Chapter 5 - The Ledger of Blood
The revelation inside the Cicero depot turned the winter air into a poison.
I sat in the back of the Suburban as we drove away from the rail yards, my body shaking so violently that Roman had to reach over and pull the heavy wool blanket over my shoulders. Lily was fast asleep again, exhausted by the strange, tense day, her head resting against my thigh.
"He was alive," I whispered, the tears finally breaking through my defenses, hot and fast against my cold cheeks. "All that time... he was living just twenty minutes away from me, changing tires in a dirty shop, terrified that every car that pulled into the bay was coming to kill us."
Roman didn't look at me. His hands were clamped around the steering wheel—he had taken over the driving himself, sending Silvano and the guards ahead in a separate vehicle. "My father didn't find him, Clara. If Dominic had found Caleb, I would have known. My father’s enforcers couldn't move in this city without my logistics team tracking the expenses."
"Then where is he, Roman?" I cried, my voice cracking against the reinforced glass of the cabin. "If your father didn't get him, why did he stop coming home? Why hasn't he called? It's been seventeen months!"
Roman turned the heavy vehicle onto a dark, secluded road that led toward the shipping docks along the Chicago River. "Because my father wasn't the only one looking for him. The Morettis in New York felt insulted by the broken alliance. They had their own hunters in the city."
He pulled the Suburban into the shadow of a massive, rusted grain elevator that rose like a concrete monolith against the gray river. The water below was choked with chunks of white ice, churning slowly against the wooden pilings.
"Two months before my father died," Roman said, his voice dropping into a hollow, dead tone, "the port authority pulled a vehicle out of the slip right here. A '98 Civic with a missing passenger-side door handle."
The world seemed to tilt beneath me. The air left my lungs in a short, sharp gasp that felt like a physical puncture. "No... no, please."
"There was no body inside, Clara," Roman said quickly, turning in his seat to lock his eyes onto mine. His hand reached back, his massive fingers closing around my wrist with a firm, desperate pressure. "The driver's side door was jammed open from the inside. The keys were still in the ignition, but the brake lines hadn't failed. They were cut cleanly with a commercial shear."
"They caught him," I whispered, the darkness closing in around the edges of my vision.
"No," Roman countered, his jaw setting into a line of absolute certainty. "If the Morettis had caught him, they would have displayed him. That’s how they operate. They would have sent a message to my father to demand their interest on the broken contract. The fact that the car went into the river and no one ever claimed the kill means Caleb survived the drop."
He looked down at Lily, his expression softening into that rare, fierce tenderness. "He went deep, Clara. He realized that as long as Silas Callahan was alive, and as long as the Morettis were looking for blood, any contact with you would be a death sentence for all three of you. He didn't just hide from the family—he hid from the grid."
"But your father is dead now," I said, a desperate, fragile hope blooming in my chest like a flower through concrete.
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"Yes," Roman said, his eyes turning back to the dark river. "My father died in April. But the Morettis are still here. And tomorrow morning, they're arriving in Chicago for the regional distribution conference."
He turned the key in the ignition, the heavy engine roaring back to life. "We have twelve hours to find my brother before the New York captains realize his daughter is sitting in my executive office."
