Chapter 4 - THE CATHEDRAL UNDERGROUNDI lasted exactly eleven minutes before Luca realized I was lying.
We were halfway through downtown Chicago in the middle SUV when he looked across the dark leather interior and said, “Give me your phone.”
“No.”
Marco, seated opposite us, raised an eyebrow.
Luca held out his hand.
“Isabella.”
“My phone is private.”
“You looked terrified after reading something.”
“My mother sends dramatic messages.”
“At midnight?”
“She’s Italian.”
Marco coughed into his fist, hiding a laugh.
Luca didn’t.
“Phone.”
“No.”
The SUV stopped abruptly at a red light.
Luca leaned toward me.
“You found a transmitter sewn into my clothing because you notice details everyone else misses. I notice things too.”
“Congratulations.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
I looked down.
Damn him.
I shoved my hands under my thighs.
“Cold.”
“The car is seventy-three degrees.”
“Do you interrogate everyone this annoyingly?”
“Yes.”
Marco said, “He actually does.”
“Stay out of this,” Luca told him.
I stared out the window.
My mother’s photograph burned inside my head.
If Luca knew, he’d send guards to her apartment.
The kidnappers might see them.
What if the threat was real?
What if someone was standing in her hallway?
What if—
“Your mother?”
I turned sharply.
Luca’s expression changed.
That was all it took.
He knew.
“Give me the phone.”
I handed it over.
He read the messages.
His face became terrifyingly calm.
“Marco.”
“I’m calling now.”
“No police sirens. No visible approach.”
Marco was already dialing.
I reached for the phone.
“You can’t send anyone.”
Luca held it away.
“They said—”
“I can read.”
“They’re watching her.”
“Probably.”
“You’ll get her killed.”
“And walking alone into their trap improves her odds?”
“I don’t know!”
My voice cracked.
The driver glanced in the mirror.
I lowered my voice.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Luca looked at me differently then.
Not as an employee.
Not as a complication.
As a daughter who had already lost one parent and was terrified of losing another.
“My people will enter quietly.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can’t.”
The answer surprised me.
“Trust is earned. Tonight you don’t have time for me to earn it.”
He gave the phone back.
“So use the evidence you have.”
“What evidence?”
“I gave you the only respirator in the safe room.”
Marco looked offended.
“You did?”
Luca ignored him.
“I did that before I knew anything about your father. Before I knew you might be useful. If I intended to sacrifice you, you would already know.”
It was a strange argument.
Yet oddly convincing.
Marco finished his call.
“Team is moving. Plain clothes. Building superintendent is letting them through the basement.”
I closed my eyes.
“Thank you.”
Luca nodded once.
“Now no more lies.”
I didn’t answer.
“Isabella.”
“No more lies.”
The cathedral rose from the rainy darkness twelve minutes later.
Saint Aurelia had stood in Chicago for more than a century.
Its twin Gothic towers cut into the clouds.
Stone saints guarded the enormous bronze doors.
Tomorrow, nearly six hundred guests had been scheduled to watch Luca marry Celeste beneath its vaulted ceiling.
Tonight, it looked abandoned.
The cardinal wasn’t there.
The night custodian was.
He took one look at Luca and unlocked the side entrance without asking questions.
I didn’t want to know why.
Eight guards spread through the building.
Bastien had stayed at Palazzo Belladonna under protection.
Marco carried a flashlight.
Luca led us down a spiral staircase behind the sacristy.
The air became colder with every step.
“How large is the archive?” I whispered.
“Large.”
“That’s helpful.”
“My family has donated clothes here since 1911.”
“Why?”
“Vanity.”
“At least you’re self-aware.”
He looked back at me.
For the first time, I caught the edge of a smile.
Then it disappeared.
We reached an underground corridor.
Steel shelving units filled several rooms.
Each contained archival boxes, garment bags, ceremonial banners, vestments, wedding dresses, military uniforms, and photographs.
Marco found the Moretti section.
“Vittorio Moretti. Marriage, 1998.”
