Chapter 4 - The Debt of Evelyn Cross
The armored Chevrolet Suburban tore through the flooded Louisiana swamps, its
massive tires churning through sheets of muddy water that sprayed ten feet into
the weeping cypress trees.
Inside the rear cabin, Dr. Harris—who had met our convoy halfway at an elevated
railway crossing—worked frantically under battery-operated surgical lamps.
Donna Maria was hooked to two bags of warmed saline and a portable oxygen
concentrator. Dr. Harris had injected her with atropine and high-potency
corticosteroids to counteract the lingering cardiovascular damage from the
aconite poisoning.
Lying on a thermal blanket across the floorboards between our seats was Baron.
A veterinary technician from Lorenzo’s private stables had inserted a small
catheter into the dog’s front leg, running warm glucose and antibiotics into his
veins. The old hound’s shivering had finally begun to subside, his deep,
rhythmic breathing filling the tense cabin.
I sat beside Baron, gently stroking his scarred ears, while Lorenzo sat opposite
me, his broad frame filling the leather seat.
He had changed into a dry black wool sweater and dark trousers provided by his
men. In his right hand, he still held the antique brass key Baron had carried
from the grave.
On the leather console between us sat the heavy steel strongbox Matteo had
pulled from Donna Maria’s empty sarcophagus.
“Evelyn,” Lorenzo spoke. His voice was quiet, cutting through the hum of the
engine and the drumming of rain on the armored roof.
I lifted my head, my hands still resting on Baron’s back. “Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Your father was Sean Cross?”
My stomach tightened. The old shame, the terror that had governed my life for
eighteen months, flared up instantly. “Yes, sir.”
“He ran the logistics depot in Gulfport,” Lorenzo said, his gaze fixed on my
face with unsettling intensity. “He took seven hundred thousand dollars from our
maritime accounts to cover his losses at the offshore casinos in Biloxi.”
“I know, sir,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. “And I’ve worked seventy
hours a week to pay the interest. I swear to you, my sister Lily knows nothing
about his debts. She’s innocent. If you have to punish someone—”
“Shut up, Evelyn,” Lorenzo said, his tone shockingly gentle.
I blinked, freezing in place.
Lorenzo reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick leather checkbook and a
fountain pen, and scribbled several lines across a heavy parchment slip.
He tore the paper out and handed it to me.
I looked at it.
It was an official release of liability, stamped with the Moretti syndicate
seal, stating that the debt of Sean Cross was paid in full, with a closing
balance of zero dollars.
Beneath the signature was an additional authorization granting a trust fund of
five hundred thousand dollars in the name of Lily Cross.
My breath hitched. The paper trembled violently in my fingers. “Mr. Moretti... I
don't understand. I haven't paid off even ten percent of the principal.”
“You dragged my mother’s war dog out of a flood when my own blood ordered him
drowned,” Lorenzo said, leaning forward, his silver eyes holding mine with an
intensity that made the hair on my arms stand up. “You showed me the limestone
dust on his paws. You gave me back my mother’s life.”
He reached across the console, his large, calloused fingers gently covering
mine. His touch was warm, commanding, and utterly devoid of the cruelty that the
rest of the world associated with his name.
“You do not owe me a single cent, Evelyn,” Lorenzo said softly. “As of tonight,
the Moretti family is in your debt. And I always pay what I owe.”
Before I could force out a word of gratitude through the thick knot in my
throat, Donna Maria stirred on the medical gurney.
Her pale, sunken eyes slowly fluttered open.
“Lorenzo...” she murmured, her voice clearer now, the oxygen restoring her
faculties.
Lorenzo immediately dropped to his knees beside the gurney, taking his mother’s
frail hand in both of his. “I’m here, Mother. We’re ten minutes from the clinic
in the Quarter.”
“The box...” Donna Maria whispered, her trembling gaze shifting toward the heavy
steel container on the console. “Open... the box...”
Lorenzo picked up the brass key Baron had carried. He inserted it into the heavy
steel lock on the strongbox.
Click.
The heavy lid swung back on counterbalanced hinges.
Inside, resting on a bed of faded red silk, was not a stack of bearer bonds or
jewels.
It was a thick, handwritten ledger bound in dark calfskin, stamped with the seal
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a digital audio recorder from 2004.
And resting on top of the ledger was a single photograph.
A photograph of Bianca Vane... standing on a private yacht in Miami, shaking
hands with Don Vance of Atlanta and Special Agent Marcus Cole, the head of the
Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Strike Force in New Orleans.
Lorenzo’s expression went utterly, terrifyingly still.
“It wasn't just a coup, Lorenzo,” Donna Maria breathed, tears spilling from her
May you like
sunken eyes. “Bianca... she sold our entire syndicate to the feds and the
Atlanta families. The wake tonight... was meant to be an execution.”
