Chapter 5 - The Vault of Sins
The grandfather clock in the central gallery struck four in the morning, its chimes vibrating through the empty halls.
The mansion had become a war camp; armed men patrolled the slate roof, their silhouettes sharp against the falling snow.
I sat on a velvet settee inside Arthur’s private bedchamber, holding a basin of warm water and a clean linen compress.
Arthur sat on the edge of his bed, his dress shirt unbuttoned to the waist, revealing a canvas of faded scars across his chest.
His forearm wound had reopened during the chaos in the dining room, blood soaking the fresh white dressings.
He was burning with a violent fever, his skin radiating heat while his teeth chattered against the chill of the room.
I wrung out the cloth and gently pressed it against his forehead, wiping away the cold sweat of his delirium.
"You shouldn't have shot at Julian's feet," I murmured, keeping my voice low and soothing.
"You should have let him talk."
Arthur let out a ragged, dry cough, leaning his heavy head back against the carved headboard.
"Julian didn't have the courage to plan that alone," Arthur rasped, his eyes glassy with fever.
"Silas King funded it, but someone else wrote the script."
"Someone inside your family?" I asked, dipping the cloth back into the lavender water.
He grabbed my wrist again, but this time there was no malice in his grip, only the weak, clinging need of a dying man.
"My family is dead, Norah."
"They died in fiery car crashes, in hospital rooms with armed guards, and in dark alleys behind the stockyards."
"The only thing left of the Costello blood is me."
"And I am turning into the very monster that butchered them."
I looked down at his face, stripped of the terrifying mask he wore for the city, and felt an ache in my chest that terrified me.
I had spent three years hating this man, hating his wealth, hating the shadow his violence cast over ordinary lives like mine.
Yet here he was, shivering like a child in the dark, bleeding for sins that had been carved into his skin before he was born.
I sat beside him on the edge of the mattress, letting his head rest against my shoulder as I cleaned the dried blood from his neck.
He closed his eyes, his breathing slowly steadying as the lavender and warm water cooled his burning temples.
"Why did you stay, Norah?" he whispered into the curve of my neck.
"You could have taken your sister and the money I gave you and caught the first train to Seattle."
"Because you kept your word," I answered honestly, watching the shadows flicker across the vaulted ceiling.
"You protected Elena from Silas King's men."
"Nobody has ever protected my family without demanding our souls in return."
Arthur fell silent, his chest rising and falling against mine until his breathing deepened into the heavy sleep of exhaustion.
I stayed beside him for another hour, holding him upright until I was certain his fever had broken.
When I finally eased his shoulders back onto the pillows and pulled the heavy down comforter over his chest, the room was quiet.
I gathered the bloodied towels and the copper basin, intending to slip out to the service scullery before sunrise.
As I walked past the massive carved mahogany armoire beside the dressing room, my skirt brushed against the lower panel.
A faint, hollow click sounded beneath the wood.
The base of the armoire shifted outward two inches, revealing a hidden compartment concealed beneath the floor molding.
Inside lay a modern steel digital safe, its digital keypad glowing with a soft, persistent green backlight.
Beside the keypad, taped to the steel door with yellowed packaging tape, was a worn, black-and-white photograph.
My breath seized in my throat.
I set the copper basin on the parquet floor and sank to my knees before the hidden vault.
The photograph showed three people standing in front of an old brick garage with a hand-painted sign that read: Hayes Auto Repair.
On the left stood my father, young, broad-shouldered, and grinning with grease smeared across his white cotton undershirt.
In the center stood a twelve-year-old Arthur Costello, skinny, unsmiling, with bruises beneath both eyes and dirt on his knees.
And on the right stood Marco Rossi, his arm draped affectionately around my father’s shoulder like an older brother.
On the back of the photograph, written in my father’s unmistakable slanted handwriting, were four short lines:
Thomas, protect the boy if I fall.
The books are hidden beneath the oil pit.
Don't let Marco give him to the syndicate.
He deserves to live a clean life.
My vision blurred with a torrent of scalding tears as the entire foundation of my reality collapsed into ash.
My father had not been an innocent victim of a random, predatory loan shark.
He had been the original keeper of the Costello syndicate's private ledgers, the man who had hidden Arthur from his enemies.
And Arthur had known who I was from the very first moment he knocked on my basement door in the rain.
The door behind me creaked softly on its brass hinges.
I turned my head slowly, my knees still pressed against the cold parquet floor, the photograph shaking in my trembling fingers.
Arthur stood in the middle of the room, fully awake, his dark eyes staring down at the open safe.
"You weren't supposed to find that yet, Norah," he said softly, the fever entirely gone from his voice.
"Who was my father, Arthur?" I choked out, holding the photograph toward his face like an indictment.
"And what did you really come to my basement to buy?"
Arthur walked toward me, his boots making no sound against the Persian rug, until he knelt directly at my side.
May you like
He reached out with his bandaged hand and touched the edge of the photograph where my father's face was frozen in time.
"Your father was the only man in Chicago who never lied to me," Arthur whispered.
