Chapter 5 - THE LOCKET
I stopped breathing.
“My mother?” The words tasted like ash. “My mother was a waitress in South Boston. She died when I was fourteen. She didn’t know your father.”
“She did,” Dominic said quietly.
The SUV swerved around a corner, the streetlights flashing across his face.
“My father had secrets, Grace. Elena was one of them. But your mother... she was the only woman he ever truly wanted to marry.”
My mind spun. “That’s impossible. My parents were married. My father was a mechanic—”
“Your father was a good man who took in a pregnant woman to protect her from my family,” Dominic interrupted.
I froze.
The locket felt heavy against my chest.
“Are you saying...” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Dominic shook his head. “No. You’re not my sister. Your brother Tommy isn’t my brother. Your father was your biological father.”
“Then why?”
“Because my father loved her. And before she left the mafia world behind, he gave her the Isabella Diamond. He told her if she or her children ever needed anything, the necklace was their ticket to safety.”
I stared at him.
My mother had died in a hospice ward. We couldn't afford her medical bills. We lost our house. Tommy had to drop out of high school to work.
“If she had a ten-million-dollar diamond,” I said, my voice shaking with anger, “why did we grow up poor? Why didn’t she sell it?”
“Because selling a stolen mafia heirloom puts a target on your back,” Dominic said. “She hid it to protect you.”
He looked at my locket.
“Open that,” he commanded.
My hands shook. I had worn this cheap silver locket since the day my mother died. Inside was a tiny picture of her and Tommy.
I pried the small clasp open.
There was the photo.
“Pull the picture out,” Dominic said.
I used my fingernail to slide the tiny photograph free.
Behind the paper was a false back.
And tucked neatly inside the metal casing was a tiny, intricately carved brass key.
I gasped.
Thirty-one years. I had worn the key to my family’s salvation around my neck my entire life, while scrubbing floors to survive.
“The safety deposit box,” Dominic said. “Boston Central Bank. That key opens it.”
“Silvio knows,” I whispered. “That’s why he targeted my family. Not just because of Elena. He wanted the diamond. He thought I knew where it was.”
“And Elena used you as the maid, keeping you close, waiting to see if you’d slip up.”
I felt sick. Everything was a lie. My job, my proximity to the Caruso family, it was all orchestrated.
The SUV suddenly slammed to a halt.
Tires squealed as Michael threw the car into reverse.
“Ambush!” Michael yelled.
Two black sedans had blocked the road ahead. Four men stepped out, raising automatic weapons.
Dominic shoved my head down below the dashboard.
Gunfire erupted.
Glass shattered.
Michael floored the gas, ramming the SUV backward into an alley, tires smoking.
Dominic fired out the window, his face a mask of pure violence.
The SUV spun around, peeling out onto a side street. We left the shooters behind, but the back window was completely blown out.
“We can’t go to the bank,” Michael shouted over the rushing wind. “They’ll be waiting.”
“Then we go to the airport,” Dominic said.
“Sir, we don’t have the diamond! Silvio will kill the boy.”
“I don’t need the diamond.” Dominic pulled a fresh magazine from his coat and reloaded his weapon. “I’m a Caruso. We don’t buy back our blood.”
He looked at me, crouching terrified on the floorboards.
“Grace.”
I looked up.
“I swear on my father’s grave,” Dominic said. “I will bring your brother and nephew home tonight.”
Before I could answer, my phone rang again.
It was a FaceTime request.
From Elena.
Dominic nodded. “Answer it.”
I swiped the screen.
Elena was still in the dining room, but she was alone now. The guests were gone. She held her phone up, smiling a cold, dead smile.
“Hello, Grace,” Elena said. “I assume my fiancé is listening?”
“I’m here, Elena,” Dominic said.
“Good. Because your Uncle Silvio just sent me an interesting photo.”
Elena flipped the camera view.
It was a live feed from the airport hangar.
Silvio stood next to a private jet.
And kneeling on the tarmac, bleeding from his head, with a gun pressed to his temple...
Was Dominic’s head of security. Michael Grant.
I looked up in horror at the driver’s seat of our SUV.
The man driving us... wasn't Michael.
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He slowly turned his head, smiling.
It was Silvio’s son.
