Chapter 4 - THE BLOOD ON THE YELLOW GLOVE
I dropped to my knees on the wet pavement.
My hands hovered over the bloodstained yellow glove, trembling too violently to touch it.
“Mom,” I choked out, a sob tearing through my throat.
Luca stepped beside me, his massive frame shielding me from the driving rain. He didn’t offer empty comforts. He looked at Marco.
“Where is the body?” Luca demanded.
“There is no body, Boss,” Marco said quickly. “We searched the perimeter. No one fell from the tenth floor. No ambulances have been called.”
I looked up, a desperate sliver of hope piercing my chest. “She’s alive?”
“We checked the security cameras in the lobby,” Marco continued, handing Luca a tablet. “Blair’s men came in at 9:15 PM. They went up to the tenth floor. But they didn’t come down alone.”
Luca watched the footage. I scrambled up and looked over his arm.
The grainy black-and-white video showed the elevator doors opening on the ground floor. Two men in dark jackets stepped out.
But they weren’t carrying my mother.
My mother was walking between them. Her hands weren’t bound. And she was holding a heavy metal wrench from her cleaning cart.
One of the men had a massive, bleeding gash across his forehead.
She hadn’t been kidnapped. She had fought back.
“They forced her into a black sedan out back,” Marco explained. “The blood on the glove is from the guy she hit.”
Luca zoomed in on the license plate of the sedan before it sped away. He handed the tablet back to Marco.
“Run the plates,” Luca ordered. “Find that car.”
We rushed into the building and took the elevator to the tenth floor.
The hallway was a mess. A trash can was overturned. Cleaning supplies were scattered across the carpet.
I ran to my mother’s abandoned cart.
My heart ached. She had been working so hard, pushing through the pain in her knees, just to keep our tiny apartment. And because of me, she had been dragged into a mafia war.
As I bent down to pick up a fallen bottle of bleach, something shiny caught my eye.
Tucked underneath the wheel of the cart was a small, silver object.
I pulled it out.
It was my mother’s silver rosary.
But it wasn’t whole. The chain was snapped, and several beads were missing.
“Luca,” I called out.
He walked over, his dark suit dripping with rain. He looked at the rosary in my hand.
“She dropped this during the struggle,” I said, my voice shaking.
“Not dropped,” Luca said, his eyes narrowing. He pointed to a deep scratch on the metal cross. “She wedged it under the wheel intentionally. Look at the carpet.”
I looked closer.
Pressed into the thick carpet fibers, trailing away from the cart and toward the emergency stairwell, was a faint line of water and dirt.
“She was leaving a trail,” Luca said softly.
He followed the faint scuff marks to the heavy fire door. He pushed it open.
Lying on the concrete landing of the stairs was a single silver bead from the rosary.
“She’s telling us where they took her,” I whispered.
Marco’s radio buzzed.
“Boss,” a voice crackled. “We tracked the plates on the sedan. It’s not registered to any of Blair’s known associates.”
“Who is it registered to?” Luca asked.
There was a heavy pause on the radio.
“It’s registered to a shell company owned by Vincent Moretti.”
Luca went completely rigid.
Vincent Moretti. His uncle. The man who had been banished from the family syndicate ten years ago by Luca’s father.
“Blair didn’t hire random thugs,” Luca breathed, realization washing over his face. “She hired my uncle’s men. Vincent has been helping her steal the money.”
“Why would your uncle kidnap my mother?” I asked, panic rising again.
“Leverage,” Luca said darkly. “Vincent hates me. He hates my father. If he has your mother, he knows he can force me to hand over the territory without a fight.”
He turned to Marco. “Get the cars. We’re going to the shipyard. That’s where Vincent operates.”
“Boss, that’s suicide,” Marco warned. “Vincent has an army there. We need time to gather our men.”
“We don’t have time,” Luca snapped. “He has her mother.”
Luca looked down at me. The ruthless mafia boss the city feared was gone, replaced by a man who understood exactly what it felt like to lose a parent to a monster.
“I’m coming with you,” I said, gripping the broken rosary so hard it dug into my palm.
“No. It’s too dangerous.”
“She left this trail for me, Luca! I am not waiting in a car.”
He stared into my eyes for three long seconds. Then, he gave a sharp nod.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the abandoned shipping yards on the edge of Lake Michigan.
The rain was pouring in sheets. Cargo containers towered into the dark sky like steel mountains.
Luca, Marco, and four guards moved silently through the maze of containers. I stayed right behind Luca, my heart pounding in my ears.
We approached a massive, rusted warehouse. Light spilled from the cracked windows.
Luca signaled his men. They stacked up by the metal doors.
With a brutal kick, Luca sent the doors crashing open.
“Nobody move!” Marco roared, sweeping his weapon across the room.
But the room wasn’t filled with an army of thugs.
There were only three men inside. Two were tied to concrete pillars, unconscious and bleeding.
The third man was Uncle Vincent.
He was sitting at a folding table, calmly smoking a cigar.
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And standing right behind him, holding a loaded gun to the back of the mafia boss’s head, was my mother.
TITLE: The Woman With The Gun
