Chapter 18 - The Sanctuary of Wolves
We did not go to a hospital.
Mateo drove a commandeered civilian SUV through the back roads of Lake County, bypassing every major traffic intersection.
By midnight, the heavy iron gates of the Romano estate in Lake Forest opened to receive us.
The estate was no longer the empty, haunted shell where I had lost my child.
Thirty heavily armed men from the family’s old guard patrolled the stone perimeter walls under the pouring rain.
Floodlights illuminated the manicured lawns, cutting through the autumn darkness with blinding white beams.
Inside the grand foyer, the family physician, Dr. Gabriel Rossi—no relation to Bianca—stitched the cut along my hairline.
The needle pulled tightly through my skin, but I didn't flinch.
I sat on an antique velvet settee, staring at the roaring limestone fireplace while Mateo laid out weapons on the coffee table.
"The flatbed driver survived," Mateo said, wiping rain from his tactical vest.
"Luca’s men are interrogating him in the south warehouse right now."
"He won't know much," I said, wincing slightly as the doctor tied off the final suture.
"He was hired muscle through a third party; Bianca doesn't trust outsiders with operational details."
"Signorina," Dr. Gabriel said softly, packing away his surgical kit.
"You have a grade-one concussion; you need to rest, or the intracranial swelling will worsen."
"I’ll rest when the ledger is balanced, Doctor," I replied, standing up from the settee.
The room spun slightly, but I gripped the carved marble mantel until my vision cleared.
Luca entered the foyer, his heavy trench coat dripping rainwater onto the Persian rug.
He removed his fedora, holding a leather-bound ledger in his hands.
"Marco is dead," Luca said without emotion.
I turned to face him.
"How?" I asked.
"He tried to board a private jet at Gary Airport bound for the Bahamas," Luca explained.
"His car suffered a catastrophic brake failure on the access ramp; the vehicle rolled four times and caught fire."
"Did our men do it?" I asked.
"No," Luca replied, handing me the ledger.
"The brake lines were severed before he ever left his downtown condo."
"Bianca is tying up loose ends," I said, turning the pages of the ledger.
Inside were hundreds of handwritten entries detailing Marco’s secret transactions with the Bellini family over the past five years.
Every shipment, every diverted container of luxury vehicles, every offshore account number.
At the very back of the ledger was a single folded piece of stationery bearing the seal of the Chicago City Hall.
It was an authorization permit for the complete demolition and redevelopment of the Lake Forest estate.
The permit was dated two weeks before my miscarriage.
They hadn't just planned to murder my baby and steal the Romano empire.
They had planned to bulldoze the very ground where my mother and father were buried, turning the estate into luxury condominiums.
Enzo had signed the preliminary consent form as the executor of my estate.
"Where is Bianca hiding?" I asked Luca, closing the ledger with a quiet thud.
"We tracked the sedan to an abandoned grain elevator near the Calumet River," Luca said.
"She’s waiting for a Bellini cargo vessel to clear customs at dawn."
"She thinks she’s slipping out under the cover of the storm."
I looked at the rack of weapons on the coffee table.
"Assemble eight men," I said, picking up a tactical vest and sliding it over my shoulders.
"Donna Elena," Luca protested gently, "let the soldiers handle this; you have suffered enough blood."
"My daughter died in this house while she laughed in Enzo’s bed," I said, racking the slide of my weapon.
"This is not business, Luca."
May you like
"This is the family."
***
