Chapter 7 - THE ROSARY
“That’s impossible,” I said, clutching Leo tighter to my side. The boy was asleep, exhausted from the cold and the fear. “Why would your sister give custody to Vanessa?”
Luca stared at the paper, his jaw working as he processed the document. “Because my sister was sick. Leukemia. She knew she was dying. But she wouldn’t have chosen Vanessa. She hated her.”
He flipped the document over. The signature at the bottom belonged to Elena Moretti. It looked authentic.
But I noticed something else.
“Look at the bottom corner,” I pointed to a faint, embossed seal on the paper. “That’s the crest of the Donati family.”
Luca frowned, touching the seal. The Donatis were his biggest rivals in the Chicago syndicate. They had been trying to dismantle his territory for a decade.
“Vanessa isn’t just trying to steal my inheritance,” Luca realized, the pieces finally clicking into a terrifying picture. “She’s working with the Donatis. They forged this document. They staged the car crash. They used Vanessa to infiltrate my house, marry me, and then use Leo’s inheritance to hand my entire empire over to them.”
He threw the car back into gear and slammed on the gas.
“Where are we going?” I asked, looking out the window as the city skyline approached. “We can’t go back to the mansion. Vanessa has the police in her pocket. If she claims you kidnapped her legal son, they’ll arrest you.”
“We’re going to a safe house,” Luca said. “And then I am going to call a meeting of the Five Families.”
“To do what?”
“To prove the document is a fake.”
We arrived at a small, unassuming townhouse in the South Loop. Luca carried Leo inside and laid him on a plush sofa, covering him with blankets. The house was heavily armed. Two of Luca’s most loyal guards stood at the front door.
I went into the kitchen to make warm tea for Leo. When I came back out, Luca was sitting in an armchair, holding his head in his hands.
I set the mug down and sat across from him. “We don’t have proof, Luca.” It was the first time I hadn’t called him Mr. Moretti.
He looked up at me. His eyes were exhausted. “The Families require physical evidence of treason before they dissolve an engagement or invalidate a legal document. Without proof that Vanessa caused the crash, she holds all the cards. She gets the boy. She gets the syndicate.”
I looked over at Leo. He was tossing in his sleep, his small hand clutching the pocket of his blue coat.
Something shiny slipped out and fell onto the rug.
I walked over and picked it up.
It was a rosary. The beads were made of dark onyx, and the silver cross was heavily tarnished.
“Luca,” I said softly, holding it up. “Is this yours?”
He stood up, walking over to look at it. He shook his head. “No. My sister wasn’t religious.”
I turned the cross over. Scratched crudely into the back of the silver were letters. Not initials. A location.
St. Jude’s. Box 42.
“A safe deposit box,” Luca breathed, taking the rosary from my hand. “My sister knew she was being hunted. She hid the real will.”
Before we could move, the front door of the safe house exploded inward.
Splinters of wood rained across the living room. Luca’s guards drew their weapons, but they were instantly gunned down by men in tactical gear.
Through the smoke and the shattered doorframe, Vanessa walked in.
She wasn’t wearing her red silk dress anymore. She was wearing a black trench coat, and she was holding a suppressed pistol.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t put a tracker on the brat’s coat?” she smiled.
May you like
She pointed the gun directly at my chest.
“Give me the boy, Sophie. Or you die before him.”
