Chapter 4 - The House on 10th Street
Within forty-five minutes, Vincent’s motorcade was parked outside the tall, iron-gated brownstone at 1412 South 10th Street.
The house had sat vacant since Rosa Moretti’s death six months ago. Its red-brick facade was stained with decades of soot, the window shutters were bolted shut, and a heavy brass padlock secured the front wrought-iron gate.
Graham Slate stepped forward with a pair of heavy bolt-cutters, snapping the padlock with a sharp CRACK that echoed through the quiet, rain-slicked alley.
“Boss, let us clear the building first,” Graham urged, pulling his firearm from his shoulder holster. “We don't know if Moretti loyalists are squatting inside.”
“No,” Vincent said, pushing past him. “Stay outside. Keep the street clear.”
Vincent pushed open the heavy wooden front door and stepped inside.
The air inside the brownstone was thick with the scent of stale dust, mothballs, and decaying wallpaper. Shadows stretched across the grand entryway, illuminated only by the pale streetlights shining through the transom window above the door.
Vincent pulled a high-powered tactical flashlight from his coat pocket, casting a bright beam of white light across the dusty hardwood floor.
He walked past the quiet parlor, past the formal dining room where dusty crystal chandeliers hung like dead spiders, and headed straight for the grand staircase at the back of the house.
He climbed the stairs, his heavy leather shoes creaking on the wooden steps.
Second floor: guest bedrooms, a linen closet, an old bathroom.
Third floor: a narrow hallway leading to a small, low-ceilinged attic door reinforced with a heavy deadbolt lock.
Vincent stood in front of the attic door. He raised his heavy leather boot and kicked the lock with all his force.
BANG!
The wooden frame splintered instantly. Vincent kicked it a second time, shattering the lock, and pushed the door open.
The beam of his flashlight cut through the dark, cold attic room.
It was a small, hidden sanctuary.
Unlike the rest of the abandoned house, this room had been kept meticulously clean. A single twin bed sat in the corner, covered in a faded floral quilt. Beside the bed was a small wooden nightstand, a porcelain table lamp, and a bookshelf filled with worn children’s storybooks.
In the center of the room sat a small wooden rocking chair.
Vincent walked slowly across the creaking floorboards, his light sweeping across the room.
On the small desk near the window, sitting right beneath a framed image of the Virgin Mary, was a dusty cardboard shoe box.
Vincent set his flashlight down on the desk, directing its beam toward the box. He reached out with trembling hands and removed the cardboard lid.
Inside the box were several items preserved across fifteen years:
First, a small silver baby rattle engraved with the initials M.V.C.
Second, a hospital birth certificate from Pennsylvania Hospital dated October 14, 2011. The name on the certificate read: Michael Vincent Carrow Jr.
Third, a handwritten letter written on fading notepad paper, signed in a delicate, hurried feminine script.
Vincent picked up the letter. His fingers shook violently as he brought the paper into the light to read the fading blue ink:
“To whoever finds this box,
If you are reading this, it means Marco Moretti’s men have finally tracked us down, or I am dead.
My name is Clara. I am Michael Carrow’s wife.
The night they ambushed our car on Passyunk Avenue, Michael used his body to protect me from the gunfire. Before he died, he forced open the driver’s door and screamed at me to run into the alley with our baby.
I ran. God forgive me, I ran and left my husband in that burning street.
Marco’s soldiers put out a hit on Michael’s baby boy, believing he was the sole male heir to the Carrow family. But the hospital made a mistake on the public birth registry to protect us—or perhaps it was a miracle.
My baby was not a boy.
I gave birth to a daughter. We named her Leah.
Rosa Moretti—Marco’s own sister—took us in when her brother’s men were hunting us. She hid us in this attic for three months until she could buy us forged birth certificates and ship us out of state.
If my baby girl survives... if she ever comes back to Philadelphia... please know that she carries the blood of Michael Carrow. She is innocent of this war.
Protect her from the monsters.
— Clara Carrow.”
Vincent dropped the letter onto the desk.
The breath trapped in his chest left him in a single, ragged, agonizing gasp.
Leah.
Leah Bennett—the quiet, timid housekeeper who cleaned his mansion for twenty dollars an hour—was not an outsider.
She was not a stranger.
She was his brother Michael’s surviving daughter.
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And little Maisie—the three-year-old girl who had walked up to him in his library and demanded a five-minute hug—was Michael Carrow’s granddaughter.
Vincent closed his eyes, pressing his fist against his forehead as tears of utter devastation and overwhelming joy broke past his iron reserve, spilling down his hard, weathered face in the dark attic of his enemy's house.
