Chapter 37 - The Foxglove Melody
"Drop your coat, Gabriel," Sophia commanded. Her voice did not shake. It was the same pitch-perfect tone she used when tuning a grand piano, completely devoid of panic. "I know you're carrying father's Beretta. Unbutton the coat with two fingers and let it fall to the marble."
Gabriel didn't move immediately. "Sophia... put the gun down. You don't know what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I’m doing, brother," Sophia replied, resting the cold steel barrel against the gilded balustrade of the choir loft. "I spent six months measuring digitalis drops in increments of half-milligrams. Do you think I don't know how to pull a four-pound trigger?"
Chloe watched Gabriel’s shoulders drop as he slowly unbuttoned his woolen overcoat, allowing it to slide off his arms and collapse onto the stone floor. His pistol rested uselessly inside the inner pocket.
Elena stepped forward, completely ignoring the firearm pointed from above. She raised her hands toward the loft, her fingers moving in slow, rhythmic succession.
*Little bird,* Elena signed, her face radiant with an agonizing, maternal tenderness. *Put the iron away. Your hands were made for music, not for graves.*
Sophia flinched. For a fraction of a second, the icy composure on her face fractured, revealing the terrified, traumatized girl beneath.
"Tell her to stop signing, Chloe!" Sophia snapped, her knuckles turning white on the shotgun stock. "Tell her! She knew everything! She watched him beat our mother until she couldn't speak! She watched him drag our mother out of the Westchester house into an unmarked ambulance, and she said nothing! She washed his bloody shirts and collected her paycheck!"
"That's not true, Sophia!" Chloe yelled back, stepping forward beside her mother, her voice reverberating against the vaulted stone ceilings. "My mother stayed because it was the only way Vittorio wouldn't kill you! Vittorio kept you alive because my mother swore she would turn the real evidence over to the federal government if a single hair on your head was harmed!"
Sophia laughed—a brittle, hollow sound that echoed off the stained-glass saints.
"Is that the fairy tale she told you, Chloe? Vittorio didn't spare me out of love. He spared me because I was his leverage against the Carbone family! He signed a marriage contract behind Gabriel's back three weeks before I went to Boston! He sold me for fifty million dollars in port access along the St. Lawrence River!"
Gabriel’s head snapped up, his face pale with sudden fury. "He did what?"
"Ask Father Thomas!" Sophia screamed, pointing the barrel momentarily toward the trembling priest. "Ask him! The contract was signed right here in this rectory! Our holy father blessed the alliance between the Costellos and the Carbones! I was being shipped to Chicago like a crate of imported rum the day after I turned twenty-five!"
Father Thomas bowed his head, his hands trembling against the velvet cover of the altar. "May the Lord forgive me... Vittorio threatened to burn the parish to the ground, Sophia. I had no choice."
"Everyone has a choice!" Sophia cried, her tears finally spilling in the moonlight. "Gabriel chose to pretend the family was clean! He took over the legitimate businesses, pretended he was an executive, while Dominic ran the docks and our father bought and sold people like cattle! Nobody was going to save me. So I saved myself."
"Sophia, listen to me," Gabriel said, taking a step toward the center aisle, directly beneath the choir loft. His voice was raw, stripped of all arrogance, filled only with the desperate love of an older brother. "You don't need to burn the rest of your life to pay for Vittorio's sins. The ledger in that safe... Dominic wants it. The federal prosecutors want it. But it has my father’s signature admitting the coercion, admitting the fraud. We can take this to the U.S. Attorney. You don't have to run."
"The U.S. Attorney?" Sophia mocked, wiping her cheek with the back of her sleeve. "Agent Miller isn't here to save me, Gabriel. Who do you think told me you were coming to this church?"
Chloe felt the blood turn to ice in her veins.
"What did you say?" Chloe whispered.
"Miller works for the Carbones," Sophia said coldly. "He has for fifteen years. Dominic didn't orchestrate my father's death, but the Carbones knew Vittorio was dying. They paid Miller two million dollars to secure that black book so they could enforce the marriage contract against the Costello estate."
Behind them, the heavy oak doors of the cathedral crashed open against the stone walls.
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The sub-zero wind roared into the nave, swirling snow down the center aisle. Standing framed in the doorway were Agent Miller and four men in black tactical gear, assault rifles raised, laser sights painting crimson dots across the ancient marble floor.
"Step away from the altar, Gabriel," Agent Miller announced, his voice amplified by the cathedral's acoustics. "All of you. On your knees."
