Chapter 3 - A Slashed Coat And A Stolen Rosary
“Her husband?”
Luca’s voice didn’t rise, but the temperature in the library seemed to drop ten degrees.
“Yes, boss,” Daniel said. “Pike is swimming in gambling debt. Over two million. It looks like he and Vanessa have been running long-cons on wealthy estates across the Midwest.”
The engagement on Saturday wasn’t a wedding.
It was a heist.
Luca ended the call. He looked at the boarding pass to Geneva. Then he looked at me.
“Pack your things, Claire. You’re leaving.”
Panic seized my chest. “Sir, please. I need this job. My rent—”
“I will pay your rent for a year,” Luca interrupted, stepping toward me. “Vanessa is cornered. If she knows you saw the tow truck, and if she searched your locker, you are a loose end. She has a husband with a two-million-dollar bounty on his head. They are desperate.”
He pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from his desk drawer and pressed them into my hands.
“Go to your locker. Get your coat. I’m having Daniel drive you to your son.”
I didn’t argue. The look in his eyes left no room for it.
I hurried down the back hallway to the staff breakroom. My heart hammered against my ribs. I opened locker number four.
Empty.
My breath hitched. My uniform sweater, my purse, my keys—they were all there. But my heavy winter coat was gone.
I frantically looked around.
The closet door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open.
My coat was thrown on the floor.
But it wasn’t just discarded. The lining had been violently slashed open with a box cutter. White stuffing spilled across the linoleum.
I dropped to my knees, ignoring the searing pain in my bandaged leg, and dug into the hidden interior pocket I had sewn myself.
It was empty.
“No,” I choked out. “No, no, no.”
My grandmother’s silver rosary.
It was the only thing I had left of my family. It was worth maybe fifty dollars at a pawn shop, but it was everything to me.
I ran back to the library.
Luca was loading a matte-black pistol, snapping the magazine into place.
“She slashed my coat,” I cried. “She took my rosary.”
Luca stopped. He looked at the terror in my eyes, and something shifted in his expression. The cold mafia boss melted away, replaced by a man who understood what it meant to have family stripped from you.
“We’re going to her room,” he said.
We took the servant’s stairs. The engagement dinner was still echoing with laughter two floors below.
Vanessa’s bedroom door was unlocked.
Luca pushed it open. The room smelled of expensive perfume and deceit.
He went straight for her designer luggage in the closet. I checked her vanity.
“Here,” Luca said softly.
He was holding my silver rosary.
A sob escaped my lips. I reached for it, but Luca pulled his hand back, his eyes narrowing at what the beads were tangled around.
It was a thick, legal document with a red wax seal.
I leaned in.
It wasn’t about Aaron Pike.
It was a finalized Petition for Sole Custody.
The child’s name listed on the document was Leo Dawson.
My son.
Before I could breathe, Luca’s phone rang.
The caller ID flashed: Vanessa.
Luca answered.
May you like
“Darling,” Vanessa’s voice purred smoothly through the speaker. “I think your clumsy little maid just stole my diamond bracelet. You need to call the police. Or better yet... tell me where she lives so I can send my men to retrieve it.”
TITLE: The Blueprint Under The Bed
