Chapter 4 - THE ROSARY
My hands shook violently as I opened the manila folder.
My mother had been battling a degenerative neurological condition for three years. The medication cost nearly everything I made. Two months ago, Vanessa had "generously" recommended a private clinic run by a Dr. Aris.
She told me she had arranged a discount. I thought she was finally showing a shred of humanity.
I was so stupid.
I scanned the medical charts. The medical jargon blurred, but the dosage numbers were terrifyingly clear.
“She’s poisoning her,” I choked out, a sob ripping through my throat. “The medication Dr. Aris prescribed… it’s a paralytic. It’s making my mother worse.”
Luca took the file gently from my hands. His eyes scanned the pages rapidly.
“Why would Vanessa target a maid’s mother?” he muttered.
Then he flipped to the last page. A background check.
My background check.
My father’s name was highlighted in yellow. Thomas Reed. Deceased.
“Your father,” Luca said, looking up at me in shock. “He was Thomas Reed?”
“Yes,” I cried. “He died when I was in high school.”
“Emma, Thomas Reed was my father’s head accountant,” Luca explained, the pieces finally locking into place. “Before he died, he audited the family trust. He found discrepancies. He hid the original, unamended ledger to protect the family assets.”
Vanessa hadn’t hired me by accident.
She kept me close, using my mother’s illness as leverage, waiting for the day she could force me to hand over the ledger my father supposedly hid.
Suddenly, my cell phone vibrated in my apron pocket.
It wasn’t broken completely. The screen was cracked, but a call was coming through.
Private Number.
I looked at Luca. He nodded.
I answered, pressing it to my right ear.
“Hello?”
“Emma,” Vanessa’s cold, smooth voice purred through the speaker. “I see you found the red coat.”
I gasped.
“Look out the window, darling,” she laughed.
Luca and I rushed to the bedroom window overlooking the sweeping driveway.
Vanessa wasn’t at the dinner table.
She was standing by the open door of a black SUV. The driver was Marcus Vance.
And draped over the side mirror of the SUV was a heavy, silver rosary.
Luca inhaled sharply. “That rosary belongs to the Bellini crime family. Her father. She isn’t stealing the trust to run away. She’s stealing it to fund a mob war against my family.”
May you like
Vanessa spoke into the phone again, her voice losing all its false sweetness.
“I have the little boy, Emma. And as of ten minutes ago, my men have your mother from the clinic. Bring your father’s hidden ledger to the abandoned shipyard on Pier 4 by midnight. Or you will both attend two funerals tomorrow.”
