Chapter 7 - THE WOODEN ROSARY
The grand foyer was entirely silent, save for the sound of rain beginning to lash against the shattered front doors.
Adriana stared at the wooden rosary in my hand. For the first time all evening, the arrogant, untouchable poise completely vanished, leaving behind sheer, undisguised panic.
“Give that back to me,” Adriana hissed, struggling violently against Marco’s grip on her throat.
Marco’s hand didn’t budge an inch. He pinned her effortlessly against the banister, his dark eyes fixed on the beads in my hand.
“Thomas Voss’s accounts,” Marco murmured, the realization dawning with brutal clarity. “The Commission thought Thomas died penniless twenty years ago. They thought he blew his fortune on failed investments before he faked his death.”
“He didn’t lose it,” my father coughed, slowly pulling himself up using the wall. “He hid it in offshore trusts. Billions of dollars. Blood money extorted from every major family in Chicago. Elena found the account numbers when she found the extortion ledger.”
“And she brought it to you,” I said, looking at my dad.
“She knew she couldn’t write the numbers down on paper,” my dad explained, breathing heavily. “Thomas would find it. So she asked me to carve the routing numbers and access codes into the beads of a rosary. A Catholic woman carrying a rosary wouldn’t draw a second glance from anyone in the syndicate.”
Adriana let out a desperate, guttural scream and kicked backward, her sharp heel catching Marco perfectly in the shin.
Marco grunted, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.
Adriana tore herself free and lunged at me.
She didn’t go for my throat. She went for the rosary. Her manicured fingers clawed at my hand, her eyes wild with a feral desperation.
“It’s mine!” she shrieked.
I didn’t fight her. I used her momentum against her.
I stepped sideways, grabbed her wrist, and threw my weight backward, pulling her off balance. Adriana stumbled, her expensive heels slipping on the polished marble. She crashed hard onto the landing, her chin cracking sickeningly against the hardwood floor.
Before she could even gasp for air, Marco was on her.
He planted his heavy boot directly between her shoulder blades, pinning her flat to the ground. He didn’t draw his gun. He simply stood over her, a towering monument of controlled fury.
“Carlo!” Marco’s voice echoed down into the foyer.
Carlo stepped out from behind a pillar, his assault rifle still raised toward the dark driveway.
“The men outside?” Marco asked.
“They fell back to the gate, Boss,” Carlo yelled back. “They’re waiting for her signal.”
“They aren’t getting one,” Marco said coldly. He looked down at Adriana. “You lost the ledger. You lost the accounts. Your men outside are mercenaries. They fight for money. When they realize you have none, they will scatter like rats.”
Adriana groaned, spitting blood onto the marble. She turned her head slightly, glaring up at me with absolute hatred.
“You think you won, little maid?” Adriana sneered, her voice raspy and broken. “You think Marco is going to let you and your father walk away? Your father helped cover up the murder of his wife!”
I looked at Marco. A cold spike of fear drove into my chest.
She was right. My father was a victim of blackmail, but in the mafia, complicity was still a death sentence. Marco had every right to execute him.
Marco slowly moved his boot off Adriana’s back. He reached down, grabbed her by the collar of her coat, and hauled her to her knees.
Then, Marco looked at my father.
“Arthur,” Marco said, his voice entirely unreadable.
My father stood up straight. He didn’t cower. He didn’t beg. He looked Marco directly in the eye, accepting whatever fate was coming to him.
“I’m ready, Marco,” my father said quietly. “Do what you have to do. Just let Emma walk out that door.”
“No!” I cried, stepping between them. I held up the wooden rosary. “We have the accounts, Marco! We can give the money back to the Commission! That clears your name, and it buys my father’s life!”
Marco looked at the rosary in my hand. Then he looked at the fierce, desperate tears in my eyes.
The ruthless mafia boss vanished. The man who had gently kissed his son’s forehead in the study returned.
“Emma,” Marco said softly. “Put the rosary in your pocket.”
I hesitated, confused.
“Do it,” Marco insisted gently.
I slipped the heavy wooden beads into my apron pocket.
Marco turned to my father.
“Arthur Bennett died of a stroke three years ago,” Marco said, his voice loud enough for Carlo and the men downstairs to hear. “He was buried in a cemetery in Milwaukee. The man standing in front of me is an old friend of the family who came to help us defend our home tonight.”
My father’s eyes widened in profound, overwhelming shock.
He was forgiving him. He was officially wiping my father’s slate clean in front of his entire crew.
“Thank you, Marco,” my father whispered, tears finally breaking free and rolling down his bruised face.
“You don’t owe me thanks, Arthur,” Marco said. “You built the safe that kept my son alive. That debt is paid in full.”
Adriana let out a bitter, mocking laugh from her knees.
“How touching,” Adriana spat. “But you’re forgetting something, Marco. My father isn’t dead. Thomas Voss has been running the shadows of this city for twenty years. When he finds out you took me, he will burn this house to the ground with you and your son inside it.”
Marco looked down at her. A slow, chilling smile touched the corners of his mouth.
“Your father is dead, Adriana,” Marco said.
Adriana scoffed. “You don’t know that.”
“I know it for a fact,” Marco corrected, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Because I killed him.”
Adriana froze.
“What?” she breathed.
“Did you really think I believed Elena died in a boating accident?” Marco asked, crouching down so he was eye level with her. “I knew Thomas Voss killed her the moment they found the wreckage. And three days later, I found him hiding in a warehouse in Cicero. I shot him in the chest, weighed his body down with iron chains, and dropped him into the deepest part of Lake Michigan.”
Adriana’s face contorted in absolute horror. The empire she thought was waiting for her... the father she thought was pulling the strings... it was all a ghost story.
“Then who…” Adriana stammered, looking wildly around the room. “Who has been giving me orders? Who sent me the ledger?”
Marco stood up.
May you like
“I did,” Marco said.
And as the words left his mouth, the heavy, reinforced door of the study behind us slowly clicked open.
