Chapter 7 - THE GHOST OF RACINE AVENUE
The rain had stopped by four in the morning.
A thick, sulfurous fog rolled off the Chicago River, swallowing the industrial labyrinth of the West Side.
I drove an unmarked black sedan through the rusted iron gates of 1200 South Racine Avenue.
The sign above the gate was rotted, its paint peeling after decades of neglect:
VALENTI FREIGHT & LOGISTICS — EST. 1968.
My mother’s maiden name.
For thirty years, I had believed this property was a toxic brownfield abandoned during the steel collapse.
I had believed my mother grew up in a modest row house in Bridgeport.
I had believed my father was an honest municipal clerk.
Lies.
All of it.
Every memory of my childhood was a stage set built over an empire of blood and concrete.
I parked the sedan beside the derelict brick office at the center of the terminal.
The building had three stories, its windows boarded up with heavy plywood.
I turned off the ignition.
The silence in the car was suffocating.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
My face was smeared with soot and dried blood.
My silk blouse was torn at the collar, exposing the hollow beneath my throat where my wedding ring used to rest.
I reached into my pocket.
My fingers touched the brass key I had taken from Marco Russo’s coat before I walked out of the mansion.
It was an old-fashioned skeleton key, stamped with the numbers 104.
I stepped out into the freezing fog.
My boots crunched on the gravel and broken glass.
I walked up the sagging wooden steps of the office building.
I pushed the heavy oak door open.
The hinges groaned like a dying beast.
Inside, the air was cold, smelling of mildew, dry rot, and hundred-year-old paper.
A long corridor stretched into the gloom, lined with frosted glass doors.
I walked to the end of the hall.
Office 104.
ELENA VALENTI — PRIVATE ARCHIVE.
My mother’s name.
My hands began to shake as I slid the brass key into the lock.
It turned with a heavy, satisfying CHUNK.
I pushed the door open.
The room was clean.
Immaculate.
No dust.
No cobwebs.
The windows were covered with steel security shutters, blocking all light from the outside.
A single green banker’s lamp burned softly on an antique mahogany desk in the center of the room.
And sitting in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk was an elderly woman.
She wore a dark wool coat, her silver hair pinned in an elegant French twist.
In her gloved hands, she held a steaming porcelain cup of tea.
I froze on the threshold.
My hand dropped toward the Kimber in my pocket.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
The woman set the teacup down on the saucer with a soft, delicate clink.
She looked up.
Her eyes were the exact same shade of hazel as mine.
"You look so much like your mother, Sofia," the woman said.
Her voice was low, raspy from decades of cigarettes, but rich with authority.
"My mother is dead," I spat.
"She died in the west bedroom fourteen years ago."
"Elena died in that bed, yes," the woman replied, her gaze steady.
"Killed by men who thought a woman couldn't hold thirty acres of riverfront."
The woman stood up.
She leaned on a silver-topped walking cane, stepping around the mahogany desk into the circle of green light.
May you like
"I am your great-aunt, Teresa Valin."
"And I have been waiting in this office for fourteen years for you to take off that ring."
