Chapter 7 - THE BRACELET
The scissors slipped from my grasp, clattering loudly against the cheap linoleum floor.
I stared at Margaret, the fragile, wheelchair-bound woman who had just confessed to murder.
"You?" I whispered, my mind struggling to process the impossible truth. "You killed Roman's father?"
"Arthur was going to give them to the Feds," Margaret rasped, her voice gaining strength with every terrible word. "He made a deal. He was going to sell out the Commission, sell out Silas, to secure his own immunity. He was going to take Roman and leave the country. But he was going to leave my baby. He was going to leave you, Elena."
Silas didn't lower his gun, but his eyes softened as he looked at the woman he clearly still loved.
"Arthur found out Evelyn and I were having an affair," Silas said quietly. "He knew I was coming for him. So he decided to destroy everything. He walked into the nursery that night. He was going to kill you, Lena, to punish Maggie. To punish me."
"Evelyn stopped him," Margaret wept, reaching out for my hand. "Evelyn found him standing over your crib with a pillow. She screamed. I ran into the room. Arthur pulled a gun. He shot Silas in the shoulder when he tried to intervene."
"And you shot Arthur," Silas finished. "To save the baby."
I stepped back, feeling as though the floor was disappearing beneath my feet. "Then why did Evelyn take me and run? Why didn't you just tell the police it was self-defense?"
"Because Arthur was the boss of the most powerful crime syndicate in America," Silas said softly. "The Commission doesn't care about self-defense. If they knew Margaret killed him, they would have butchered her, Roman, and you. Someone had to take the fall."
"Evelyn," I realized, the horror washing over me. "Evelyn took the blame."
"She loved Maggie," Silas said, his voice cracking. "She knew the only way to protect you was to disappear and make it look like a kidnapping gone wrong. She ran with you. And I let her go."
"But you told Roman she was trying to smother me," I said angrily.
"I had to lie!" Silas barked, his composure finally slipping. "I had to give the Commission a story! I took control of the family to keep Maggie and Roman safe. I played the villain for twenty-nine years so no one would ever look closely at Arthur's death!"
"Then why are you trying to kill us now?" I demanded, pointing at the gun in his hand. "Why the bomb in my daughter's backpack? Why attack the safehouse?"
Silas looked confused. "Bomb? What bomb? I didn't put a bomb in the child's backpack. I gave her the drawing to bring Roman to me. The attack on the safehouse wasn't my men."
The room went dead silent.
If Silas hadn't planted the bomb... who did?
"The Feds," a dark, bloody voice said from the kitchen window.
We all spun around.
Roman pulled himself through the window, bleeding heavily from a wound in his shoulder. His suit was torn to shreds, his face pale and covered in soot.
"Roman!" Margaret cried out.
Roman aimed his gun at Silas, but he was swaying on his feet.
"It wasn't Silas," Roman gasped, leaning against the counter to stay upright. "The Feds raided the safehouse. But they aren't real Feds. They're a rogue faction on the Commission's payroll. Someone inside the family sold us out."
"Sold us out to who?" Silas asked, genuinely stunned.
"To the Commission," Roman said. "They figured it out, Silas. They know Arthur didn't die the way you said he did. They know Evelyn didn't do it. They want us all dead to wipe the slate clean."
Before anyone could react, the front door of my apartment exploded inward.
Splinters of wood rained across the living room. Men in tactical black gear poured into the small space, weapons raised.
Silas didn't hesitate. He shoved Margaret and Josie behind him, raising his pistol and firing at the intruders. Roman fired from the kitchen.
The apartment erupted into chaos.
I dove for Josie, covering her small body with my own as bullets shredded the drywall above us. The noise was deafening, terrifying.
I saw Silas take a bullet to the thigh. He dropped to one knee, still firing.
A man in black armor stepped through the smoke, ignoring the gunfire. He walked straight toward me. He didn't have a gun drawn. He had a heavy tactical knife.
Roman yelled my name, trying to get a clear shot, but he was pinned down in the kitchen.
The man grabbed me by the back of my coat, hauling me to my feet. I kicked and scratched, but he was too strong.
He pinned me against the wall.
"The watch," the man growled through his mask. "Where is the watch?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" I screamed.
He grabbed my left wrist, twisting it violently. As he did, his thick glove caught on the cheap, woven bracelet I had worn every day since I was a teenager. Evelyn had woven it for me out of blue and silver threads.
The man stared at the bracelet.
With a brutal yank, he ripped it off my wrist. The threads snapped, cutting into my skin.
He held the woven bracelet up to the light. He squeezed the thickest part of the knot.
A tiny, micro-SD card popped out of the woven thread.
"Target secured," the man said into a radio on his shoulder. "I have Arthur's offshore accounts."
My mother hadn't just hidden the map to the warehouse in the watch. She had hidden the money in the bracelet I wore every single day.
The man raised his knife to my throat.
"No loose ends," he whispered.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, louder than the rest.
The man froze. He looked down at his chest. A massive hole had been blown through his armor. He collapsed backward, dead before he hit the floor.
I slid down the wall, gasping for air.
I looked up to see who had fired the shot.
It was Mark.
May you like
He was leaning heavily in the doorway, bleeding profusely from his stomach, holding an assault rifle he had stripped from one of the dead guards.
"Nobody," Mark coughed, spitting blood, "touches my family."
