Chapter 4 - ST. MICHAEL’S
St. Michael’s had been closed for thirteen years.
The old church stood between a boarded pharmacy and an empty brick school in a neighborhood Roman said his grandfather once controlled block by block.
Rain had stopped.
The city looked washed and exhausted.
Roman parked half a block away.
Emily stared at the church.
“You’re not going in alone.”
“I’m not.”
“You were about to say I should stay in the car.”
“I was thinking it.”
“Try thinking something smarter.”
Roman looked at her.
For a second, despite the gun beneath his coat and the danger waiting inside, his mouth almost lifted.
“You really are my sister.”
The word hung strangely between them.
Emily looked away.
Neither of them had had time to process it.
Roman had spent thirty-nine years as an only child.
Emily had spent thirty-seven believing she had no family beyond memories.
Now they were walking into a trap together.
Roman’s security chief, Marcus Hale, approached from the alley.
“Three entrances. Two men on the south side. One vehicle in back. No sign of Margaret.”
“Vincent?” Roman asked.
“Likely inside.”
Roman nodded.
“Police?”
“Not yet.”
Emily folded her arms.
“You said we were done pretending private armies are enough.”
Roman glanced at her.
“We need the ledger intact.”
“And Margaret alive.”
“Yes.”
Marcus looked between them.
“I can put a tactical team through the rear.”
“No,” Emily said.
Marcus blinked.
Roman did not.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because Vincent expects Roman to act like Roman.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
Emily pointed to the church.
“He expects force. He expects men with guns. He expects you to come through the door angry enough to prove every story people tell about your family.”
“And your alternative?”
Emily looked at Thomas Keller, who stood near the SUV with his hands visible.
“Send him.”
Keller went pale.
“No.”
Roman looked at Emily.
“Explain.”
“Vincent told Keller to bring us both. That means Keller is still useful to him.”
Keller shook his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you helped bury Margaret’s complaints.”
“I didn’t know they would take her.”
“But you knew people were stealing.”
Keller looked away.
Emily stepped closer.
“You want to prove you’re not your father? Walk inside and tell Vincent Roman refused.”
Keller’s face tightened.
“He’ll kill me.”
Roman’s voice was flat.
“Then perhaps you should have considered that before helping him.”
Emily looked at Roman.
“No.”
He looked back.
“We’re not using him as bait without a plan.”
Roman studied her for a moment.
Then nodded once.
They built the plan in six minutes.
Keller would enter through the front.
Marcus’s people would cut power to the rear corridor but leave emergency lighting.
Roman and Emily would use an old service passage from the church basement Roman remembered from childhood.
“You remember tunnels under a church?” Emily whispered as they moved through the alley.
“My grandfather used the basement for card games.”
“Of course he did.”
Roman almost smiled.
The basement door had rusted shut.
Marcus forced it quietly.
Inside smelled of mildew, dust, and old incense.
Emily followed Roman down a narrow hallway.
Every step echoed.
She could hear Keller’s voice upstairs.
“Vincent?”
A pause.
Then another man.
Older.
Calm.
“Thomas. You came alone.”
Vincent Bellini.
Roman stopped beneath a vent.
Emily leaned close.
Keller answered, “Roman wouldn’t come.”
Vincent laughed.
“My nephew has always confused restraint with morality.”
Emily felt Roman stiffen.
“He has the drive,” Keller said.
“So does half the world by now if he has any sense.”
“Then why Margaret?”
“Insurance.”
Emily’s jaw tightened.
Roman motioned forward.
They reached a stairwell hidden behind the old sacristy.
Through a cracked door Emily saw the nave.
Dusty pews.
Broken stained glass.
Candles flickering near the altar.
Margaret sat in a chair beneath the crucifix.
Her hands were tied.
Two men stood beside her.
Vincent Bellini stood in front of Keller.
He was in his sixties, silver-haired, elegant.
Nothing about him looked violent.
That was worse.
On the altar sat a leather ledger.
Emily touched Roman’s sleeve and pointed.
He nodded.
Then Vincent spoke.
“You know what fascinates me about my nephew?”
Keller said nothing.
“He inherited everything and still believes innocence can be purchased retroactively.”
Roman’s expression did not change.
Vincent continued.
“He thinks canceling forty-seven layoffs makes him a good man.”
Emily watched Roman.
The words hit.
She knew because they were partly true.
Stopping harm after benefiting from it was not virtue.
It was only a beginning.
Vincent walked toward Margaret.
“This woman understands that. Don’t you?”
Margaret lifted her chin.
“I understand you talk too much.”
Emily almost smiled.
Vincent slapped the arm of the chair, not Margaret.
“You’ve always been tedious.”
“And you’ve always needed employees to feel small because nobody loved you at home.”
Even Roman looked impressed.
Vincent turned away.
Keller’s hand trembled.
Then he glanced toward the sacristy.
Directly at Roman.
Too directly.
Vincent saw it.
Everything happened at once.
“Now,” Roman said.
Marcus’s team cut the lights.
The church dropped into darkness.
Emily moved toward Margaret.
Roman crossed the nave.
A gunshot cracked.
Stained glass shattered.
Someone shouted.
Emily reached the chair and dropped to her knees.
“Margaret.”
“You took your time.”
“I’m trying to untie you.”
“Use the knife in my left shoe.”
