Chapter 10 - BROTHERS
"Hello, Dante."
Matteo's voice barely carried through the speakers.
Dante gripped the desk.
"I thought you were dead."
"That was the idea."
"Eight years."
"I know."
Dante's pain became anger.
"You let me bury you."
"I was trying to keep you alive."
Salvatore laughed.
"Touching."
Then he looked at me.
"Claire, it's time."
"For what?"
"For your father to finally pay his debt."
"My father is dead."
"So everyone keeps saying."
My breath stopped.
No.
Not again.
Salvatore smiled at my expression.
Dante leaned toward the screen.
"If you're lying—"
"I'm not."
A door opened behind Salvatore.
A wheelchair rolled into frame.
The man sitting in it was older.
Scarred.
Part of his face had been damaged by fire.
But I knew those eyes.
I had seen them in photographs my entire childhood.
"Dad?"
The room disappeared.
Thomas Bennett stared back at me.
"Claire."
I couldn't breathe.
My father.
Alive.
Nolan looked almost as shocked as I was.
Even Dante hadn't known.
"Dad?"
Thomas began crying.
"I'm sorry."
I stepped toward the screen like I could reach through it.
"You died."
"I was supposed to."
"You left us!"
"I tried to come back."
"Eleven years!"
Salvatore placed a hand on his shoulder.
"He has been my guest."
Thomas's expression filled with hate.
"Prisoner."
Salvatore shrugged.
"Semantics."
I was shaking.
"Mom?"
Thomas lowered his head.
Salvatore answered for him.
"Your mother became inconvenient."
Something inside me cracked.
"You killed her."
"Indirectly."
Dante raised his gun toward the screen although it meant nothing.
"Father."
Salvatore looked amused.
"Yes?"
"When I find you—"
"You won't."
The screen changed.
Coordinates appeared.
"Claire comes alone."
"No," Dante said.
Salvatore ignored him.
"If she isn't here by dawn, Thomas dies first."
My father closed his eyes.
"Then Matteo."
Dante whispered, "You sick bastard."
"And then Nolan."
Nolan shouted, "Hey!"
For one absurd second, I almost laughed.
Salvatore continued.
"Enzo dies last."
The screen went black.
Dante immediately called his security teams.
"Trace everything."
I stood frozen.
My father was alive.
My mother had been murdered.
Nolan had entered my life because of a crime committed before I could drive.
Dante approached me.
"You're not going alone."
"I know."
He looked surprised.
"I've spent enough time obeying monsters."
I wiped my tears.
"But we're getting them out."
Dante studied me.
"All of them?"
"Even Nolan."
"Why?"
"Because if I leave him to die, Salvatore gets to turn me into someone like him."
Dante looked at me for a long moment.
Then nodded.
"All of them."
Rosa entered carrying the old photograph from Mancini's car.
"Wait."
She flipped it over.
There was writing on the back.
Dante read it.
His face changed.
"What?"
He handed it to me.
Three words.
Saint Agnes Tunnel.
Matteo had once hidden there after the bombing.
Dante grabbed his coat.
"The coordinates Salvatore sent are fake."
"How do you know?"
"Because my brother just told us where he really is."
I stared at the photograph.
"How?"
Dante pointed to Matteo's hand in the video.
He had been holding three fingers against his chest.
A childhood signal between the brothers.
Three.
Saint Agnes.
Tunnel.
Dante checked his weapon.
"Now we go get my family."
Outside, thunder rolled over Chicago.
May you like
And for the first time, I wasn't running away from danger.
I was running straight toward it.