A long preservation box sat on the upper shelf.
Luca stared at it.
I sensed something deeper than curiosity.
“When was the last time you saw this?”
“The day he wore it.”
“You remember?”
“I was ten.”
Marco pulled down the box.
“Dad made us wear matching bow ties.”
“You cried because yours was crooked,” Luca said.
“I was six.”
“You were dramatic.”
“I learned from the family.”
They looked suddenly less like dangerous men.
Just brothers remembering their father.
Then Luca opened the box.
The white wedding suit had aged beautifully.
Handmade.
Peak lapels.
Covered buttons.
Silk lining.
I touched the fabric.
My heart skipped.
“What?”
Luca noticed instantly.
“Nothing.”
“That expression doesn’t mean nothing anymore.”
I opened the jacket.
There, beneath the interior pocket, was a tiny red stitch.
My father.
I touched it with trembling fingers.
“He was here.”
Marco shone the flashlight.
“Cut it?”
I nodded.
But before I did, I measured.
Seventeen inches from the collar.
Four inches from center seam.
Twelve inches above the hem.
Exactly.
I inserted my scissors.
Snip.
The lining loosened.
Behind it was a narrow canvas sleeve.
I removed a metal cylinder no larger than a pen.
Luca stared.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco twisted the top.
A microfilm cartridge slid out.
“Records.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
All three of us froze.
One of Luca’s guards appeared.
“We have movement upstairs.”
“How many?”
“Unknown.”
“Secure entrances.”
The man ran.
Marco pocketed the microfilm.
“No.”
I held out my hand.
“What?”
“Dad hid it. Give it to me.”
Luca said, “Marco.”
His brother reluctantly handed it over.
I inspected the cylinder.
Something was wrong.
“What?”
Luca again.
I had begun to hate his ability to read my face.
“The cartridge is too light.”
I opened it.
Empty.
Marco cursed.
“Someone already took the film?”
“No.”
I shook the cylinder.
A faint rattle.
“There’s something else.”
I pushed the interior spring.
A second compartment opened.
Inside was another piece of paper.
Dad’s handwriting again.
IF RAFFAELE LIVES, TRUST NO BRIDE IN WHITE.
I felt cold.
Marco read over my shoulder.
“Trust no bride in white.”
Luca said nothing.
His face changed.
Celeste.
Tomorrow’s bride.
“No,” Marco said. “That could mean anyone.”
“Could,” Luca replied.
I remembered Celeste during the attack.
Her strange silence.
Her disappearing upstairs.
The way Bastien said the kidnappers knew the wedding schedule.
Who had access to every route?
The bride.
“Luca—”
The lights went out.
Not again.
This time there was no emergency power.
Darkness swallowed the archive.
Marco raised his flashlight.
A gunshot cracked.
The flashlight exploded in his hand.
“DOWN!”
Luca pulled me behind shelving.
More shots.
Security returned fire.
Metal screamed as bullets hit shelving.
A man shouted from the darkness.
“Give us Antonio Marin’s cylinder!”
Luca fired toward the voice.
I crouched beside him.
“They know we found it.”
“That was the idea.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“We were followed.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“So you brought me here anyway?”
“I told you to stay home.”
“Not the time!”
Another bullet tore through archival boxes.
Marco shouted from across the room.
“Back corridor!”
We ran.
The narrow corridor ended in a stone chamber containing old vestments.
A guard opened another door.
“Through here!”
We entered.
The guard closed it behind us.
Then raised his gun.
At Luca.
I stopped.
Marco stopped.
Luca didn’t.
He stared at the guard.
“Daniel.”
“Sorry, boss.”
The man’s hand shook.
“Drop your weapons.”
Marco cursed.
“You’ve worked for us twelve years.”
“Twelve years and you still never learned my daughter’s name.”
Luca slowly placed his pistol on the floor.
“Your daughter is why?”
“They have her.”
The same tactic they used on Bastien.
Raffaele didn’t recruit traitors.
He manufactured them.
“Give me the cylinder,” Daniel said.
