Chapter 4 - THE ROSARY IN THE RAIN
The crayon drawing of the airplane fluttered against the handle of the steak knife.
I stood in the doorway of the empty bedroom, my hand covering my mouth. The cold air pouring through the open window bit at my skin, but I barely felt it.
Leo was gone.
Luca walked slowly toward the bed. He didn’t touch the knife. He didn’t touch the drawing. He just stood there, staring at the empty mattress where his six-year-old nephew should have been sleeping.
“Room 402,” Luca said, his voice completely hollow.
I stepped into the room. “Sir?”
“The numbers Frank wrote on the coat-check ticket.” Luca turned to look at me, his eyes dead and dark. “Frank didn’t write them. Adrian did. Frank must have intercepted the ticket from Adrian’s coat downstairs and realized what it meant.”
“Room 402 where?” I asked.
“The downtown hotel. The one you used to work at.”
My breath caught. The Grand Palmer. It was a massive, sprawling labyrinth of a building. Banquet halls on the bottom, hundreds of guest rooms above.
“Adrian isn’t taking a train to Montreal,” Luca said, putting the pieces together aloud. “The ticket was a decoy to make me think he was fleeing the country. He’s hiding right here in the city. With Leo.”
He finally reached out and pulled the knife from the pillow. He took the child’s drawing and folded it carefully, sliding it into his jacket pocket, right next to his dead brother’s silver watch.
“Why, sir?” I whispered. “Why would Adrian take Leo?”
Luca looked at me. For the first time since I met him, the untouchable mafia boss looked utterly exhausted.
“Because Leo is the true heir to the family business,” Luca said. “I just hold the seat until he comes of age. If Adrian controls Leo, Adrian controls the family. And Vanessa thought moving my loyal men away from me tonight would give Adrian enough time to slip out the back with the boy without anyone noticing.”
It made sickening sense. The seating change wasn’t just an insult. It was a tactical maneuver.
Vanessa had isolated Luca so he wouldn’t have his trusted generals around him when the kidnapping happened.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps hammered up the stairs.
Frank DeLuca appeared in the doorway.
He was out of breath, his gray hair windblown, his dark suit damp from the rain that had started falling outside.
I stared at him in shock. “You came back.”
Frank looked at me, then at Luca. “Of course I came back. You think twenty-three years means nothing to me, kid?”
Luca stared at the older man. “Vanessa said you left because you were insulted.”
“I left because I saw Adrian carrying a sleeping kid out the service doors, and I needed to follow his car to see where he was taking him,” Frank growled. “I tried to hand Emma the baggage ticket I swiped from Adrian’s pocket, hoping you’d find it.”
“He’s at the Grand Palmer,” Luca said.
“Room 402,” Frank confirmed. “He’s not alone, Luca. He’s got muscle. Two guys from the Bellini family. They’re holding the kid hostage to force you to step down.”
Luca walked past Frank, his face set in stone. “Get the cars.”
“Luca, wait,” Frank grabbed his arm. “We can’t just walk in the front doors. They have spotters in the lobby. If they see us coming, they’ll hurt the boy.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “Then how do we get up there?”
They both went silent.
Then, slowly, they both turned to look at me.
I swallowed hard.
I had worked at the Grand Palmer for three years. I knew every service elevator, every linen chute, and every blind spot in the security cameras. I knew how the housekeepers moved like ghosts through the building, unseen by the wealthy guests.
“Emma,” Luca said softly. “Do you still have your old uniform?”
An hour later, I was standing in the pouring rain in the alleyway behind the Grand Palmer hotel.
I was wearing my old gray housekeeping uniform. My hair was tied back in a tight bun.
Luca and Frank stood in the shadows beside me, wearing dark coats, water dripping from their collars.
I swiped my old, deactivated employee keycard at the service door.
Nothing happened.
My heart pounded. I tried again. Red light.
“It’s dead,” I whispered, panic rising. “They wiped my access when I quit.”
Frank cursed under his breath. Luca stared at the heavy metal door.
“Stand back,” Luca said, reaching inside his coat.
“No, wait!” I stopped him. “There’s another way. But it’s risky.”
I led them down the alley to a massive steel grate in the pavement. It was the ventilation shaft for the underground laundry facility.
“When I worked the late shift, the laundry crew used to prop the grate open with a brick to sneak out for smoke breaks,” I explained, kneeling down in the puddles.
I felt around the edge of the iron grate.
My fingers brushed against something.
A brick.
I pulled it out, and with a heavy groan, the grate swung open, revealing a dark ladder descending into the belly of the hotel.
“After you, gentlemen,” I said.
We climbed down into the sweltering heat of the laundry room. Massive industrial washers hummed in the dark.
As we moved silently through the aisles of damp sheets, I felt my foot kick something on the floor.
I looked down.
It was a wooden rosary.
The beads were worn smooth from years of prayer.
I picked it up. My blood ran cold.
It didn’t belong to Adrian. It didn’t belong to the Bellini muscle.
I knew exactly who this rosary belonged to.
I turned to Luca, my hands trembling as I held up the wooden beads.
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered. “Adrian isn’t the only one here.”
Luca looked at the rosary, and his eyes widened in absolute shock.
May you like
“My mother,” he breathed.
TITLE: THE MATRIARCH’S BETRAYAL
