Chapter 5 - ST. ORSOLA HOUSESt. Orsola House stood behind a rusted iron gate on a forgotten street in Staten Island, half swallowed by ivy and bad memory.

Officially, it had closed six years earlier after an electrical fire damaged the west wing. The city condemned it. The church denied ownership. The newspapers ran three paragraphs about outdated wiring and underfunded women’s shelters, then moved on to scandals with better photographs.

But the building still had power.

Lorenzo saw the faint yellow glow behind boarded windows from half a block away.

He sat in the back of the car, one hand resting on Isabella’s letter, the other on the photograph of Lucia. Rocco drove. Two more cars followed without headlights.

No one spoke.

The closer they came to St. Orsola, the more Lorenzo felt the last eight months rearranging themselves into a shape he should have recognized.

Carlo steering him away from hospitals.

Carlo insisting Isabella’s family needed privacy.

Carlo arranging the burial quickly because “a man should not stare too long at ashes.”

Carlo standing five steps behind him tonight, terrified of a child.

A three-year-old girl had done what soldiers, judges, informants, and killers could not.

She had told the truth without understanding its price.

The cars stopped beside the old gate.

Rocco looked in the rearview mirror.

“You want quiet?”

Lorenzo opened the door.

“No.”

They entered through the front.

The lock was new. The cameras were new. The men pretending to be homeless near the alley were armed. Rocco handled the first two silently. The third ran.

Lorenzo let him.

Fear traveled faster than bullets, and tonight he wanted St. Orsola awake.

Inside, the air smelled of bleach, incense, and damp stone. The front hall still bore traces of its former life — religious murals, cracked tile, a reception desk with no computer. But beyond that were fresh footprints, modern locks, medical carts, and a security keypad blinking red.

A man stepped from the shadows with a gun.

Rocco fired once.

The man dropped.

Lorenzo did not look at him.

“Basement chapel,” he said.

They moved through corridors where women had once come with nowhere else to go. Rooms lined with narrow beds. A nursery painted pale green. A cupboard filled with formula cans. On one wall, someone had recently hung a child’s drawing of a sun.

Lorenzo stopped in front of it.

The sun was purple.

Beneath it, in uneven letters, someone had written:

LUCY.

His heartbeat changed.

Rocco saw the name.

“Boss.”

Lorenzo carefully took the drawing from the wall.

“Find whoever made this.”

They descended a narrow staircase at the end of the corridor. The basement air was colder. Old pipes knocked behind the walls. At the bottom, a small chapel waited in darkness, its wooden pews warped by moisture, its altar covered in a white cloth yellowed with age.

A single candle burned.

Behind the altar stood an old woman in a black dress.

Sister Agnese did not look surprised.

She looked tired.

“I wondered whether grief or truth would reach you first,” she said.

Lorenzo stepped into the chapel.

“Where is my daughter?”

The nun’s eyes moved to the men behind him.

“You bring guns into a place where frightened women once begged God to keep violent men outside.”

Lorenzo’s voice was flat.

“God can file a complaint.”

Rocco almost smiled.

Sister Agnese did not.

“Your daughter was here.”

Was.

The word hit like a closed door.

Lorenzo took another step.

“Where is she now?”

“I do not know.”

He drew his gun.

Rocco stiffened, but did not interfere.

The nun looked at the weapon without fear.

“I have had worse men than you point worse things at me.”

“Not after taking my child.”

“I did not take her,” Sister Agnese snapped, and for the first time age fell away from her. “I saved her from men who would have buried her beside a stranger and called it mercy.”

Lorenzo’s gun remained steady.

“Then save yourself. Talk.”

She reached beneath the altar and pulled out a leather ledger.

“Isabella came to me before the birth. She had evidence against Carlo DeLuca. She believed he would move against her once the child was born. She asked me to prepare a safe route if needed.”

“Why not tell me?”

“Because she loved you.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only answer people like you never understand.” Sister Agnese’s voice softened. “She said if she told you, you would attack Carlo before she could prove anything. She feared a family war would kill the baby before she ever left the hospital.”

