Chapter 5 - THE COAT
“Mom!” I screamed, stepping forward.
Dominic threw his arm across my chest, stopping me.
My mother was fifty-six. She had arthritis in both knees. She looked terrified, wearing her faded pink diner apron, struggling to breathe against Uncle Paul’s grip.
“Let her go, Paul,” Dominic said. His voice was deadly calm, but his gun was aimed directly at his uncle’s chest.
“Drop the weapon, Dominic,” Paul said, cocking the shotgun. “Or I paint the hallway with this diner cook.”
“How did you get her?” I cried, tears blurring my vision.
“It’s amazing what a black SUV and a fake police badge can do,” Paul sneered. “I had my men pick her up in Joliet an hour ago. Just a little insurance policy in case Elena’s stupid poisoning plan failed.”
Answer one, open two.
Vincent and Elena weren’t the masterminds.
Uncle Paul was.
Paul had orchestrated the entire coup. He used Elena to drug Dominic, used Vincent as a ghost to distract the loyalists, and bought off the security team.
“You’re destroying our family for money, Paul?” Dominic asked.
“I’m saving our family from you!” Paul spat. “You’re weak, Dominic. You negotiate. You make peace treaties with the Petrovs. Your father would be ashamed of you. The syndicate needs a wartime boss. And it needs capital.”
Paul held out his free hand.
“Give me the watch.”
Dominic didn’t move.
“Give me the boy, and give me the watch. And I’ll let you and the maid walk away.”
It was a lie. We all knew it.
Dominic lowered his gun.
Slowly.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy silver watch.
He held it up by the chain.
“Let the woman go first,” Dominic said.
Paul scoffed. “I’m not a fool. Toss the watch.”
“Then we have a stalemate,” Dominic said coldly.
I couldn’t let my mother die for a mafia boss’s bank accounts.
I looked at Dominic. His jaw was clenched tight. He wasn’t going to give up his son.
But I knew something Paul didn’t.
I reached out and grabbed the watch from Dominic’s hand.
“Grace, no!” Dominic hissed.
I threw the watch down the hallway.
It landed at Paul’s feet with a heavy thud.
Paul smiled greedily. He released my mother’s throat, shoving her roughly against the wall, and bent down to pick up the silver timepiece.
My mother collapsed, gasping for air.
“Mom, run to the stairs!” I screamed.
She stumbled forward.
Paul picked up the watch. He didn’t care about her anymore. He popped the back open to retrieve the paper with the account codes.
The Reversal hit him a second too late.
The back of the watch was empty.
I had kept the tiny roll of paper in my apron pocket.
Paul looked up, his eyes wide with fury. “You little—”
He raised the shotgun.
Dominic didn’t hesitate.
He fired twice.
The bullets hit Paul in the shoulder and leg.
Paul screamed, dropping the shotgun, and fell backward against the mahogany railing of the stairs.
The wood splintered under his weight.
Paul tumbled backward, falling over the edge and crashing onto the marble foyer below.
Silence fell over the hallway.
I ran to my mother, pulling her into a desperate hug. She was crying, shaking violently in my arms.
“I’ve got you, Mom. I’ve got you.”
Dominic walked to the edge of the broken railing.
He looked down at the foyer.
He turned back to us, his face pale in the emergency lights that had just kicked on.
“He’s gone,” Dominic said.
“Dead?” I asked.
“No. He dragged himself out the front door.”
Dominic walked back to Matthew’s room. He knelt down and pulled his trembling son out from under the bed.
He hugged Matthew tightly, burying his face in the boy’s hair.
“You’re safe now, buddy. I’ve got you.”
Dominic stood up, looking at me and my mother.
“We can’t stay here. Paul’s men will regroup. We have to go to a safehouse.”
He led us down the back staircase, through the kitchen, and out to the garage.
He loaded us into a heavily armored black SUV.
As Dominic pulled out into the rainy Chicago night, my mother shivered violently in the backseat.
“You’re freezing,” I said, rubbing her arms.
I looked around the dark SUV.
There was a heavy, expensive wool coat resting in the trunk space behind the third row.
I leaned over the seat and grabbed it.
“Here, put this on,” I said, wrapping the heavy coat around my mother’s shoulders.
She pulled it tight, burying her hands in the pockets to get warm.
A moment later, she frowned.
“Grace,” she whispered. “There’s something in this pocket.”
She pulled her hand out.
She was holding a small, crumpled piece of paper.
I turned on the overhead reading light.
I took the paper from her.
It was a child’s drawing.
Crayon on lined paper.
It showed a tall man holding hands with a little boy.
And standing next to them was a woman in a red dress.
Elena.
But the woman in the drawing had a massive red X scribbled aggressively over her face in black marker.
And written at the bottom, in a child’s messy handwriting, were two words.
“She knows.”
I looked at the drawing.
Then I looked at the heavy wool coat my mother was wearing.
It wasn’t Dominic’s coat.
The tag on the collar read V. Russo.
Vincent’s coat.
May you like
I looked at Dominic driving the car.
“Dominic,” I whispered, my blood running cold. “Vincent didn’t fake his death five years ago.”
