Chapter 3 - THE BLUE COAT
“Nobody leaves this room!” Dominic bellowed.
His voice rattled the crystal in the chandeliers.
The two guards at the door immediately drew their weapons, pointing them at the floor but making the threat explicitly clear.
Thirty-four wealthy, powerful people froze in absolute terror.
Silvio lay motionless on the rug. I pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, searching desperately for a pulse.
It was there, but it was incredibly faint, beating like a dying moth against a windowpane.
“He’s alive, but barely,” I said, looking up at Dominic. “If paramedics don’t get here in three minutes, he won’t make it.”
“They’re coming up the private freight elevator now,” Anthony said, his phone pressed to his ear.
Dominic stood slowly, looking down at his godfather. Then his eyes swept across the dining table.
“Someone in this room handed him that glass,” Dominic said softly.
The silence was deafening.
I looked at the table setting. Silvio was seated at the far end, away from the kitchen doors.
“Mr. Romano,” I said quietly, standing up.
Dominic’s eyes snapped to me. The intensity in them was enough to make my stomach drop, but I forced myself to hold his gaze.
“What is it, Claire?”
“I didn’t serve the wine tonight,” I said, gesturing to my apron. “I was on food service. The head waiter, Thomas, poured the wine for the far side of the table.”
Dominic looked around the room.
“Where is Thomas?”
He wasn’t there.
The other waitstaff were huddled near the pantry, shaking, but the head waiter was gone.
“Check the kitchen,” Dominic barked at one of his guards.
The guard returned ten seconds later, holding a black uniform jacket.
“He’s gone, boss. Slipped out the service stairs. He left his jacket behind.”
Dominic took the jacket. He checked the pockets.
He pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills. A payoff.
“He was hired,” Anthony said, his face pale. “Someone paid the staff to poison Silvio.”
“Not the staff,” Dominic corrected coldly. “Just him.”
He turned to Celeste. She was backed into the corner, hugging her arms, mascara running down her cheeks.
“Who gave the order, Celeste?” Dominic asked.
“I don’t know!” she sobbed. “I swear, Dominic, I never met them! They only communicated with me through burner phones. They said if I didn’t plant the photo and the keycard to frame Anthony, they would kill my sister. She owes Salerno’s people a lot of money.”
A classic squeeze. Celeste wasn’t a mastermind; she was a terrified pawn.
But Silvio’s dying words echoed in my mind.
The girl with the blue coat.
I looked toward the grand foyer.
Beyond the dining room, past the grand piano, was the penthouse coat check.
“Mr. Romano,” I whispered.
Dominic looked at me. He could tell I knew something.
“Silvio spoke before he passed out,” I said.
Anthony stepped closer. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘The girl with the blue coat.’”
Dominic’s brow furrowed. “There are a dozen women here tonight. Three of them are wearing blue dresses.”
“Not a dress,” I said. “A coat.”
I walked past the guards, my heart pounding in my ears. Dominic and Anthony followed me.
We reached the coat check room.
Rows of expensive minks, trench coats, and wool overcoats hung neatly on velvet hangers.
I scanned the racks.
Black. Brown. Gray. White.
And right in the middle, hidden between two massive fur coats, was a child’s bright blue raincoat.
It stood out like a sore thumb in this penthouse of billionaires.
Dominic stopped breathing.
“Mia,” he whispered.
Mia was Dominic’s nine-year-old daughter. She had lived in the penthouse with us, but she was entirely invisible. Ever since her mother died in a car accident two years ago, Mia hadn’t spoken a single word.
She spent her days drawing in her room, supervised by a private nanny. She was never allowed at these dinner parties.
“Why is her coat down here?” Anthony asked.
I reached out and touched the sleeve. It was damp.
“She was outside,” I said. “Recently.”
I slipped my hand into the small pocket of the raincoat.
My fingers brushed against a piece of folded paper.
I pulled it out and opened it.
It was a child’s drawing, done in heavy black and red crayon.
I handed it to Dominic.
The drawing showed a tall man holding a small bottle over a glass. The man had a distinct, jagged scar running down the back of his right hand.
In the corner of the drawing, hiding behind a potted plant, was a little girl in a blue coat.
“Mia saw it,” Dominic realized, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and terror. “She saw the waiter poison the wine before dinner.”
“And she drew the man,” Anthony said. “But Dom… Thomas the waiter doesn’t have a scar on his hand.”
The reversal sent a chill down my spine.
Thomas didn’t poison the wine. He was just paid to deliver it.
The person who spiked the glass was someone else. Someone who was already inside the penthouse before the waitstaff arrived.
Suddenly, a soft, timid voice spoke from the top of the grand staircase.
“Daddy?”
Everyone froze.
It was the first word she had spoken in two years.
Dominic whipped around.
Mia stood at the top of the marble stairs, clutching her teddy bear. She looked terrified.
“Mia,” Dominic choked out, stepping toward the stairs. “Sweetheart.”
But Mia wasn’t looking at her father.
She was pointing a trembling finger down into the crowded dining room.
“He’s right there,” she whispered.
I followed her finger.
May you like
She was pointing directly at one of Dominic’s most trusted bodyguards. The man guarding the front door.
And as the man reached for his weapon, his sleeve pulled up, revealing a jagged white scar running down the back of his right hand.