Emily stared.
“You have a knife?”
“I’m old, not stupid.”
Emily pulled out the small blade and cut the ropes.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Across the church, Roman and Vincent faced each other.
Roman’s gun was drawn.
Vincent’s was pointed toward Keller.
Marcus had one man on the floor.
The second had fled behind the altar.
“Put it down,” Roman said.
Vincent smiled.
“You sound like your father.”
“That’s not a compliment.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Vincent looked toward Emily.
“There she is.”
Roman stepped into his line of sight.
“Don’t.”
Vincent laughed softly.
“Protective already.”
Emily stood beside Margaret.
“What did you do to my mother?”
Vincent looked at her.
“Jane?”
He smiled in a way that made Emily hate him instantly.
“She was inconvenient.”
Roman’s voice lowered.
“What does that mean?”
Vincent’s eyes remained on Emily.
“Your mother believed evidence made her powerful.”
Emily took a step forward.
Roman said, “Emily.”
She ignored him.
“What happened to her?”
“She left.”
“She died.”
“Years later.”
“Because of cancer.”
“So I heard.”
Emily’s chest tightened.
Something about his tone.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Vincent smiled.
Roman saw it too.
“Enough.”
Vincent looked at his nephew.
“You think this is about pensions? About old employees and stolen benefits?”
He laughed.
“This is about control. Your father understood that money is only useful when it teaches people dependence.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“My father wrote that he regretted it.”
“Your father regretted everything after his heart got weak.”
Vincent raised the gun slightly.
“He still spent the money.”
Roman did not flinch.
“And so did I.”
The admission silenced the room.
Vincent blinked.
Roman continued.
“I inherited profits I did not examine. I approved plans without names. I allowed men like Keller to speak for people I never met.”
Keller looked down.
Roman’s voice became steadier.
“That ends tonight.”
Vincent laughed.
“You think confession is cleansing?”
“No.”
Roman’s eyes moved to the ledger.
“Restitution is.”
That was the moment Vincent understood.
“You’re going to give it back.”
“Every stolen dollar we can trace.”
“You’ll destroy the company.”
“Then it deserves to be rebuilt.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
“You sentimental fool.”
Emily saw movement behind the altar.
The second man.
Gun raised toward Roman.
She screamed.
“Roman!”
Roman turned.
Margaret moved faster.
She threw the knife.
Not at the man.
At the light fixture above him.
Glass exploded.
He flinched.
Marcus tackled him.
Vincent fired.
Keller cried out and dropped.
Roman fired once into the floor near Vincent’s feet.
“Don’t.”
Vincent froze.
Roman could have shot him.
Emily saw that.
Vincent saw it.
Maybe all of Chicago would have expected it.
Roman lowered his weapon.
“Marcus.”
His security chief moved in and disarmed Vincent.
Vincent stared at Roman with disgust.
“You’re weak.”
Roman looked at him.
“No.”
Then he nodded toward Emily.
“I finally learned the difference.”
Sirens approached outside.
Emily turned.
“You called them?”
Roman nodded.
“Federal agents. Not local police.”
“When?”
“Before we left the hotel.”
Emily raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You would have argued less convincingly.”
“I’m going to argue now.”
“I assumed.”
Agents entered.
Vincent was handcuffed.
Keller had been shot through the shoulder.
He would live.
Margaret refused a stretcher until she personally watched an agent bag the ledger as evidence.
Then, just as the tension began to ease, one agent opened the ledger.
His expression changed.
“Mr. Bellini.”
Roman turned.
The agent pointed to a page.
“There’s a payment from your father to Jane Hayes.”
Emily stepped closer.
The amount was five hundred thousand dollars.
Dated eight years after Emily’s birth.
Recipient signature:
JANE HAYES.
Emily stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Roman looked at her.
“Why?”
“My mother told me she never took his money.”
The agent turned the page.
Another payment.
And another.
Seven transfers.
More than two million dollars.
All bearing Jane’s signature.
Emily’s stomach dropped.
Vincent, being led away, began to laugh.
Emily turned on him.
“What?”
He looked over his shoulder.
“You wanted to know what your mother really did.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“Take him out.”
Vincent kept laughing.
“Ask where the money went, Emily.”
She went still.
Vincent smiled.
“Ask why a poor hospital laundry worker received two million dollars and still raised her daughter in poverty.”
The church doors closed behind him.
Emily looked down at the ledger.
Every assumption she had about Jane cracked.
Margaret touched her arm.
“There’s more.”
Emily looked at her.
“What?”
Margaret’s eyes were filled with sorrow.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Jane didn’t keep the money.”
Emily swallowed.
“Then who did?”
Margaret looked at Roman.
Then back at Emily.
“Your father did.”
Emily frowned.
“Nicholas?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
Roman went still.
Emily’s voice came out barely audible.
“You said Nicholas was my father.”
“I said Jane told him the baby was his.”
Margaret’s grip tightened around Emily’s hand.
“She lied.”
Roman stopped breathing.
Emily stared.
Margaret whispered the name.
“Your father was David Hayes.”
Emily felt the church floor disappear beneath her.
“My mother’s husband?”
Margaret nodded.
“The man you were told died before you were born.”
Emily’s heart hammered.
“He did die.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“No, sweetheart.”
A long silence.
May you like
Then:
“He’s alive.”
