Chapter 9 - THE CATACOMBS
Amelia took the stone steps three at a time.
The air grew heavy with the stench of damp earth, centuries-old limestone, and wet tallow.
Flickering kerosene lanterns hung from iron sconces along the curved brick walls.
At the bottom of the stairwell sat a low, vaulted cellar lined with wine casks and wooden crates of church records.
In the center of the room, behind an iron security grille, sat a woman.
She wore a faded gray woolen sweater, her long dark hair threaded with streaks of premature silver.
Her face was thin, her cheekbones sharp as blades, but her hazel eyes were unmistakable.
Clara.
Amelia stopped at the iron bars, her hands grasping the cold metal.
Her vision blurred with hot, blinding tears.
“Clara...” she whispered.
The woman stood up from her wooden cot.
Her legs were unsteady, trembling beneath her worn skirt.
She approached the bars with slow, disbelieving steps, reaching her hands through the gaps.
Their fingers touched.
Warm flesh against warm flesh.
Twelve years of grief, twelve years of mourning an empty grave, collapsed into nothingness in a single second.
“You're alive,” Amelia sobbed, pressing her forehead against the iron.
“They told me you died in Boston...”
“I couldn't leave, Genny,” Clara wept, using the childhood nickname that made Amelia’s heart clench.
“Thomas told me Victor would kill you and Mother if I stepped outside these walls.”
“He kept me here counting their ledgers...”
Lorenzo’s heavy combat boots sounded on the stone stairs behind them.
He reached the bottom landing, holding a heavy iron crowbar he had retrieved from the sacristy.
He saw Clara’s face.
He recognized the Brooks features instantly.
Without a word, Lorenzo wedged the flat edge of the crowbar into the heavy brass padlock holding the cell door.
He threw his massive weight against the lever.
SNAP.
The lock sheared apart in a shower of rusted iron flakes.
The cell door swung open with a screech of bent hinges.
Amelia threw her arms around her older sister, burying her face into Clara’s neck.
Both women collapsed onto their knees on the damp stone floor, holding each other as if they were drowning.
Lorenzo stepped into the cell.
He pulled off his leather gloves and knelt beside them.
He placed his large, warm hand gently on Clara’s trembling shoulder.
“You’re safe now, Clara,” Lorenzo said, his voice softer than Amelia had ever heard it.
“The Moretti family will never touch you again.”
Clara looked up through her tears at the tall, dark man kneeling beside her sister.
She saw the raw, unmistakable devotion in his eyes as he looked at Amelia.
“You’re Lorenzo Bianchi,” Clara whispered.
“I am.”
“Amelia wrote to me about you,” Clara said, pulling a bundle of yellowed paper napkins from beneath her cot mattress.
“She hid notes in the church supply deliveries.”
“She told me she met a man who made her forget how cold this city was.”
Amelia’s cheeks flushed pink through the soot on her skin.
She looked up at Lorenzo, her eyes filled with an unspoken truth that no longer needed hiding.
Lorenzo looked at the handwritten napkins.
His chest rose and fell with a deep, shuddering breath.
“She left me at the altar, Clara,” Lorenzo said softly, a faint, tender smile touching the corner of his lips.
“To keep your sister alive,” Clara said firmly.
“She always was the brave one.”
From the top of the stone stairwell, a sudden burst of automatic gunfire echoed down the shaft.
Crack-crack-crack-crack.
Plaster rained down into the cellar.
Marco’s voice boomed down the stairs, strained and frantic:
“BOSS! WE'VE GOT CARS ON THE LAWN!”
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