Chapter 5 - THE HEIRLOOM BRACELET
The silence in the ruined bedroom was suffocating.
I stared at the heavy diamond and sapphire bracelet on Victoria’s wrist. The sparkling stones looked like poison.
Twenty-four years ago, I was just a little girl sitting in the hallway of the hospice, drawing with cheap crayons, waiting for my mother to finish her shift. I remembered the screaming. I remembered the terrible, heavy thud of a body hitting the bottom of the wooden staircase.
And I remembered the woman who stood at the top of the stairs, looking down, adjusting a diamond bracelet on her wrist before turning and walking away.
The police had called it a tragic fall. They said my mother, weakened by her cancer, had simply lost her balance.
But I knew what I saw. And I drew it.
"You pushed her," I whispered, stepping toward Victoria. I gently set Lily down, keeping her safely behind my legs. "My mother didn't die from her illness. She died because of you."
Victoria’s tear-streaked face hardened. The pathetic, frightened act vanished, replaced by a cold, arrogant sneer.
"Your mother was a meddling old fool," Victoria spat, pushing herself up from the floor. She glared at me, completely ignoring the gun Adrian still held. "She wasn't just a nanny, Emily. Rosa was Isabella’s confidant. When Isabella found my father’s ledgers, she didn't hide them in the mansion. She hid them with your mother."
My stomach twisted.
"We knew Isabella went to the hospice," Victoria continued, her voice dripping with venom. "After my father handled Isabella’s... accident... I went to the hospice to retrieve the ledger. I confronted your mother at the top of the stairs. I offered her money. I offered her a better hospital. She refused. She told me she would rather die than betray Isabella’s trust."
Victoria smiled, a cruel, soulless expression.
"So, I obliged her."
A raw, blinding rage ignited in my chest. Two years of playing the quiet, invisible maid burned away in an instant. The woman standing in front of me had stolen my mother. She had stolen Isabella. She had traumatized Lily.
I didn't think. I just reacted.
I lunged forward, my hand shooting out. I didn't hit her face. I grabbed her wrist.
My fingers clamped down hard around the diamond and sapphire bracelet. With a violent, twisting pull, I ripped it completely off her arm.
The heavy gold clasp snapped. Victoria shrieked, clutching her wrist as the bracelet came away in my hand.
"You don't deserve to wear this!" I yelled, my voice breaking with years of repressed grief. "You don't deserve anything!"
Victoria raised her hand to slap me, her eyes wild with fury.
Before her hand could even move forward, Adrian was there.
He grabbed Victoria by the throat, slamming her brutally against the wall of my bedroom. The impact rattled the cheap picture frames hanging nearby.
"You touch her," Adrian growled, his face inches from Victoria’s, his voice vibrating with lethal intent, "and I won't just kill you, Victoria. I will erase your entire family from the history of this city. Do you understand me?"
Victoria choked, clawing frantically at Adrian’s massive hand, her eyes bulging with terror. She managed a frantic nod.
Adrian released her, letting her crumple to the floor, gasping for air.
He turned to me. His anger evaporated, replaced by a deep, anchoring calm.
"Emily," he said quietly. "Are you okay?"
I looked down at the broken bracelet in my hand. I was shaking, but not from fear. I felt lighter. The truth I had carried inside me as a child, the memory I thought I had made up because the police told me I was wrong, was real.
I nodded. "I'm okay."
"Good," Adrian said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, black cell phone. He dialed a number and held it to his ear.
"Marcus," Adrian said into the phone.
My head snapped up. Marcus. Adrian’s right-hand man. The second-in-command of the Moretti empire.
"Carlo Bellini is unconscious on the second floor," Adrian commanded, his voice all business. "Victoria is secured. I need a cleanup crew. Bring the heavy transport. We are taking the Bellinis to the warehouse on 5th Street for a long conversation."
Adrian paused, listening to the voice on the other end of the line.
"Yes," Adrian replied. "The alliance is over. Lock down the estate. Nobody gets in or out without my explicit order."
He hung up the phone and looked at me.
"Marcus and his team are in the west wing," Adrian said. "They will be here in two minutes to take out the trash." He looked down at Victoria with absolute disgust.
"What about the men waiting at the gates?" I asked, my heart still racing. "Carlo brought twelve armed men."
"Marcus has thirty guards stationed on the grounds," Adrian said confidently. "The Bellini men won't make it past the front lawn. We are safe."
He walked over to Lily, who was still clutching my leg. He knelt down, wrapping his large arms around her small body, kissing the top of her head.
"It's over, principessa," Adrian whispered, holding his daughter tighter than I had ever seen him hold her. "The bad people are never going to hurt us again. I promise."
It felt like the nightmare was finally ending. The villains were caught. The truth was out.
But as Adrian stood up, I looked at the heavy brass candlestick laying on the floor near Victoria’s knees.
Something wasn't right.
Victoria was a desperate, vicious woman, but she wasn't stupid. She had come to my room looking for the ledger. She knew Isabella had given it to my mother.
"Victoria," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet room.
She looked up at me, rubbing her bruised throat, her eyes full of venom.
"If you pushed my mother down the stairs to get the ledger twenty-four years ago," I asked, my mind racing to connect the pieces, "why were you tearing my room apart tonight looking for it? Didn't you take it from her body at the hospice?"
Victoria laughed. A bitter, hollow, hysterical sound.
"Take it from her body?" Victoria rasped. "I couldn't. I searched her pockets before the nurses arrived. The ledger wasn't there."
"Then where is it?" Adrian demanded.
"I don't know!" Victoria yelled. "Your mother told me she passed it to someone else before I got there, Emily! She said she gave it to the only person Isabella truly trusted. The man who was supposed to drive Isabella out of the city that night!"
Adrian froze.
The color completely drained from his face.
"Who?" Adrian whispered. "Who was supposed to drive her?"
Victoria looked at Adrian, a twisted, victorious smile spreading across her bruised face.
"Don't you know, Adrian?" Victoria sneered. "Who is the only man in your organization who had unrestricted access to your cars? Who is the only man Isabella trusted besides you?"
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed in the hallway outside my open bedroom door.
Adrian and I turned slowly.
Standing in the doorway, stepping over Carlo Bellini’s unconscious body, was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark tailored suit.
He was holding a suppressed pistol. But it wasn't pointed at Victoria.
It was pointed directly at Adrian's chest.
"Hello, Adrian," the man said calmly.
It was Marcus.
Adrian’s most loyal friend. His right-hand man.
"Marcus?" Adrian breathed, absolute betrayal fracturing his voice. "What is this?"
Marcus didn't blink. He reached into his coat pocket with his free hand and pulled out a small, leather-bound book.
May you like
The missing Bellini ledger.
"I'm sorry, boss," Marcus said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "But Carlo offered me half the territory to make the ledger disappear. And I’m afraid you've outlived your usefulness."
