Chapter 6 - THE BLUE FOLDER
“Get your hands off him!” Emily screamed, dropping the medical tape and stepping between the FBI agents and Alessandro.
“Ma’am, step back or you will be arrested for obstruction,” Agent Harris barked, his eyes cold and unfeeling.
Alessandro didn't fight. He gently pushed Emily aside, placing himself between her and the rifles.
“It’s okay, Emily,” Alessandro said softly. He raised his hands, allowing two agents to violently force his arms behind his back and snap heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists.
“You have no evidence,” Alessandro said, staring dead into Agent Harris’s eyes.
Harris smiled, pulling a thick blue folder from under his arm.
“We received an anonymous tip an hour ago. The tipster directed us to a hidden camera footage from the alley behind the Palmer House hotel. It clearly shows a man matching your description pushing your wife in front of a speeding car.”
The lie was so massive, so beautifully orchestrated, that the breath left Emily’s body.
“That’s a lie!” Emily shouted. “I was there! It was me in the alley! She pushed me out of the way!”
Agent Harris looked at Emily with absolute disdain. “And who are you?”
“I’m the witness you should be talking to!”
Harris didn't even blink. He looked at one of the agents.
“Call Child Protective Services. Tell them we have a minor whose father is being booked for homicide. They can place the girl in emergency foster care.”
“No!” Mia screamed, terrified by the loud voices. She jumped off the barstool and ran to Emily, burying her face in Emily’s apron.
Emily wrapped her arms tightly around the little girl, glaring at the federal agents. “You are not taking her.”
Alessandro struggled against the cuffs, his jaw clenched tight. He looked at Dante, who was standing near the wall with his hands raised, completely neutralized by the federal raid.
“Dante,” Alessandro ordered, his voice echoing with absolute authority. “Call the lawyers. Get them to federal lockup immediately. Do not let them take my daughter.”
Dante nodded slowly. “I’m on it, boss.”
As the agents dragged Alessandro toward the door, he locked eyes with Emily. His gaze was intense, burning with a desperate, silent message.
He didn't look at her face.
He looked down, deliberately dropping his gaze to the heavy black velvet box sitting on the coffee table. The box they had taken from the bus terminal locker. The box they hadn't opened yet.
Protect it.
“Move,” an agent shoved Alessandro out the door.
Agent Harris turned to Emily. “CPS will be here in twenty minutes. Do not leave this loft.”
Harris walked out, leaving two armed agents standing guard inside the doorway. Dante grabbed his coat and hurried out after them, his cell phone already pressed to his ear.
Emily was left alone in the safe house with a terrified five-year-old and two federal guards.
She looked at the black velvet box on the coffee table.
If Carmine—or whoever the real traitor was—had tipped off the FBI to frame Alessandro, they would be coming back to search this loft. They needed to destroy whatever evidence Sofia had left behind.
Emily gently patted Mia’s back. “Sweetheart, I need you to be very brave for me, okay? We’re going to play a game.”
Mia sniffled and looked up. “A hiding game?”
“A running game,” Emily whispered.
Emily stood up. She walked casually toward the kitchen island, keeping her body angled away from the two agents standing by the door. She grabbed a heavy glass water pitcher from the counter.
She turned around and took a step toward the agents.
“Excuse me, can I get her some water?”
The agent on the left frowned. “Just stay where you are, ma’am.”
Emily didn't stop. She intentionally tripped over the edge of the Persian rug.
She threw her arms forward, hurling the heavy glass pitcher directly into the center of the room.
It shattered against the hardwood floor with a deafening crash, sending shards of thick glass exploding outward.
The two agents instinctively threw their hands up to protect their faces, taking a step backward.
In that single second of distraction, Emily grabbed the black velvet box off the table, scooped Mia up in her other arm, and sprinted toward the back of the loft.
“Hey! Stop!” an agent yelled, drawing his weapon.
Emily hit the heavy steel fire door at the back of the loft. She slammed her shoulder against the crash bar. The door flew open, depositing them into the dark, rain-soaked alley behind the warehouse.
She didn't look back. She ran with a desperate, primal adrenaline, carrying the forty-pound child block after block through the dark streets of Pilsen, weaving through narrow alleys to lose any pursuit.
They finally collapsed in the shadow of a closed pawn shop, gasping for air. The rain soaked them to the bone.
Mia was shivering, holding tightly to Emily’s neck.
“Are we safe?” the little girl whispered.
“For now,” Emily breathed.
She set Mia down gently under the awning, out of the rain. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably as she pulled the heavy black velvet box from her sweater pocket.
Sofia had left a journal framing her father. But the journal was just a book. Words could be forged.
Emily popped the latch on the velvet box.
Inside the silk-lined interior was a pristine, custom-made gold signet ring.
And tucked beneath it was a small, silver USB drive.
Emily stared at the ring. It was heavy gold, set with a massive, square-cut black onyx stone.
The reversal hit her like a physical blow.
Mia’s words echoed in her mind. It was the man with the shiny ring. The gold ring with the big black rock. He hit Mommy.
Sofia hadn't just left a journal. She had stolen the killer’s ring after he struck her. She had taken the only physical evidence that tied him to the assault.
And the journal...
The journal said Carmine was the traitor.
But Carmine didn't wear a ring.
Emily grabbed the USB drive. She needed a computer. She needed to know what was on the drive.
She picked Mia up and ran three blocks to a 24-hour internet café she had passed on her way to her shift earlier that week.
She paid the bored teenager behind the counter with a crumpled ten-dollar bill, sat at a corner computer, and plugged the USB drive in.
A single video file popped up.
Emily clicked play.
It was security footage from the alley behind the Palmer House hotel. The night Sofia died.
The grainy black-and-white footage showed Emily, wearing the heavy coat, being shoved against the brick wall by Sofia.
It showed the black car speeding into the frame, striking Sofia, and throwing her lifeless body onto the pavement.
But the video didn't stop there.
The driver’s side door opened. A man stepped out. He didn't look at Sofia’s body. He walked over to her, rolled her over, and frantically checked her pockets, looking for the ring she had stolen.
The man turned his face toward the camera for a split second.
Emily’s blood ran completely cold.
It wasn't Carmine.
It was Dante.
Alessandro’s most trusted underboss. The man who had been sitting in the car with them. The man who had arranged the safe house where the FBI ambushed them.
Dante had forged the last page of Sofia’s journal to frame Carmine. Dante had tipped off the corrupt FBI agent. Dante was the traitor.
Before Emily could pull the USB drive from the computer, a black SUV pulled up outside the internet café windows.
May you like
The passenger window rolled down.
Dante leaned out, looking directly at Emily through the glass. He smiled, a cold, dead expression, and raised a suppressed pistol.
