CHAPTER 6 — THE BOY WHO NEVER DIED
The following morning...
Chicago woke to chaos.
Every television station carried the same headline.
ROMANO HEIR ABDUCTED.
Police blamed organized crime.
Federal agents surrounded every Romano property.
Rival gangs prepared for war.
But Dominic ignored them all.
He sat in a private hospital room with his injured leg in a cast, watching baby Gabriel sleep safely beside him.
Yes...
Safely.
Because three hours after the warehouse explosion...
An anonymous caller had directed police to a small church outside the city.
Gabriel had been left unharmed inside a wooden cradle beneath the altar.
No ransom.
No demands.
Only another Ace of Spades.
Victor had never wanted the baby.
He had wanted Dominic and Elena to discover the truth.
That afternoon...
Elena arrived at the abandoned Union Station.
Locker 214 stood hidden behind decades of dust.
Her hands shook as she inserted the brass key.
The lock clicked.
Inside wasn't money.
Or weapons.
There was a sealed metal box.
A stack of old cassette tapes.
Three passports.
Several birth certificates.
And one letter addressed in faded handwriting.
For Serena... if you ever find this.
Her eyes widened.
Serena.
That had been the nickname only her family used.
With trembling fingers, she unfolded the letter.
The first sentence stole the air from her lungs.
If you're reading this, then I failed to come back for both of my children.
Both.
Children.
Her father had written the letter.
Tears streamed down Elena's face as she kept reading.
Michael Hayes explained that Samuel had survived the shooting.
Barely.
A trusted friend secretly smuggled him out of Chicago before Victor's men could finish the job.
To protect him...
His identity had been erased.
Even Elena had been told he was dead.
The final line simply read:
Your brother has spent twenty years searching for you.
Elena collapsed onto the dusty station floor.
Everything she believed about her life had been built on lies.
Meanwhile...
Across town...
Dominic received an unexpected visitor.
An elderly priest quietly entered his hospital room carrying a weathered leather Bible.
"I've been waiting twenty years to give you this."
Inside the Bible was another photograph.
This one showed Dominic's father...
Standing beside Michael Hayes.
Both men smiling proudly as they held newborn babies.
Written across the back in blue ink were the words:
"Our children will grow up as brother and sister, no matter what happens to us."
Dominic stared at the picture in silence.
Then he looked at Gabriel sleeping peacefully.
He finally understood Victor's true revenge.
It had never been about money.
It had never been about power.
Victor had stolen two children's entire lives...
...and made them hate the only family they had left.
Far across the city...
A man in his early thirties watched Elena leave Union Station from inside a parked black sedan.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel.
His eyes filled with tears.
He whispered only one word.
"Serena..."
Then he started the engine.
For the first time in twenty years...
May you like
Samuel Hayes was finally going home.
END OF CHAPTER 6
