Chapter 8 - THE CHAPEL IN CICERO
Midnight arrived with a deafening roll of thunder across the western suburbs.
The storm had turned into an ice squall.
Three black SUVs pulled into the unplowed gravel lot of St. Jude Parish in Cicero.
The Gothic stone church rose against the storm clouds like a dark sentinel, its stained-glass windows black and lifeless.
In the second SUV, Mia sat wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, sipping hot tea from a thermos held by Leo.
Amelia sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle.
Lorenzo sat beside her, strapping a fresh magazine into his sidearm.
The interior of the car was dead quiet.
“Father Thomas was my father’s confessor for thirty years,” Lorenzo said softly, staring at the darkened rectory.
“He baptized Mia.”
“He gave my mother her last rites.”
“He was the one who told me you had left the cathedral two weeks ago.”
Amelia looked down at her hands.
The skin across her knuckles was split from the cold, but she felt nothing.
“Father Thomas took money from my father ten years ago,” Amelia whispered.
“I remember him coming to our kitchen in Southie.”
“He told my mother that debts to the Moretti family could only be forgiven in blood.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes for a heartbeat.
When he opened them, the darkness inside them was absolute.
“Marco. Secure the perimeter.”
“No one leaves the rectory.”
Lorenzo and Amelia stepped out into the freezing wind.
The ice crunched beneath their boots as they walked up the granite steps of the church.
Lorenzo pushed the heavy oak doors open.
The scent of frankincense, cold stone, and old wax drifted out to meet them.
The nave was cavernous and dim, illuminated only by the red votive candles flickering before the altar of the Virgin Mary.
At the foot of the altar, kneeling on a worn velvet prie-dieu, was an elderly priest in black robes.
Father Thomas.
He did not turn around as the heavy doors groaned shut behind them.
His rosary beads clicked softly through his weathered fingers.
Click. Click. Click.
“I knew you would come, Lorenzo,” the old priest said, his voice echoing off the vaulted timber ceiling.
“A shepherd always returns to his flock.”
Lorenzo walked down the center aisle, his boots clicking on the marble floor.
Amelia walked beside him, her hand tucked into her coat pocket, resting on a borrowed service pistol.
Lorenzo stopped at the communion rail.
“Where is Clara Brooks, Father?”
The clicking of the rosary beads stopped.
Father Thomas slowly rose from the kneel-bench.
He turned to face them.
His face was lined with eighty years of secrets, but his pale eyes showed no remorse.
No guilt.
“Clara is resting, Lorenzo,” the priest said calmly.
“In the catacombs beneath the sacristy.”
“Where she has served the Lord’s work for a decade.”
“The Lord’s work?” Amelia’s voice shook with fury.
She stepped to the rail, her knuckles whitening against the wrought iron.
“You held my sister captive!”
“You told my mother she was dead!”
“Your sister was a thief, child,” Father Thomas replied, his tone smooth as consecrated oil.
“She stole three million dollars in bearer bonds from Victor Moretti’s private accounts.”
“She came to this confessional begging for sanctuary.”
“I gave her sanctuary.”
“In exchange for her labor.”
“You used her to launder Moretti blood money through the church restoration fund,” Lorenzo said.
His gun remained holstered, but his presence filled the sanctuary like a thundercloud.
“You took a cut of every dollar that passed through this altar.”
“And when I asked Amelia to marry me, you realized the Bianchi family would gain access to the Brooks estate records.”
“You realized I would find the missing three million.”
Father Thomas sighed, tucking the rosary into his cassock pocket.
“You were always too curious, Lorenzo.”
“Just like your father.”
The priest reached beneath the altar cloth.
Before he could draw his hand back, Lorenzo cleared the communion rail in a single, effortless leap.
Lorenzo caught the priest’s right wrist, twisting the arm downward until the old man cried out in agony.
A snub-nosed .38 revolver clattered from the priest's fingers onto the carpet.
Lorenzo slammed the eighty-year-old man against the stone altar.
The brass crucifix rattled on the table.
“The key to the catacombs, Thomas,” Lorenzo growled into the priest’s ear.
“Or I will spill your blood across the stones your father laid.”
The priest gasped, reaching into his robes with his trembling left hand.
He pulled out a heavy iron key shaped like a cross.
Lorenzo snatched the key and hurled the priest to the floor.
Amelia rushed past the altar toward the heavy oak door behind the sacristy.
The iron key slipped into the lock with a heavy, satisfying clunk.
She threw the door open.
A spiral staircase of crumbling brick plunged into the damp darkness below.
May you like
From the bottom of the stairs, a faint, trembling voice rose through the cold air:
“Amelia...?”
