Chapter 5 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING ON THE FRIDGE
The Chef is poisoning the soup.
The words echoed in my mind, sending a shockwave of cold realization down my spine.
It was a code.
Twenty years ago, when the Chicago syndicate was at war with the Irish mob, Marco and I had developed a series of coded phrases in case our phones were tapped or our home was compromised.
The Chef is poisoning the soup meant one thing: The traitor is inside the house.
I looked at Lily. Her big, innocent dark eyes stared back at me. Marco must have whispered it to her at the restaurant before I arrived, knowing she would repeat it to me if things went wrong.
He knew someone in our inner circle had betrayed him.
I stood up slowly, keeping my face completely neutral.
“Take your men to the living room, Olivia,” I said, my voice dripping with disdain. “I will make some tea. If you’re going to hold me hostage in my own home, we might as well be civilized.”
Olivia smirked, thinking she had won. Thinking I had surrendered.
“See that you do, Catherine. And make sure the little brat gets some milk. She’s been whining all afternoon.”
The callous way she spoke about her own daughter made my stomach turn.
Olivia snapped her fingers, and her guards followed her into the grand living room, leaving Lily standing alone with me in the hallway.
I took Lily’s small, warm hand in mine.
“Come with me to the kitchen, sweetheart,” I said softly.
She followed me willingly.
Our kitchen was massive, lined with stainless steel appliances and white marble countertops. I locked the heavy swinging doors behind us, buying us a few precious minutes.
I lifted Lily and set her gently on the counter. I poured her a glass of milk and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said politely, taking a sip.
“You’re welcome.” I leaned against the counter, studying her face. “Lily, does your mommy spend a lot of time with you?”
Lily looked down at her milk. She shook her head. “No. She’s always on the phone yelling at scary men. Daddy is the one who plays with me.”
“Does your mommy love your daddy?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.
Lily frowned, her little eyebrows drawing together.
“Mommy says Daddy is a stupid old man,” she whispered, as if telling a terrible secret. “She says as soon as we move into the big house, she’s going to make him go to sleep for a long time.”
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead.
Olivia wasn't planning a hostile takeover where Marco stepped down. She was planning an assassination. And she was going to use this house—my house—as the stage.
“Lily,” I said gently, trying to keep my voice steady. “Did Mommy ever come to this house before today?”
The little girl nodded vigorously.
She hopped off the counter, walked over to her small pink backpack that Olivia’s guard had dropped on the floor, and unzipped it. She pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.
“I drawed a picture of it,” she said proudly.
I unfolded the paper.
It was a child’s drawing in crayon. It showed a large, imposing house with ivy on the walls. Our estate.
But it was what Lily had drawn inside the house that made the blood drain from my face.
She had drawn a woman with blonde hair—Olivia—standing inside my husband’s private study. And standing next to her, holding a large bag of money and handing her a blue, sparkly circle—my mother’s sapphire bracelet—was a tall man with a distinctive scar across his cheek.
My breath hitched.
I knew that scar.
It belonged to Vincent.
Marco’s Underboss. The man who had stood at our wedding. The man who ate Sunday dinners at our table. The man who had sworn his life to protect the Bellini family.
Vincent was the traitor.
Vincent was the one who had given Olivia the security codes. Vincent was the one who had opened the biometric safe to steal my mother’s bracelet. Vincent was the one who was supposed to protect Marco today, but had likely set up the ambush that got him shot.
And Marco had sent me to Wisconsin, knowing Vincent’s men would be driving me. He thought he was saving me, but he had been sending me directly to my execution.
A sharp, violent knock rattled the kitchen doors.
“Catherine!” Olivia shouted from the hallway. “What is taking so long?”
I quickly folded the drawing and shoved it into my pocket, right next to the photograph of me with the red X.
“Just a moment!” I called back, my voice steady.
I looked at Lily. This sweet, innocent child was the key to everything. She was Marco’s blood. She was a Bellini. And I was not going to let a ruthless usurper use her as a pawn any longer.
I knelt down in front of her.
“Lily, we are going to play a game of hide and seek,” I whispered. “I need you to be as quiet as a mouse. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded, her eyes wide with excitement.
I led her to the massive walk-in pantry. I moved a large sack of flour and opened the small, hidden dumbwaiter shaft that connected the kitchen to the master suite upstairs—a relic from the 1920s Prohibition era.
“Climb in here, sweetheart. I will come find you very soon. Do not make a sound until you hear my voice.”
Lily crawled into the small space and curled up. I closed the wooden panel just as the kitchen doors burst open.
Olivia stormed in, her two massive guards flanking her.
“Where is the tea?” she snapped. Then, her eyes darted around the empty kitchen. “Where is my daughter?”
I stood in the center of the kitchen, wiping my hands on a dish towel.
“She’s safe,” I said calmly.
Olivia narrowed her eyes, stepping closer. “What did you do with her, you crazy old woman?”
“I put her somewhere you can’t use her against my husband,” I replied, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper.
Before Olivia could order her men to grab me, the heavy back door of the kitchen swung open.
A man stepped into the room, shaking the rain off his dark leather coat.
He looked at Olivia, then looked at me.
The scar on his cheek stood out starkly against his pale skin.
Vincent.
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“Well,” Vincent said, drawing a silenced pistol from his coat and pointing it directly at my chest. “Isn't this a lovely family reunion.”
TITLE: THE LEATHER COAT IN THE WINE CELLAR
