Chapter 1 - The Palermo Song
The rain came down on Chicago like it had a grudging vengeance.
It hammered the bulletproof glass of the penthouse and slid in heavy sheets down the black skyline.
Inside the Moretti estate the storm was much worse because this storm had a terrifying voice.
It came up the marble hallway at eight o'clock exactly.
Mia and Bella were four years old and entirely broken.
They had not slept a full night since the car bomb took their mother three years ago.
Dante Moretti stood at the window and did not turn around when Arthur the butler entered.
Arthur warned him that the new nanny had arrived and she was young.
Dante stated coldly that he did not care as long as she needed the money.
Sarah Jenkins stood in the foyer with her cheap canvas bag pressed against her chest.
She had begged for this job because her brother Toby owed the Kowalski syndicate forty thousand dollars.
Arthur walked her up the grand staircase while the screams grew louder with every single step.
The nursery door opened onto an absolute battlefield of gutted pillows and shattered porcelain dolls.
Dante filled the doorway with his massive frame but did not step inside to comfort his children.
He gave Sarah exactly ten minutes to calm them down or she was fired.
Sarah stepped over the broken porcelain without shouting or offering candy.
She walked directly to the window and pulled the heavy curtains aside.
Then she did the one thing nobody had ever dared to do in this house.
She turned off the lights.
Dante roared in anger and reached inside his jacket for his weapon.
Sarah quietly stated that the twins were not afraid of the dark.
She whispered that they were afraid of what they could see in the light.
The room went completely black and the screaming suddenly faded into confused whimpers.
Sarah sat down on the floor in the middle of the glass and began to hum.
It was a low and broken melody from a small village above Palermo.
It was the exact secret song Isabella used to sing to her belly before the twins were born.
Dante felt his blood turn into absolute ice.
He crossed the dark room and grabbed Sarah tightly by the arm.
He demanded to know exactly where she had learned that song.
Sarah trembled and whispered that a badly burned woman in a free clinic had taught it to her yesterday.
The woman had paid her to take this job and deliver a message to Dante Moretti.
May you like
Sarah looked into Dante's eyes and delivered the chilling message.
The woman said to tell you that the grave is entirely empty.
