Chapter 8 - THE ROSARY
“You’re shot,” I gasped, horrified by the amount of blood staining his sleeve.
Dominic didn't look at his arm. He moved immediately to a massive bookshelf against the far wall. He grabbed a specific leather-bound book and yanked it backward.
With a heavy hydraulic hiss, the bookshelf swung open, revealing a hidden, steel-reinforced safe room.
“Get inside,” Dominic ordered, his voice tight with pain.
Outside the bedroom door, heavy footsteps thumped down the hallway. Men were shouting orders in Italian. They were checking room by room.
“Come with us,” I pleaded, pulling Lily off the bed and toward the hidden door.
“I can't,” Dominic said, pulling a spare magazine from his pocket and reloading his weapon one-handed. “If I hide with you, they’ll tear this house apart until they find the breach. I have to draw them away. I have to end this.”
“There are too many of them!” I cried, tears streaming down my face.
Dominic stepped closer to me. His bloody hand reached out, gently cupping the side of my face. His thumb brushed away a tear. For a moment, the gunfire outside ceased to exist. There was only the intense, desperate connection between us.
“You gave me a second chance at life, Emma,” he whispered. “Now I am giving it back to you.”
He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a heavy, antique silver rosary. The beads were worn smooth from decades of prayer.
He pressed it into my trembling palm, closing my fingers over it.
“This belonged to my grandmother,” Dominic said, his eyes burning with a fierce, protective light. “Every made man in the Salvatore family knows it. If I don't survive tonight, and Silvio’s men find you… show them this. Tell them I named you untouchable before I died. They are bound by the old laws. They will let you and Lily walk away.”
“Dominic, please—”
A massive thud rattled the bedroom door. Someone was kicking it.
“Get in!” Dominic yelled, shoving me and Lily into the small steel room.
He slammed the bookshelf shut. The hydraulic lock engaged with a heavy, final click.
Total darkness enveloped us again.
I crouched on the cold steel floor, pulling Lily tightly into my lap, covering her ears with my hands. She was shaking violently, crying into my chest.
“I’m here, baby. Mommy’s right here,” I whispered over and over, though I couldn't stop my own tears.
Through the thick steel, the sounds of the battle were muffled but terrifying.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Shouts. The shattering of glass. The heavy thud of a body hitting the floor.
I clutched the silver rosary in my hand so tightly the beads pressed painfully into my skin. I prayed to a God I hadn't spoken to since Mark died. I prayed for the mafia boss who was bleeding on the other side of the wall.
Minutes stretched into an eternity.
Eventually, the gunfire stopped.
The silence that followed was far more terrifying than the noise.
I held my breath, listening.
Heavy, slow footsteps entered the bedroom.
Someone approached the bookshelf.
I pushed Lily behind me, positioning my body as a human shield, grasping the rosary in my sweaty hand. I prepared to scream, to fight, to beg.
The hydraulic hiss sounded.
The bookshelf slowly swung open, flooding the safe room with the dim moonlight from the bedroom.
Standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, was a man holding a gun.
But he wasn't pointing it at me.
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Silvio Salvatore stood there, panting, a cruel smile twisting his face.
“Hello, Emma,” Silvio wheezed, tapping his silver cane against the floor. “Did you really think a bookshelf could hide you from the master of this house?”
