Chapter 2 - THE SILVER ROSARY
"They found the boys."
Those four words paralyzed me.
Me. Alejandro Moretti. A man who had stood in rooms filled with drawn weapons and never blinked.
But looking at the four terrified little faces around my dining table, I felt a cold dread I hadn't experienced since the night Sofia died.
"Who?" I demanded, my voice dropping to that quiet, dangerous register that usually made my enemies sweat.
Elena didn’t answer. She was frantically pulling the boys from their chairs.
“Come, my little birds. Quietly now. Like we practiced.”
Practiced.
The word hit me like a physical blow. She had drilled them for this. For years, inside my own home, in rooms I couldn't bear to enter because they smelled like my dead wife, Elena had been preparing for an invasion.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the marble foyer.
My head of security, Marcus, appeared in the doorway. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye.
"Boss. They breached the front gate. Three vehicles. Heavily armed."
"Whose men?" I asked, pulling my Glock 19 from my shoulder holster.
Marcus hesitated. That hesitation told me everything.
"They're wearing our colors, Boss. It’s Dante."
Dante.
My Underboss. My right hand. The man who had stood beside me at Sofia’s funeral and handed me a handkerchief when I couldn't stop the tears.
"Take them to my study," I told Elena. "Lock the steel door. Do not open it for anyone but me."
Mateo, the boy who had shown me the picture, suddenly broke free from Elena’s grip. He ran to me and wrapped his small arms around my leg.
"Are you going to shoot the bad men, Mr. Alejandro?"
He had my eyes. He had my voice.
I knelt down, ignoring the shouting from the front lawn. I looked into his innocent face.
"I am going to make sure no one ever hurts you, Mateo. I promise."
I stood up and walked out of the dining room, racking the slide of my weapon.
I stepped out onto the grand portico of my mansion.
The Chicago wind was biting, but I didn't feel it.
Three black SUVs were parked horizontally across my manicured lawn.
Fifteen men stood behind open car doors, rifles raised.
In the center stood Dante.
He was wearing the custom Italian suit I had bought him for his birthday.
"Stand down, Alejandro!" Dante shouted, his voice echoing across the courtyard. "This doesn't have to be messy. We just want the children."
I walked slowly down the stone steps. My guards were flanked in the bushes, waiting for my signal.
"You come to my home," I said, my voice carrying over the wind. "You point weapons at my front door. And you ask for children I didn't even know existed ten minutes ago. Explain yourself, Dante. Before I kill you."
Dante chuckled. It was a nervous sound.
"You really didn't know? After five years, she still managed to play you."
"Watch your mouth when you speak of my wife."
"Your wife," Dante sneered, stepping forward. "Your sweet, innocent Sofia. She wasn't hiding those boys from you because she hated you, Alejandro. She was hiding them because she owed a debt."
My grip tightened on my gun. "Sofia owed no one."
"She owed me!" Dante yelled, losing his composure. "When you were facing federal indictments five years ago, she came to me. She begged me to tamper with the witnesses. I told her the price was high. I told her I wanted half your territory."
"And she agreed?" I asked, not believing a word.
"No," Dante smiled, a sick, twisted expression. "She said territory wasn't enough. She promised me something better. She promised me the Moretti bloodline. She promised me your heirs to raise as my own loyal soldiers."
It was a lie. It had to be.
But then Dante reached into his pocket.
He pulled out an object that made the breath completely leave my lungs.
It was a heavy, silver rosary.
May you like
Sofia’s rosary. The one her grandmother had brought from Sicily. The one I had placed between her cold hands in her casket before they closed the lid.
"She gave me the down payment the night she died," Dante said, dangling the silver beads. "Now, I'm here to collect the rest."
