Chapter 8 - THE ROSARY
The fire alarms shrieked, water pouring from the ceiling like a monsoon inside the small diner.
Dominic didn’t lower the shotgun.
He walked slowly into the office, his gray eyes locked on his brother’s body.
Vincent was gasping for air on the wet linoleum, clutching his chest.
Dominic kicked Vincent’s pistol away.
He looked at me.
“Are you hurt?” he asked loudly over the alarm.
“No,” I yelled back, shivering from the freezing water. “My mom and Matthew are out back!”
Dominic nodded. He reached over and violently pulled the fire alarm breaker on the wall.
The sirens died.
The water stopped spraying, leaving a heavy, dripping silence in the ruined diner.
Dominic stood over his brother.
Vincent looked up, coughing blood.
“Hello, little brother,” Vincent wheezed, a sick smile still clinging to his face.
“You killed our mother,” Dominic said. His voice was terrifyingly hollow. “You killed my wife.”
“I took what was mine,” Vincent spat. “Dad always liked you better. He gave you the seat. I just leveled the playing field.”
Vincent reached up with a trembling hand, gripping the diamond bracelet on his wrist.
“She begged for her life, you know,” Vincent mocked, trying to inflict one last wound. “Maria. When I told her the brakes were cut. She begged.”
Dominic’s face turned to stone.
He racked the shotgun.
“Dominic, wait!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet.
I stepped between them.
Dominic looked at me, his eyes blazing with grief and rage.
“Move, Grace.”
“Don’t do it like this,” I pleaded, putting my hands on his wet chest. “Don’t shoot an unarmed man on the floor. Don’t let him turn you into a monster. He’s going to bleed out anyway. Let the syndicate deal with him. Let his legacy be a coward’s death, not an execution.”
Dominic stared at me. His chest heaved.
He looked down at Vincent.
Slowly, Dominic lowered the shotgun.
“You’re right,” Dominic whispered. “He’s not worth the bullet.”
Vincent’s mocking smile faded. He realized he wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of making his brother a murderer.
His eyes glazed over, staring at the dripping ceiling, and he stopped breathing.
It was over.
Dominic dropped the shotgun.
He leaned heavily against the diner counter, burying his face in his hands. The unbreakable mafia boss finally shattered.
I walked over to him.
I didn’t say anything. I just wrapped my arms around him.
He pulled me tight against his chest, burying his face in my neck. He smelled like gunpowder and rain. We stood there in the wreckage of my mother’s diner, holding onto each other as the nightmare finally ended.
Ten minutes later, Marco and a dozen loyal syndicate men swarmed the diner.
They secured the perimeter. They found my mother and Matthew safely waiting in the back alley.
Dominic walked out the back door.
Matthew ran to him, throwing his arms around his father’s waist.
“Dad!”
“I’m here, buddy,” Dominic murmured, kissing the top of his head. “The bad men are gone. Forever.”
Marco approached Dominic, speaking quietly.
“Boss. We cleared the warehouse. Paul is dead. He bled out before we got there. And Elena is secured in the basement vault back at the estate.”
“Turn her over to the Commission,” Dominic ordered coldly. “Let them handle her treason.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marco paused.
“Boss, we found something on Vincent’s body. Tucked inside his jacket pocket.”
Marco handed Dominic a small, velvet pouch.
Dominic opened it.
He poured the contents into his palm.
It was a delicate, wooden rosary.
The beads were worn smooth from years of prayer.
Dominic stared at it, the Reversal hitting him with profound, emotional weight.
“This is my mother’s rosary,” Dominic whispered.
I stepped closer. “Why did Vincent have it?”
Dominic turned the small wooden cross over in his fingers.
“Because she didn’t die without a fight,” Dominic realized, a tear finally escaping his eye. “She knew he was poisoning her. She took this off to leave a sign. She hid it in his pocket before the pills took effect, knowing he wouldn’t find it until later. Knowing it would haunt him.”
It wasn’t just a rosary.
It was proof that his mother had loved him until her final breath, fighting to protect him even as she died.
Dominic closed his fist around the rosary, holding it to his heart.
He looked at me.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
I looked at the ruined diner. My mother’s life work, flooded and destroyed.
“I have to stay,” I said softly. “I have to help my mom clean this up. We have to rebuild.”
Dominic walked over to me.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny roll of paper with the offshore account codes.
He handed it to Marco.
“Transfer five million dollars from the emergency fund to a new account,” Dominic ordered.
“Under whose name, sir?”
May you like
Dominic looked directly at me.
“Grace Turner’s.”
