Chapter 6 - The Bible in the ChapelWe reached the estate in fourteen minutes.
I know because I counted every one.
Dante’s convoy did not look elegant anymore.
No perfect spacing.
No slow luxury-car entrance.
The SUVs tore through Chicago like something alive.
By the time we reached the Moretti gates, smoke was rising behind the house.
“The chapel,” Luca said.
He should have been lying down.
Instead, he sat strapped into the medical transport van behind us because no one could convince him to stay away.
Moretti men spread across the grounds.
Dante grabbed my arm.
“You stay with Bell.”
I looked at the burning chapel.
“Go.”
He ran.
That was the first time I saw Dante Moretti afraid.
Not for himself.
For the small stone building his mother had loved.
Flames had reached one side of the roof.
Security had contained them before the entire structure burned.
Someone had broken the rear window.
Inside, shelves were overturned.
The altar was damaged.
Dante entered before firefighters had officially cleared it.
Marco followed.
Five minutes later they came out.
Empty-handed.
“The Bible is gone,” Dante said.
Luca closed his eyes.
Julian had won.
Or thought he had.
Then I noticed Dante’s expression.
Not rage.
Confusion.
“What?”
He looked at Luca.
“The Bible was there.”
Luca frowned.
“But the drive?”
“Gone.”
“How?”
Dante held up the old leather Bible.
A rectangular section had been cut from the back cover.
Perfectly.
Someone knew exactly where to look.
Luca whispered, “Victor.”
Dante looked at him.
“Why Victor?”
“Our mother showed him.”
Silence.
Dante stared.
“When?”
“When we were children. She used to hide emergency cash in that Bible. Victor knew about the compartment.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“So Julian was never running this.”
Luca shook his head.
“He was working for Victor.”
The truth had been there from the beginning.
Victor Salerno.
Their uncle.
Hospital money.
Fake deaths.
Bribes.
Carver.
Julian.
All roads led back to him.
Marco approached.
“We found tire tracks behind the chapel. Vehicle left seven minutes before we arrived.”
“Track it.”
“No transponder.”
“Traffic cameras.”
“Working.”
I stepped inside the chapel.
Smoke stung my eyes.
The place was beautiful despite the damage.
Small stained-glass windows.
Wooden pews.
A photograph of Dante’s mother near the altar.
I picked up a page from the floor.
It was handwritten.
Not scripture.
A note.
DANTE—
IF YOU EVER FIND THIS, I FAILED TO TELL YOU IN PERSON.
I froze.
“Dante.”
He turned.
I handed it to him.
His face changed as he read.
The note was from his father.
Written fourteen years earlier.
It said Victor had been stealing from Moretti companies.
Using medical charities to wash money.
Manipulating vulnerable patients.
And most importantly—
Dante’s father had planned to expose him.
Three days later, he died in a boating accident.
Dante read the last line twice.
IF I DIE BEFORE THIS IS DONE, DO NOT TRUST VICTOR WITH THE HOSPITAL FOUNDATION.
Luca stared.
“Our father knew.”
Dante’s voice became empty.
“And Victor killed him.”
No one answered.
There was no proof.
Not yet.
Then I remembered Thomas Vale.
The switched identity.
Samuel Reed.
Dante’s father’s driver.
“What if Samuel Reed survived?”
Everyone looked at me.
“If your father’s driver knew about Victor, maybe that’s why Victor faked his death under another identity.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“He could still be alive.”
Marco began searching.
Hospital records.
Government databases.
Shelters.
Prisons.
Nothing.
Then Dr. Bell said, “Try long-term care facilities.”
“Why?”
“If someone wanted a witness alive but hidden, put him somewhere he can’t easily leave.”
We found him forty minutes later.
Not Samuel Reed.
Samuel Rhodes.
A patient at a private neurological care facility in Wisconsin.
Admitted six months after Dante’s father died.
Severe brain injury.
No listed family.
Payment source: Salerno Medical Foundation.
Dante stared at the record.
“We go now.”
The facility sat two hours north.
We arrived near dawn.
Samuel Rhodes was sixty-eight.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
One side of his body partially paralyzed.
But when Dante walked into his room, Samuel began crying.
“Your father.”
Dante stopped.
Samuel reached for him.
“I’m sorry.”
Dante sat beside the bed.
“What happened?”
Samuel’s voice was difficult to understand.
We listened slowly.
Victor had sabotaged Dante’s father’s boat.
Samuel discovered evidence.
He tried to go to police.
Carver helped Victor capture him.
They gave him another patient’s identity.
Declared him dead after inducing a medical crisis.
Then moved him.
For fourteen years, he had lived under surveillance.
“Why keep you alive?” Luca asked.
Samuel looked ashamed.
“Account numbers.”
Victor needed access codes only Samuel knew.
When the accounts emptied, Victor stopped visiting.
Dante leaned forward.
“Do you know where the money went?”
Samuel’s eyes shifted toward me.
“Hospital.”
“St. Alden?”
He nodded.
“Basement.”
“What is in the basement?”
Samuel’s lips moved.
“Records.”
Dante looked at Luca.
Luca sat straighter.
“The original paper records.”
Electronic evidence could be deleted.
Paper was harder.
Victor had hidden his financial archive beneath St. Alden.
The place where this began.
The place where I had been fired.
Dante stood.
“We call federal authorities.”
Luca shook his head.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know who Victor bought.”
“We have Samuel.”
“Samuel’s testimony is enough to open an investigation. Not enough to stop Victor from destroying the archive first.”
I understood.
“If Victor realizes Samuel is alive, he burns the basement.”
Dante looked at me.
“You are not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
“We go back.”
“No.”
“We get the records.”
“No.”
“Dante—”
“No.”
Samuel suddenly grabbed Dante’s sleeve.
“Girl.”
Dante looked at him.
Samuel pointed at me.
“She knows.”
“What?”
“Basement.”
I moved closer.
“What do I know?”
His eyes met mine.
“Blue door.”
Memory struck.
There was an old blue maintenance door beneath St. Alden.
Nurses used the corridor to reach storage.
Carver had always forbidden staff from opening it.
I had once tried.
It required two keys.
Samuel whispered.
“One Carver.”
“And the other?”
His gaze moved to Dante.
“Victor.”
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face tightened.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Chicago police issued a warrant.”
“For who?”
Marco looked at me.
“Laurel.”
I closed my eyes.
Dante rose slowly.
“For Carver?”
Marco nodded.
“Anonymous witness claims Laurel threatened her.”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
Dante looked at me.
“You cannot go back to Chicago.”
I looked through the care facility window at sunrise over gray Wisconsin fields.
Then at Samuel.
At Luca.
At Dante.
A man had lost fourteen years because everyone who knew the truth had been silenced.
I had lost one job.
So far.
“I’m going back.”
Dante’s face darkened.
“You heard Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Police will arrest you.”
“Then we make sure they arrest me after I give them something bigger.”
He stared.
I stepped closer.
“You told me fear is expensive.”
“I did.”
“Well.”
May you like
I looked him directly in the eyes.
“Victor just spent too much.”
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