Chapter 4 - THE ROSARY ON THE BAKERY FLOOR
The ride to Brooklyn was a blur of neon lights and torrential rain.
Antonio drove his armored black SUV himself, the speedometer pushing ninety miles an hour as we wove recklessly through the midnight traffic.
I sat in the passenger seat, weeping uncontrollably, clutching my phone as if my mother might suddenly call and tell me it was all a mistake.
“I’m going to get her back, Grace,” Antonio said, his voice a low, vibrating rumble over the roar of the engine. “I swear on my life, I will get her back.”
“She’s sixty-eight years old,” I choked out, tears blinding me. “She can barely walk. If they hurt her, Antonio... if they hurt her, I will kill Victoria myself.”
Antonio glanced at me, his dark eyes flashing with a fierce, unexpected pride.
He reached across the center console and grabbed my hand, his grip warm and unyielding.
“You won't have to,” he promised.
We arrived at the old Caruso bakery on 4th Avenue. It was the building where Eleanor had worked for thirty-eight years, baking bread at four in the morning to keep her family fed. The storefront had been boarded up and abandoned since Henry died.
Antonio parked the SUV in the dark alleyway.
He reached under his seat and pulled out a heavy, matte-black handgun, racking the slide with a terrifying, mechanical click.
“Stay behind me,” Antonio ordered, stepping out into the freezing rain.
I didn't argue. I followed him to the rusted back door of the bakery.
The padlock had been shot off.
Antonio kicked the door open, sweeping the room with his weapon.
The inside of the bakery smelled of dust, old flour, and decay. The massive industrial ovens stood like iron ghosts in the shadows.
“Mom!” I screamed into the darkness.
“Quiet,” Antonio hissed, pulling me behind a heavy steel mixing vat.
A single light bulb flickered on in the center of the room.
Sitting tied to a wooden chair beneath the harsh light was my mother.
She was bruised, her hospital gown soaked from the rain, but she was alive.
“Mom!” I broke away from Antonio, sprinting across the dusty floor and dropping to my knees beside her.
“Grace,” my mother wept, her frail hands bound behind her back. “I’m so sorry, baby. They came into my room... they dragged me out.”
I frantically began untying the thick ropes around her wrists.
“Where are they?” Antonio demanded, stepping out of the shadows, his gun raised. “Where are Victoria and Daniel?”
My mother looked up at Antonio, her eyes widening in absolute terror.
But she wasn't looking at him. She was looking past him.
“Behind you!” my mother screamed.
Antonio spun around, but it was too late.
A heavy iron pipe swung from the darkness, striking Antonio viciously across the back of the knees.
Antonio grunted in pain, collapsing to the floor. His gun skittered across the dusty tiles, sliding out of reach.
Stepping out from behind the ovens was Daniel Caruso.
He was fifty years old, wearing an expensive camel-hair coat, holding the bloody iron pipe. He looked just like his mother, Eleanor, but his eyes were filled with a madness that belonged entirely to Vincent Romano.
“Hello, little brother,” Daniel smiled, stepping on Antonio’s gun to kick it further away.
Antonio glared up at him, blood trickling from his lip.
“You’re pathetic, Daniel,” Antonio spat. “You have to kidnap old women and children to get what you want?”
“I’m claiming what is rightfully mine,” Daniel yelled, the veneer of calmness shattering instantly. “I am the firstborn! Henry stole my birthright! He treated me like a bastard while he gave you the kingdom!”
“Because he knew you had Romano blood!” Antonio roared, struggling to his feet despite his shattered knee. “He knew you were a monster!”
Daniel raised the iron pipe again, his face twisting with rage.
But before he could swing, a high, cruel voice echoed from the metal catwalk above the ovens.
“Oh, do stop shouting, Daniel. It’s so aggressively working-class.”
We all looked up.
Victoria was standing on the rusted catwalk.
She was holding Katie’s five-year-old son by the collar of his pajamas. And in her other hand, she held a silver revolver, pointed directly down at us.
“Victoria,” Daniel commanded, breathing heavily. “Bring the boy down here. We’re finishing this.”
Victoria laughed. It was a cold, empty sound that sent shivers down my spine.
“I don't think so, Daniel,” Victoria sneered, cocking the hammer of the revolver.
Daniel frowned. “What are you doing? We had a deal!”
“Our deal was that you get the estate, and I get the money,” Victoria said coldly. “But I realized something tonight. If Antonio is dead, and the fake will makes you the owner... what do I need you for?”
Daniel’s eyes went wide.
“No,” Daniel whispered.
Victoria smiled, pointing the gun directly at Daniel’s chest.
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“Goodbye, darling.”
She pulled the trigger.
