Chapter 4 - THE ROSARY
Luca stared at the crayon drawing in my son’s trembling hand.
It was a crude sketch of a woman holding a string of dark beads with a silver cross.
"Your grandmother's rosary?" Luca asked, his dark eyes shifting to me.
My breath hitched. "My mother passed away five years ago. She left me a few of her belongings in a wooden lockbox. I keep it hidden under the floorboards beneath Toby's bed."
"Did they find it?"
I handed Toby to Luca. The sight of the ruthless Mafia boss gently holding my terrified six-year-old would have been surreal if my world wasn't currently collapsing.
I ran into Toby's bedroom. The mattress was overturned, toys scattered everywhere. I dropped to my knees and pried up the loose floorboard in the corner.
The space was empty.
The wooden box was gone.
I walked back into the living room, feeling completely numb.
"She took it," I said. "She took my mother's rosary. But why? It's just cheap wood and glass. It has no monetary value."
Luca handed Toby back to me and holstered his weapon as the distant wail of ambulance sirens pierced the night.
"Because it's not about money, Claire," Luca said, his jaw locked. "It's about proof."
"Proof of what?"
Luca reached into his leather jacket and pulled out the old photograph that had fallen from the wedding portrait. The picture of his adoptive mother, standing next to the nurse holding baby Luca.
"Your mother," Luca said slowly. "What was her name?"
"Elena. Elena Morgan."
Luca pointed to the nurse in the picture. "Is this Elena?"
I looked closely at the faded photo. The nurse was younger, her hair pulled back, but the kind eyes and the soft smile were unmistakable.
"Yes," I gasped. "That's my mother. But how... how did she know your family?"
"She didn't just know them," Luca said. "She was my nanny. My adoptive mother told me the woman who saved my life during a mob hit died in the crossfire. But she didn't die. She lived as Elena Morgan."
The room started to spin. My mother, the quiet woman who worked double shifts at a diner to put me through school, had been involved with the Chicago Mafia?
"Vanessa knows," Luca continued, pacing the ruined living room. "Vanessa’s family, the Bellinis, were the ones who ordered the hit on my biological parents thirty-one years ago. If the Commission finds out Vanessa is the daughter of the man who murdered a Moretti boss, she won't just lose the wedding. She’ll be executed."
"And the rosary?" I asked, my voice shaking.
"My biological mother was wearing a unique wooden rosary the night she was killed. If your mother took it when she rescued me... it’s the only physical evidence tying the Bellini family to the murder scene."
The paramedics rushed into the apartment, tending to Mrs. Gable. She was groggy but alive.
Luca turned to me, his presence completely overtaking the chaos.
"Grab whatever you and Toby need for three days. You are not staying here."
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"Where are we going?"
"To the only place Vanessa won't dare look," he said. "My private penthouse. And tomorrow, we are tearing the carriage house apart."
