Chapter 6 - A MAID, A MOTHER, AND A MONSTER
Time slowed to a crawl.
I saw the metallic glint of the pistol in Adrian’s shaking hands. I saw the pure, unhinged desperation in his eyes. He had lost the territory, he had lost the money, and now he was cornered by the boss he had betrayed.
He was going to kill Carmela.
“No!” I screamed.
I didn’t think. I just reacted. I shoved the heavy housekeeping cart forward with all my strength.
The cart slammed into the bathroom doorframe just as Adrian pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was deafening in the small hotel room.
The bullet missed Carmela by inches, shattering the vanity mirror behind the bed and showering the carpet with glass.
Leo screamed, covering his ears.
Before Adrian could adjust his aim, Frank DeLuca moved with a speed that defied his age. He tackled Adrian back into the tiled bathroom. The two men crashed into the bathtub in a tangle of limbs, the gun skittering across the floor.
Luca didn’t go for Adrian. He dove for the bed.
He threw his body over his mother and his nephew, shielding them from the flying glass.
I scrambled on my hands and knees across the carpet, ignoring the sharp pain of glass slicing into my palms. I reached the bathroom door just as Adrian managed to punch Frank in the jaw.
Adrian scrambled toward the dropped gun.
I grabbed the heavy, wooden ice bucket from the housekeeping cart and swung it downward as hard as I could.
It connected solidly with the side of Adrian’s head.
He collapsed onto the bathroom tiles, out cold.
Silence rushed back into the room, broken only by the heavy breathing of everyone inside.
Frank leaned against the sink, wiping a trickle of blood from his lip. He looked at me, holding the ice bucket, and let out a breathless chuckle. “Remind me never to complain about banquet service again.”
I dropped the bucket. My hands were shaking so violently I had to press them against my apron.
Luca slowly sat up on the bed.
He looked at his mother. Carmela was frozen, staring at the shattered mirror where a bullet would have hit her if I hadn’t pushed the cart.
“He tried to kill me,” she whispered, the reality of her terrible alliance finally breaking through her righteous delusion.
“He’s a Bellini, Ma,” Luca said softly. “They don’t care about our family. They never did.”
Carmela lowered her head, tears finally spilling from her proud eyes.
Then, a small voice broke the tension.
“Emma?”
Leo crawled out from under the blankets. He ignored his grandmother. He ignored his powerful uncle.
He climbed off the bed, ran across the glass-covered floor in his socks, and buried his face into my gray uniform apron.
I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms tightly around his small body.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” I whispered, burying my face in his hair. “You’re safe. I promise, you’re safe.”
Luca watched us. The cold, calculating mafia boss was entirely stripped away, leaving only a man who had almost lost everything he loved in one night.
He looked down at the leather ledger still resting on the mattress. The book that could send him to federal prison for the rest of his life.
Carmela saw him looking at it.
Slowly, with trembling hands, she picked up the ledger.
“I didn’t mail it,” she confessed quietly.
Luca’s head snapped up.
“I told you I did to make you surrender,” she wept, clutching the book to her chest. “I didn’t send it to the FBI. It’s all here. The only copy.”
She held it out to her son.
Luca didn’t take it.
Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy silver pocket watch. The one Adrian had stolen. The one that belonged to Marco.
He placed the watch in his mother’s open palm, right on top of the ledger.
“Keep the book, Ma,” Luca said. His voice carried no anger, only an exhausted surrender. “If you truly believe I am a monster, then mail it tomorrow. But if you look at this watch and remember the family we used to be… then burn it.”
Carmela looked at the watch. She traced her thumb over Marco’s initials. She sobbed, pulling the watch and the ledger against her heart.
“What about him?” Frank asked, nodding toward Adrian’s unconscious body in the bathroom.
Luca’s eyes turned cold again.
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“Tie him up,” Luca ordered. “We’re taking him back to the house. The engagement dinner isn’t over yet.”
TITLE: THE EMPTY SEAT AT THE HEAD TABLE
