Chapter 6 - The Bloodline Ledger
Three days later.
The east wing of the Caruso estate had been completely transformed. What was once a dusty suite of guest rooms reserved for visiting dignitaries from the Chicago and Miami families was now a secure, modern nursery. Soft pastel walls, a custom crib imported from Milan, and a mountain of baby supplies filled the space. Two armed guards in plain clothes stood quietly in the second-floor corridor, rotated every six hours by Frankie.
I sat behind my massive walnut desk in the penthouse office, reviewing a thick stack of encrypted financial ledgers.
The door pushed open without a knock—a privilege reserved for exactly one person in this house now.
Hannah walked in, wearing a comfortable cashmere sweater I had ordered for her, holding a sleeping Grace in a pink cotton swaddle.
“She finally fell asleep after her morning feed,” Hannah said quietly, walking over to the leather sofa. “The nurses you hired from Northwestern Memorial are incredible, Mr. Caruso. They’ve been teaching me how to manage her sleep schedule.”
“Call me Michael,” I said without looking up from the ledger. “You’re family now, Hannah. Titles are for the outsiders.”
Hannah offered a small, appreciative smile. She sat down on the sofa, gently laying Grace in a portable bassinet resting beside her. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook with water-damaged pages.
“I found this in the bottom of Julian’s duffel bag after he disappeared,” Hannah said, placing the notebook on the edge of my desk. “I didn't think much of it at first, but... looking at it this morning, I thought you might understand what it means.”
I stopped reading. I slowly closed the financial ledger and reached out, picking up the worn notebook.
The cover was blank, but the first page was filled with Julian’s messy, rushed handwriting. It wasn't a diary. It was a list of names, bank routing numbers, and dates stretching back over three years.
And right at the top of the second page, circled in thick black ink, was a name I hadn't heard in a decade:
Victor Moretti.
My whole body went rigid.
Moretti. The boss of the Philadelphia syndicate—a man who had supposedly retired to a sprawling estate in the Poconos five years ago after a bloody turf war that left both our families battered.
“What is this?” I breathed, tracing the name with my thumb.
“Julian said Moretti wasn't retired,” Hannah explained, leaning forward. “He said Moretti was the silent partner behind Vincent Rizzo. They weren't just stealing from your vault, Michael. They were building a parallel network to overthrow the New York and New Jersey families entirely—using your name as a shield so the Commission wouldn't suspect a thing.”
I flipped the page.
There, neatly taped inside the back cover, was a set of architectural blueprints for an abandoned shipyard located along the Delaware River in Camden, New Jersey. Written in the margin in Julian’s handwriting were three simple words:
They have me here.
The date on the margin was four days old.
I slammed the notebook shut. The sound echoed off the mahogany walls like a gunshot. Grace stirred slightly in her bassinet, letting out a soft sigh before settling back into sleep.
Hannah looked at me, her eyes shining with sudden terror. “You know where he is, don't you?”
I stood up, buttoned my suit jacket, and reached down to check the weight of the Sig Sauer holstered beneath my left arm.
“I know where they’ve been hiding him,” I said coldly.
I walked over to the intercom on my desk and pressed the master button.
“Frankie,” I ordered.
“Right here, Boss,” Frankie’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Pull together two tactical teams. Full combat loadout. Submachine guns, body armor, and the armored suburban fleet.”
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“Where are we heading, Michael?”
“Philadelphia,” I said, my eyes fixed on the blueprints on my desk. “We’re going to go pay an old man a visit.”
