Chapter 8 - THE ROSARY
The silver beads gleamed in the moonlight, stark against the dark hardwood floor.
Harper felt Victor’s body go completely rigid beside her. The ruthless, untouchable mafia boss looked at the rosary as if it were a venomous snake.
“My mother’s,” Victor whispered, his voice cracking with a vulnerability Harper had never heard.
Roman laughed, a wet, ugly sound that echoed in the destroyed penthouse.
“She was a devout woman, your mother,” Roman sneered, keeping his gun pressed against Dante’s skull. “She prayed for you every day. Right up until the moment I visited her nursing home this morning.”
“If you touched her—” Victor growled, taking a step forward.
“Ah, ah, ah!” Roman clicked his tongue, cocking the hammer of his pistol. “She’s breathing. For now. My men are sitting by her bed. You drop your weapon, sign over the port authority contracts, and hand me the Callaway girl. If you don’t, I make a phone call, and your mother meets her maker.”
Victor froze.
He looked at the rosary. He looked at Dante, bleeding on the floor. Then he looked back at Harper, shielding his six-year-old nephew.
For the first time in his life, Victor Rossi was completely cornered.
Slowly, agonizingly, Victor lowered his gun.
“Don’t do it, Boss,” Dante choked out from beneath Roman’s boot.
Victor dropped his weapon. It clattered against the floorboards. He kicked it away.
“Good boy,” Roman smiled. “Now, bring me the girl.”
Victor didn’t move. “Take the territory. Take my life. But Harper and the boy walk.”
“I don’t leave loose ends, Victor,” Roman said coldly. “The girl’s father owes me. Blood pays for blood. Bring her here.”
Harper felt a cold, desperate clarity wash over her. She couldn’t let Victor sacrifice his mother for her. She couldn’t let Leo lose his uncle.
She looked around frantically. Her eyes landed on the heavy steel door down the hallway.
The holding room where Diana was locked inside.
Harper gently pushed Leo behind the sofa. “Stay here, baby,” she whispered.
Harper stood up. She pulled Victor’s heavy coat tightly around her, hiding her hands in the deep pockets.
“I’m right here,” Harper said, stepping out from behind Victor.
Victor grabbed her arm, his grip bruising. “Harper, no.”
“Let me go, Victor,” Harper said, her voice eerily calm. She looked into his dark eyes, silently begging him to trust her.
She pulled away and walked toward Roman.
“Brave little bird,” Roman chuckled, shifting his gun slightly toward her. “Your father was a coward. Shame you didn’t inherit his sense of self-preservation.”
Harper stopped five feet away.
“My father is a coward,” Harper agreed. “But he isn’t stupid. Did you really think he fled to Geneva with your money without leaving an insurance policy?”
Roman frowned, his thick brow furrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“The offshore accounts,” Harper lied flawlessly. “He didn’t take the money. He hid it. And he gave the account numbers to the only person he trusted.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“Her.”
Harper pointed a finger down the hallway, directly at the steel door of the holding room.
Roman instinctively glanced toward the door.
In that fraction of a second, Harper moved.
She pulled her hand out of the deep pocket of Victor’s coat. She wasn’t holding the child’s drawing. She was holding the heavy, solid silver bracelet Victor had given her earlier.
With all the strength she possessed, Harper swung her arm, smashing the heavy silver ivy directly into Roman’s wounded cheek.
Roman roared in pain, stumbling backward and firing his gun blindly.
BANG.
The gunshot was deafening.
Roman hit the floor, clutching his bleeding face.
Before he could raise his weapon again, Dante lunged upward, wrapping his massive hands around Roman’s neck, pinning the Russian boss to the ground.
Victor tackled Harper to the floor, covering her completely.
“Are you hit?!” Victor demanded, his hands frantically checking her shoulders, her back, her chest.
“I’m fine! I’m fine!” Harper gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs.
They looked up.
May you like
Dante had Roman pinned, but the Russian boss was laughing, a bloody, gargling sound.
“You think you won?” Roman wheezed, staring at Harper with pure hatred. “You think your father left you with nothing? Ask your precious sister what’s inside your mother’s necklace.”