Lorenzo felt the accusation land because it was true.

“Was she alive after the crash?”

Sister Agnese opened the ledger but did not look down.

“Yes.”

The chapel tilted.

Rocco whispered, “Jesus.”

Lorenzo’s gun lowered an inch.

“Where?”

“Here. For two nights.”

The candle flickered.

“She was badly injured,” the nun continued. “Concussion. Broken ribs. A wound along her side. She kept asking for the baby. When we brought Lucia to her, she cried so hard the stitches opened.”

Lorenzo turned away.

Not far.

Just enough that no one could see his face.

The nun gave him that kindness.

“She believed you were dead,” she said.

Lorenzo turned back.

“Why?”

“Because that is what Carlo’s men told her.”

His jaw tightened.

“They told her the convoy had burned. They told her you arrived after and were shot. They told her your body had been taken before police came.”

Lorenzo closed his eyes.

Isabella alive.

Isabella grieving him.

Isabella holding Lucia in some hidden room beneath a condemned clinic, believing the man who loved her was ash.

Eight months.

His grief had been a prison.

So had hers.

“What happened after two nights?” he asked.

Sister Agnese’s face changed.

“Carlo found us.”

Rocco raised his weapon toward the stairs.

“He came himself?”

“No. He sent men. We moved Isabella through the tunnels. Lucia was with Dr. Vale in the nursery upstairs because she had a fever. We meant to reunite them by dawn.”

“But?”

The nun’s fingers tightened on the ledger.

“When I came back, the baby was gone.”

Lorenzo’s voice dropped.

“And Isabella?”

“She escaped.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

He stared at her.

Sister Agnese met his eyes.

“I swear before God and every grave I have ever knelt beside. I do not know.”

The old woman opened the ledger and turned it toward him.

There, written in careful black ink, were names, dates, false identities, transfers.

Lucia Isabella DeLuca appeared on one line.

Beside it:

Temporary name: Lucy Bell

DOB altered

Transferred March 14

Destination: Briar House

Escort: M.V.

“M.V.?” Lorenzo asked.

Sister Agnese shook her head. “I never learned the full name.”

Rocco leaned over the ledger.

“Briar House. Upstate?”

“A children’s hospice once,” the nun said. “Now private foster placement. Quiet. Expensive. No questions.”

Lorenzo stared at the temporary name.

Lucy Bell.

Bell, like the dead nurse whose body wore Isabella’s necklace.

Carlo had built a whole grave out of stolen names.

A sound came from above.

Three heavy knocks.

Then shouting.

Rocco moved to the chapel door.

“They followed us.”

Sister Agnese shut the ledger.

“No. They were already here.”

The candle went out.

Gunfire erupted from the stairwell.

Rocco shoved Lorenzo behind the stone pillar as bullets chewed through the old wood pews. Dust burst from the walls. One of Lorenzo’s men fell with a shout.

In the dark, Sister Agnese moved faster than an old woman should. She grabbed Lorenzo’s sleeve and pulled him behind the altar.

“There is another way out.”

“I’m not leaving without the ledger.”

She shoved it into his chest.

“Then carry it and stop arguing with nuns.”

Rocco fired back toward the stairs.

Lorenzo followed Sister Agnese through a narrow door hidden behind a rotting tapestry. They entered a tunnel that smelled of earth and river water. Behind them, the chapel filled with gunfire, men shouting, stone splitting.

Halfway through the tunnel, Sister Agnese stopped.

“What?” Lorenzo demanded.

She pointed to the wall.

Carved into the damp brick were fresh letters, scratched deep.

I HAVE LUCIA.

TRUST NO ONE.

— I

Lorenzo touched the final letter.

I.

Isabella.

Alive.

Not hiding from him.

Calling to him.

Above them, the old chapel shook with violence.

But Lorenzo smiled in the dark.

For the first time in eight months, he knew exactly whom he was hunting for.

Not his daughter.

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Not Isabella.

The people standing between them.