Chapter 5 - SAINT GABRIEL’S
The road north along the Hudson disappeared beneath heavy snow. Vincent’s convoy traveled without sirens, four black vehicles moving through the storm like shadows while Isabella sat in the second SUV between Vincent and Salvatore. No one spoke for the first twenty minutes. The city lights faded behind them, replaced by dark trees, frozen fields, and the occasional glow of a farmhouse far from the highway.
Isabella kept thinking about Teresa. Her mother had worked two jobs, bought groceries with coupons, and complained about subway delays like any other exhausted single parent. Nothing in that life suggested secret ledgers, murdered men, or hidden evidence. Yet now Isabella understood that ordinary routines might have been Teresa’s greatest disguise. She had not lived small because she lacked courage. She had lived carefully because every quiet year kept her daughter alive.
Vincent watched Isabella from the corner of his eye. “You can still turn back.” She shook her head. “I spent six months wishing I had asked my mother more questions. I’m not turning away now that I finally have answers in front of me.” Vincent looked out at the storm. “Answers are expensive.” Isabella replied, “So is not knowing.”
Saint Gabriel’s appeared just after midnight, a black stone structure on a hill overlooking the river. Fire had destroyed part of the roof decades earlier, leaving the chapel tower open to the sky. Snow collected on broken statues and filled the abandoned garden paths. The place looked less like a convent than the remains of a forgotten fortress.
Vincent’s men swept the property. Recent tire tracks cut behind the main building. A rear door had been forced open. Inside, footprints crossed a layer of dust. Someone had arrived before them.
Vivian’s gold key fit a rusted service entrance leading to the basement. The stairs descended beneath the ruined chapel into a corridor lined with old storage rooms. Numbers were painted above metal doors: B-1, B-2, B-3. The sequence continued into darkness.
At B-17, Isabella stopped.
The door was already open.
Her heart sank.
Inside stood rows of steel shelves, most empty. A single wooden trunk sat in the center of the floor, its lock broken. Papers lay scattered around it. Vincent knelt and picked up one page. It was a copy of a shipping ledger dated 1997. Another page contained names and bank transfers.
“Carlo found it,” Salvatore said.
“Not all of it,” Isabella replied.
She noticed the trunk’s bottom was deeper than its interior should allow. Teresa had been practical, and practical people hid things in plain construction. Isabella ran her fingers under the inner lining and found a narrow catch. The false bottom lifted.
Inside was a cassette tape, a small notebook, and a sealed envelope marked ISABELLA.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
Teresa’s handwriting filled two pages.
My beautiful girl, if you are reading this, then I was not able to tell you the truth myself. I am sorry for every lie that made you think I did not trust you. I trusted you with my life. I did not trust the people watching us.
The letter explained that Teresa had copied Antonio Moretti’s evidence but divided it into three parts. One part was hidden at Saint Gabriel’s. One had been given to Elena. The final part had been placed somewhere Carlo would never think to search: inside his own organization.
“Inside DeMarco’s organization?” Vincent asked.
Isabella read further.
Teresa had discovered that Carlo kept handwritten transaction books because he distrusted computers. One of his accountants, a man named Samuel Price, secretly photographed pages for her. After Antonio’s murder, Samuel vanished. The notebook inside the trunk contained coded references to those images.
Salvatore stiffened. “Samuel Price was found dead in 1998.”
The room grew quiet.
The cassette tape was labeled CHAPEL, NOVEMBER 4. Vincent found an old player on one of the shelves, plugged it into a portable power unit, and pressed play. At first there was only static. Then voices.
Antonio Moretti spoke first. His tone was controlled, furious. Carlo answered. A third voice entered—the voice Elena had identified as Matteo. The recording captured enough of the argument to establish motive. Antonio accused Carlo of trafficking people through Moretti routes. Matteo demanded Antonio hand over control of the family. There was a crash, shouting, and Antonio crying out.
Then Carlo’s voice, cold and unmistakable: “You should have stayed loyal.”
The tape ended with Elena screaming.
Vincent closed his eyes. The sound of his mother’s younger voice seemed to strike him physically. Isabella touched his arm without thinking. He looked at her hand but did not pull away.
A gunshot cracked somewhere above them.
Salvatore killed the light.
Another shot echoed through the building. Vincent’s security men answered from the corridor. Someone had followed them.
“Back exit,” Salvatore said.
They moved deeper into the basement while two guards held position. Isabella clutched Teresa’s envelope under her coat. The narrow passage opened into old wine tunnels beneath the convent. Snowmelt dripped from the ceiling.
A figure stepped from the darkness ahead.
Vincent raised his weapon.
“Don’t shoot,” Vivian said.
Everyone froze.
Vivian stood there in a dark coat, accompanied by one of Vincent’s guards. She had somehow left Belladonna House.
Vincent’s expression went cold. “How did you get here?”
Vivian held up her phone. “Because my father sent me a message.”
She showed the screen.
A photograph of Elena sitting in the hidden room beneath Belladonna House.
Taken after Vincent’s convoy had departed.
Isabella’s stomach dropped.
Carlo had never been racing them to Saint Gabriel’s.
He had been drawing them away from the house.
Vivian looked at Vincent, panic finally overtaking pride.
“My father is at Belladonna House.”
Vincent grabbed his radio, but only static answered.
Then Vivian received another message.
This one showed Maria Santos bound to a chair.
Below the photograph was a single line.
BRING THE TAPE BACK, OR THE OLD WOMAN DIES FIRST.
Isabella looked at the cassette in Vincent’s hand.
Outside, the gunfire stopped.
The silence was worse.
May you like
Carlo had set the board.
Now he was waiting for them to choose who would survive.
