Chapter 3 - THE HALF-CIRCLE RING
The corridor was completely silent except for the low hum of the ventilation system.
The manager’s hand was steady.
“I won’t ask twice, Anthony,” he said.
Anthony didn’t raise his hands. He didn’t drop the letters. He slowly stood up, placing himself slightly in front of me.
“You pressed your ring into the wax on Daniel’s watch,” I said.
The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
The manager’s eyes flicked to me.
“You’re the cleaning girl.”
“She’s the one who found out you killed my brother,” Anthony said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. “Why, Marcus?”
“Because your father was a fool,” Marcus said. “He wanted to break the treaty with the Russos. He was going to ruin everything to protect a bastard child. Daniel was just as stupid. He came here three days ago, took the letters, and said he was going to stop the wedding.”
“So you poisoned him.”
“It was quick,” Marcus lied. “Now, put the box down.”
I looked at Anthony.
He was holding the letters in his left hand. But his right hand was slowly sliding toward his waist.
I needed to buy him two seconds.
I looked at Marcus and lied.
“You know you missed the photograph, right?”
Marcus frowned.
“What photograph?”
“The one tucked into the lining of the box,” I said, pointing past Anthony’s leg. “The one showing Bianca with the real documents.”
Marcus’s eyes darted to the wooden box on the floor.
It was only a fraction of a second.
But it was enough.
Anthony drew his weapon and fired in one fluid motion.
The gunshot was deafening in the confined steel hallway.
Marcus cried out, dropping his gun as Anthony’s bullet shattered his shoulder. He collapsed against the lockers, sliding to the floor.
Anthony kicked the manager’s gun away.
He looked back at me. He was breathing heavily, but his eyes held a strange, new respect.
“There wasn’t a photograph, was there?” Anthony asked.
“No.”
“Good lie.”
He grabbed the wooden box and the letters, shoving them under his arm.
“We need to go. If Marcus is working for the Russos, the funeral home isn’t safe either.”
We ran toward the elevator.
Anthony swiped Marcus’s dropped access card. We rode up in silence.
My heart was hammering against my ribs. I was a cleaning girl. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Logan Square. I had no business being in the middle of a mafia blood feud.
“I want to go home,” I said quietly.
Anthony looked at me.
“You can’t. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because you found the watch. You saw the ring. Bianca knows your face. If I let you walk away right now, you won’t make it to your apartment.”
He wasn’t threatening me. He was stating a fact.
“Then what do we do?” I asked.
“We find Leo.”
Protect Leo.
That was what the letter said.
“Who is Leo?” I asked.
The elevator doors opened to the alleyway.
“He’s my son,” Anthony said.
I froze.
“Your son? Bianca doesn’t have any children.”
“Not with Bianca,” Anthony said, leading me to the SUV. His driver was already revving the engine. “With a woman I loved ten years ago. A woman my father sent away to protect her from the Russos. I thought the child died in childbirth. My father told me he died.”
Answer one.
The letters revealed Anthony’s father lied to him to save his child’s life.
Open two.
Where has the boy been for nine years? And how did Daniel find him?
We got into the SUV.
“Drive,” Anthony told the driver. “Take us to Daniel’s apartment.”
We sped through the rainy streets of Chicago.
Anthony stared at the letters in his lap.
“Daniel found him,” Anthony whispered, more to himself than to me. “Daniel knew I was marrying Bianca for a peace treaty. He knew it was a mistake. He went looking for the truth.”
We arrived at Daniel’s high-rise apartment building.
Anthony keyed in the private elevator code.
We stepped into the penthouse.
It was completely dark.
And completely destroyed.
Furniture was overturned. Cushions were slashed. Books were swept off the shelves.
Someone had been looking for something.
“Stay behind me,” Anthony ordered, drawing his weapon again.
We moved through the wreckage.
In the center of the living room, resting on the shattered glass of a coffee table, was an object that made Anthony stop dead.
It was a delicate silver rosary.
The beads were deep blue lapis lazuli.
“Do you know whose that is?” I asked, keeping my voice down.
Anthony nodded slowly.
“It belongs to my mother.”
The reversal twisted my stomach into a knot.
Bianca hadn’t ordered the search of Daniel’s apartment.
Anthony’s mother had.
But before Anthony could process the betrayal, a small noise came from the kitchen.
A whimper.
Anthony raised his gun.
We moved slowly around the kitchen island.
Hiding inside the bottom cabinet, clutching a heavy winter coat, was a little boy.
He couldn’t have been more than nine years old.
He had dark curly hair and terrified brown eyes.
And around his small wrist, he was wearing a heavy gold bracelet that was far too large for him.
Anthony lowered his gun, his hands shaking.
“Leo?” he whispered.
The boy looked up.
He didn’t look at Anthony.
He looked at me.
May you like
And he said three words that made my blood run cold.
“They took her.”
