Chapter 9 - The Romano Vault
The rain had returned by late afternoon, turning the Chicago streets into a gray, slick maze of reflected neon and slate water.
Dante’s armored town car pulled up to the security gates of an aging estate in the northern suburbs—an austere, limestone fortress built in the late fifties that belonged, on paper, to a defunct horticultural foundation. In reality, it was the private residence where Vincent Romano kept his personal archives, away from the prying eyes of the city and the federal prosecutors.
There were no guards at the gate. The iron bars stood half-open, swinging loosely in the damp wind.
Dante cut the engine, keeping his hands on the leather steering wheel for a long moment. In the passenger seat, Serena checked the slide of her Sig Sauer with a practiced, metallic click.
"If Salvatore is still alive," Serena said quietly, staring out through the rain-streaked windshield at the darkened mansion ahead, "my father didn't just lie to protect the family business. He lied because he was hiding him."
"Or because Salvatore was hiding from him," Dante replied, opening his door. "Let's find out."
They moved through the heavy oak front doors of the estate without knocking. The interior smelled of old paper, pipe tobacco, and damp stone—a mausoleum of a bygone era of Chicago mob history. Dust motes drifted through the dim beams of light filtering in through the tall, leaded glass windows.
They cleared the ground-floor receiving rooms quickly. No guards, no servants. Just rows of empty mahogany display cases and shuttered windows.
At the end of the main hallway, behind a heavy iron-banded door that looked like it belonged to a bank vault rather than a suburban home, a faint amber light spilled across the hardwood floor.
Dante motioned for Serena to stay to the left of the frame, raised his pistol, and pushed the heavy door open with the toe of his boot.
The room inside was small, paneled in dark walnut, dominated by a massive oak desk covered in old leather-bound ledgers, medical files, and yellowed newspaper clippings from nineteen-eighty-two.
Sitting behind the desk, wrapped in a heavy wool cardigan despite the indoor heat, was an old man with thinning white hair, sunken cheeks, and sharp, watery blue eyes that blinked against the sudden light.
He didn't look like a mob boss. He looked like a ghost.
"You're late," the old man rasped, his voice rattling like dry leaves in a gutter. He didn't look at Dante. His watery eyes were fixed entirely on Serena. "Vincent said you were smarter than your mother, girl. Guess he was wrong after all."
Serena stepped into the room, her pistol lowering slightly as she stared at the man behind the desk. "Salvatore."
The old man let out a dry, hacking cough that sounded like broken glass. "Salvatore died forty years ago when the federal indictment dropped and my brother decided to burn my name off the deed to save his own skin," the old man spat, his voice trembling with ancient fury. "I'm just the skeleton he forgot to bury in the backyard."
Dante stepped into the room, keeping his weapon leveled low, his eyes scanning the ledgers on the desk. "Arthur Pendleton said you were dead. The federal files said you were dead."
"Arthur works for whoever pays the probate fees," Salvatore wheezed, leaning forward over the desk, his thin fingers clawing at the yellowed parchment of an original land deed bearing the Cavali family seal. "And Vincent... Vincent needed a dead brother so he could keep the stolen Cavali properties hidden inside an unreadable family trust without anyone asking who signed the initial warrant."
Salvatore looked up, his watery eyes locking onto Dante with a terrifying, burning clarity.
"Your grandfather didn't go to prison because he was a criminal, boy," Salvatore whispered, his voice dropping into a harsh, conspiratorial rasp. "He went to prison because my brother Salvatore—*me*—signed the false witness affidavit at Vincent's direction, and Vincent kept the deeds while your grandfather took the fall."
The room went dead silent.
Serena closed her eyes, the sheer magnitude of her family's original sin crashing down on her all at once. Three years of ice. Three years of locked doors. Three years of protecting Dante from a monster, only to discover the monster wasn't just her father—it was the very foundation upon which both their families were built.
Before Dante could speak, a heavy crash echoed from the front hallway downstairs.
Heavy boots. Shouted orders.
"They found us," Serena said instantly, her eyes snapping toward the door.
May you like
Salvatore let out a bitter, rattling laugh, leaning back into his leather chair. "Of course they found you. Vincent doesn't leave loose ends. Especially not breathing ones."
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