Chapter 5 - The Autopsy of an Ambush
Enzo did not return to his office.
He drove at breakneck speed through the snowy streets straight to Dante’s apartment in Oak Park.
The door hung half an inch off its hinges, the brass lock smashed inward with a hydraulic jack.
Inside, the apartment had been gutted with military precision.
Drawers were emptied onto the floor.
Dante’s personal safes stood wide open, their contents stripped clean.
On the glass coffee table in the center of the living room lay a single manila folder.
Enzo approached it slowly, his service weapon drawn and trembling slightly in his grip.
He pulled the papers out into the gray afternoon light coming through the blinds.
The first sheet was the certified medical examiner’s report from Central City Hospital.
It listed the time of death of an eight-week-old fetus due to severe blunt-force trauma from a vehicular impact.
It listed the maternal patient name as Carmela Romano.
Beneath the report lay a high-resolution still frame taken from the traffic camera on West Archer.
It clearly showed a black Lincoln Navigator running my silver sedan off the shoulder.
The license plate was clearly visible, registered to a shell company owned by Vincent Tatalia.
Taped to the bottom of the photograph was an audio transcript of Dante’s phone from three nights ago.
Enzo’s breath caught in his throat as he read the words Dante had spoken while standing in Enzo's own courtyard.
Dante had given the Tatalias the exact time Carmela left her obstetrician’s private clinic.
He had told them she had no security detail because Enzo had reassigned her driver to watch Luca’s school.
Enzo staggered backward until his spine hit the drywall.
The sound of his own laughter from that hospital phone call echoed in his mind like a physical blow.
He had called her a liar.
He had told her that joking about their baby dying was sick.
He had sat in a luxury steakhouse kissing Bianca’s neck while his child’s body was being incinerated in the hospital basement.
The silence of the trashed apartment seemed to roar in his ears.
He pulled his phone from his pocket with shaking hands and dialed my private number.
The automated operator answered immediately.
The number had been permanently disconnected.
He dialed the Lake Forest mansion.
The house manager answered on the first ring, her voice tight and formal.
She informed him that four moving vans had already cleared the master bedroom and the nursery.
She told him Mrs. Moretti had left one item for him on the grand dining table.
Enzo dropped the phone, ran down the fire escape, and threw his car into gear with tires screaming on the ice.
He drove like a madman back to the estate, ignoring red lights and police sirens behind him.
He burst through the front double doors, his coat covered in melting sleet.
The dining room was pitch black.
In the center of the twenty-seat table sat a small velvet box.
Enzo approached it as if it contained a live bomb.
He opened the velvet lid.
Inside rested my diamond wedding band, snapped clean in half by industrial pliers.
May you like
Beside it lay the sixty-six call logs printed on hospital stationery, with the final line highlighted in black ink.
I’m at Luca’s parent-teacher conference.
