.”
Lorenzo went still.
“The mansion?”
“Yes.”
“My father hid it there.”
“Where?”
Patrick looked at me.
“Where nobody ever looks.”
My stomach tightened.
The servants' wing.
I knew every room.
Every cabinet.
Every hidden corner.
Lorenzo understood.
“The laundry room.”
We returned that night.
Mrs. Gable was awake.
When I told her Patrick was alive, she cried.
She touched my face.
“Your mother would have been so happy.”
Then she led us to the laundry room.
Behind an old washing machine was a loose brick.
Inside was a metal ledger.
Lorenzo opened it.
Every payment.
Every name.
Every betrayal.
And one final page.
The Black Raven had a leader.
The name was written in full.
ELIAS ROSSI.
Lorenzo's older brother.
The brother everyone believed had died before Lorenzo inherited the family business.
I stared.
“He's dead.”
Patrick shook his head.
“He isn't.”
Lorenzo's face became ice.
All these years.
His brother had been presumed dead.
But the ledger said otherwise.
Then the lights went out.
A voice came through the speaker system.
“Hello, little brother.”
Lorenzo looked up.
Elias.
Alive.
May you like
Watching.
And laughing.
