Chapter 14 - The Tower of Judgment
The stone spiral staircase inside the northern bell tower was narrow, slick with moisture, and plunged in near-total darkness.
Outside, the storm raged with apocalyptic fury, lightning flashes illuminating the arrow-slit windows carved into the limestone walls.
Julian Vance scrambled upward through the dark, clutching his broken wrist against his chest, the heavy leather ledger tucked under his arm.
His ragged breathing echoed off the ancient masonry like the wheezing of a dying animal.
Behind him, the heavy, measured footsteps of Mason Moretti ascended with terrifying inevitability.
Mia followed two paces behind Mason, her hand resting against the curved stone wall to steady her balance.
Her shoulder screamed in protest, and her burned right palm throbbed beneath its splint, but she refused to slow down.
The man who had murdered her husband was thirty feet above them.
She would not let the earth swallow him before she heard the truth from his lips.
They reached the open bell deck sixty feet above the ground.
The wind roared through the open stone arches, blowing horizontal sheets of freezing rain across the wooden planking.
Hanging in the center of the vaulted chamber was the massive, ten-ton bronze bell of St. Jude, suspended from enormous iron chains.
Julian stood backed against the exterior stone parapet, forty stories above the drenched pavement of Little Italy.
The rain had completely soaked his expensive suit, plastering his thinning hair across his bleeding face.
His left eye was swollen shut and purple, blood dripping from the corner of his eyebrow.
He held the Iron Ledger out over the dizzying void of the abyss.
"Stay back, Mason!" Julian screamed against the howling wind.
"One more step and I drop this damn book into the street!"
"Forty years of your grandfather’s secrets will scatter across Mulberry Street like trash!"
Mason stepped onto the wet wooden platform, holding the ceramic pistol steady at his side.
Mia stepped up beside him, the cold wind whipping her dark hair across her face.
"Drop it, Julian," Mason said, his voice cutting through the roar of thunder like an executioner’s bell.
"The ledger is already useless to you."
"The Commission knows every word written inside it."
"Don Carmine Falcone is downstairs with five broken ribs and a bullet in his shoulder."
"Even if you sprout wings and fly off this tower, there isn't a city on this continent where you can hide."
Julian let out a shrill, hysterical laugh that sounded like cracking ice.
"You think I care about the Commission?"
"I was going to replace them all!"
"I spent twenty years wiping your father’s drool, Mason!"
"I smiled while old Bernardo called my father a thief and a dog!"
Julian turned his crazed gaze toward Mia, his lips curling into a sneer of pure venom.
"And you, you pathetic little peasant!"
"You came here for justice for Thomas?"
"Do you want to know what your beloved husband said before the crane dropped?"
Mia felt a cold knot tighten in her throat, but she did not look away.
"Tell me, Julian."
"He begged!" Julian shouted, laughing into the rain.
"He knelt on the greasy asphalt of Pier Nine and begged me to think of his pregnant wife!"
"He said, 'Take whatever money you want, Julian, just let me go home to Mia and our baby!'"
Tears of raw, agonizing grief welled in Mia’s eyes, but she did not blink.
"And do you know what I told him?" Julian spat, taking half a step toward the edge.
"I told him that nobody who looks at my manifests lives to see tomorrow."
"I cut the cable myself while he was screaming inside the cab."
"And I should have burned you in that bed last night with the rest of the Moretti garbage!"
Julian raised his uninjured left hand, pulling a small silver lighter from his pocket.
He flicked the flame to life under the rain-sheltered overhang of the stone arch, touching the fire to the dry parchment pages of the ledger.
The yellowed paper caught immediately, orange sparks curling into the damp air.
"Burn in hell, all of you!" Julian roared, winding back his arm to hurl the burning book over the parapet.
Mia didn't scream.
She didn't freeze.
She remembered the heavy cotton bell-pull rope hanging beside the archway.
With lightning speed, Mia grabbed the thick hemp rope with both hands and yanked downward with the entirety of her body weight.
Above them, the massive bronze clapper of the Great Bell swung across the dark interior.
CLANGGGGGGG.
The deafening, ear-shattering roar of the bronze bell detonated through the small stone chamber like an artillery shell.
The concussive shockwave of sound was so violent that it rattled the fillings in their teeth and vibrated the stone beneath their feet.
Julian, standing directly beneath the rim of the bell, shrieked and clamped his hands over his bleeding ears in agony.
The burning ledger slipped from his grasp, tumbling onto the wet wooden floorboards.
Mason closed the distance in a single, devastating stride.
His boot slammed down on the burning book, instantly suffocating the small flame against the wet planks.
With his left hand, Mason grabbed Julian by the collar of his ruined three-piece suit.
He lifted the traitor completely off his feet and shoved him back over the low stone parapet.
Julian hung suspended in mid-air, four hundred feet above the shining, wet street below.
The rain washed the blood from Julian’s face, revealing the absolute, soul-crushing terror of a man looking into eternity.
"Mason! Please!" Julian shrieked, his fingers clawing uselessly at Mason’s iron wrist.
"We were brothers! Bernardo raised us together!"
"Do not do this in a church!"
Mason looked down at the sniveling coward dangling above the void.
His dark eyes were devoid of anger now.
They were cold, empty, and infinite as the grave.
"You desecrated the church when you pulled the trigger, Julian," Mason said quietly.
Mason turned his head slightly toward Mia, who stood holding the heavy bell rope, her chest heaving with exhaustion.
"Mia," Mason spoke over the howling wind.
"Does he fall?"
Mia stepped to the edge of the parapet, looking down at the man who had murdered her husband and tried to burn her unborn child alive.
She saw the pathetic, shivering monster beneath the expensive silk suit.
She thought of Thomas's gentle smile.
She thought of Lily’s small hands holding the music box in the smoke.
She thought of the baby growing quietly inside her own womb.
"A quick fall is mercy, Mason," Mia said, her voice clear and completely steady.
"Hand him to Carmine Falcone."
"Let the Commission give him the justice he wrote for himself."
Mason nodded slowly.
He hauled Julian back over the stone ledge and slammed him face-first onto the drenched wooden floor.
Julian wept against the wet timber, kissing the wood in pathetic, groveling relief.
Mason leveled the ceramic pistol at Julian’s right kneecap and pulled the trigger.
The shot cracked through the storm, followed by Julian’s agonized scream.
"That," Mason whispered into Julian’s ear, "is for Thomas Carter."
Mason turned and scooped the scorched, leather-bound Iron Ledger from the planks.
He walked over to Mia, slipped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close against his chest.
He looked down into her dark, tired eyes, and for the first time since the fire began, the iron mask of Don Mason Moretti softened into profound, reverent warmth.
"It is over, Mia," Mason whispered against her rain-drenched hair.
"The debt is paid."
Mia rested her forehead against his chest, listening to the steady, powerful rhythm of his heartbeat beneath the black wool coat.
Down in the streets below, the sirens of thirty black vehicles began to wail.
May you like
The lion had reclaimed his throne.
And the woman beside him had become his queen.
