Sempre: Redemption

48

Later that night, a call for a three-alarm fire went out through the emergency wire. Firefighters raced to the scene and filled the parking lot, trying to combat the vicious blaze in the darkness but to no avail. Fire ravished Luna Rossa, completely gutting the building and obliterating the landmark social club.

The massive pillar of smoke could still be seen across town come daybreak, but Corrado was none the wiser. He remained snuggled up in his bed at home, his strong arms wrapped around his wife as the two of them slept late for the first time in years.

It wasn’t until the police knocked on the front door of the Moretti residence that Corrado learned the news: his life’s work had gone up in flames, stolen from him by arsonists. They promised a full investigation, but Corrado didn’t need one. He knew right away who had done the job.

Finally, after all that time, the Irish had exacted their revenge.

Had anyone else been in charge, a full-scale war would have broken out in Chicago then, demolishing the Windy City as the factions hunted one another, determined to take each other out, but Corrado was smarter than that.

After a few botched jobs and a failed assassination attempt on Corrado’s life, the feud ended swiftly with a massacre at an underground gambling game run by O’Bannon. Men swarmed the place in the middle of the afternoon, disarming and slaughtering the gamblers one by one. The Irish never knew what hit them.

For good measure, and maybe a laugh or two, Corrado’s men set the building on fire before they walked away.

The media called it the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre Part II even though it happened in the late fall. The headline on the front page of the newspaper the next day read REPUTED MAFIA BOSS TAKEN IN FOR QUESTIONING, but was followed up shortly by THE KEVLAR KILLER WALKS FREE AGAIN. Everyone knew he had ordered it, but Corrado had a solid alibi, one nobody could dispute: He and his wife had been meeting with contractors, finalizing plans to build Luna Rossa once again.

Those weren’t the only plans in the making. While all this was happening, Haven and Carmine were across the country, safe and sound in the tiny ghost town of Blackburn. On the ground where the Antonelli ranch once stood—the ranch Corrado had purposely destroyed—the shell of a new building had already appeared. The three-story structure, designed from scratch, would someday house the first official Safe Haven.

“I want to build thirty-three of them in all,” Haven had said. “A place for people like me to go to start their new lives. When they run, I want them to have somewhere to go. I want them to know they’re not alone.”