I clutched it.
“Please.”
“Daniel,” Luca said quietly. “If you give them that, they won’t return your daughter.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You don’t know anything!”
Footsteps approached behind the door.
Daniel panicked.
“NOW!”
I looked at Luca.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
I understood.
I lifted the cylinder.
Then threw it.
Not to Daniel.
Past him.
Into a stone baptismal font.
Daniel turned instinctively.
Luca moved.
Three seconds later Daniel was on the floor, disarmed.
Marco grabbed the cylinder.
“Nice throw.”
“I played softball.”
“For?”
“Six weeks in eighth grade.”
“Good enough.”
The door behind us shook.
Attackers.
Luca looked around.
“No exit.”
I stared at the garments.
Old robes.
Curtains.
Preservation cloth.
Then upward.
A ventilation grate.
Too small.
Another impact hit the door.
The lock cracked.
“We need another way.”
My eyes returned to the room.
Dad hid things in clothing because people overlooked construction.
Buildings had construction too.
I studied the wall.
One section contained a hanging tapestry.
Its bottom edge moved.
Air current.
“Move that.”
Marco pulled it aside.
A narrow wooden door appeared.
“Seriously?”
I touched the hinge.
Old.
Probably servants’ access.
Luca opened it.
Stone stairs descended.
We rushed through.
Behind us, the chamber door burst open.
Bullets struck stone.
We descended into darkness.
At the bottom was an underground passage.
“Where does this go?” I asked.
Luca looked around.
“I have no idea.”
“Wonderful.”
We ran.
After several minutes, the tunnel opened beneath an alley two blocks from the cathedral.
Rain poured down.
Two security vehicles were waiting.
We piled inside.
Marco laughed once from adrenaline.
“You understand that tomorrow’s wedding is canceled, right?”
Luca looked at him.
“Yes.”
Then his phone rang.
Celeste.
Luca answered.
“Where are you?”
Her voice screamed through the speaker.
“Luca! They took me!”
The brothers froze.
A man’s voice replaced hers.
“Bring Antonio Marin’s cylinder to the old Hawthorne rail terminal at dawn.”
Luca said nothing.
“If you involve police, she dies.”
Click.
I stared at him.
The message from my father echoed in my mind.
Trust no bride in white.
Yet Celeste had apparently been abducted.
Either my father’s warning was wrong—
or this kidnapping was part of something much bigger.
Marco broke the silence.
“We have four hours.”
“No,” I said.
They looked at me.
I opened the cylinder again.
“The microfilm wasn’t inside.”
“We know.”
“No. Look.”
I held the paper toward the vehicle light.
Dad had written on both sides.
On the back, barely visible, were tiny dots.
Stitches.
A pattern.
I recognized it instantly.
Braille-style tailoring code.
Dad taught it to me as a game when I was seven.
I translated slowly.
Marco waited impatiently.
“What does it say?”
I looked at Luca.
“The film was never in the cylinder.”
“Where is it?”
I swallowed.
“Inside the wedding suit you’re wearing tomorrow.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Luca looked down at his white shirt.
“The $200,000 suit?”
I nodded.
“The tracker wasn’t put there because they wanted to follow you.”
Marco understood.
“They were trying to find the suit.”
Exactly.
And suddenly I realized why someone had manipulated Bastien into sewing the tracker precisely into Luca’s cuff.
The device was not merely guiding enemies to Luca.
It was guiding them toward evidence they believed had been hidden in his wedding clothes decades ago.
Except they had made one mistake.
The suit had not existed decades ago.
Which meant somebody had secretly transferred my father’s evidence into the new garment.
Someone with access to Bastien’s workshop.
Someone who knew my father’s methods.
Someone still alive.
I whispered the name before I could stop myself.
“My father.”
Luca stared at me.
“What?”
I looked at the cylinder.
The fresh-looking markings.
The red thread in his modern suit.
The impossible continuity between old and new.
May you like
“My father may not have died in that warehouse.”
And for the second time that night, Luca Moretti looked genuinely stunned.
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