Chapter 6 - The Cross In The Floorboards
The silence in the restaurant kitchen was absolute.
The only sound was the heavy, rhythmic drumming of the rain against the alleyway windows.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the floorboards. I knelt down, ignoring the cold, wet tile seeping into my knees, and reached into the deep crack in the wood.
My fingers brushed the cold metal.
I pulled it free.
It was a small, silver crucifix. The edges were blackened by soot, but the intricate carving of the rosary beads attached to it was unmistakable.
My mother’s rosary.
She used to hold it while she wept in the middle of the night, sitting in the dark of our tiny trailer. She told me she had lost the crucifix a long time ago.
She hadn't lost it. It had been ripped from her neck.
I stood up, holding the charred silver cross in my palm.
Adrian was staring at Celeste. The revelation had completely shattered the reality he had lived in for fourteen years.
“You set the fire,” Adrian said. The words were flat, completely devoid of emotion, which made them infinitely more terrifying.
Celeste backed away, shaking her head so violently her wet hair whipped across her face.
“He’s lying!” she screamed, pointing at Sal. “The old man is senile! He hated me! He’s making it up to protect his precious Sarah!”
“I remember the smell of the gasoline,” Sal growled, stepping forward, the baseball bat held tightly in his weathered hands. “I remember you blocking the alley door so they couldn't get out.”
Adrian took a slow step toward his fiancée.
Answer one: Celeste wasn't in the car crash. She had attempted to burn Nico and my mother alive in this very kitchen.
Open two: If there was a fire in the kitchen, how did Nico end up dead in a car crash miles away on the highway?
“If there was a fire,” Adrian said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper, “why did the police find my brother in his car?”
Sal lowered the bat. His old eyes filled with heavy, unresolved grief.
“Because Nico broke the alley window,” Sal explained, pointing to the thick glass panes near the back door. “He pushed Sarah out first to save her and the baby. Then he came back for you, Adrian.”
Adrian flinched. “For me?”
“You were upstairs in the office,” Sal said gently. “You were twenty-six years old, fast asleep. Nico fought through the smoke, grabbed you, and carried you out the front doors before the fire department arrived.”
Adrian’s hands began to tremble. I had never seen the powerful mafia boss look so vulnerable. He remembered waking up on the sidewalk, coughing up smoke. His mother had told him a grease fire had started, and Nico had pulled him out.
“Nico was severely burned,” Sal continued, tears spilling down his wrinkled cheeks. “But he knew Celeste’s family. The Romanos. He knew if he called the cops, her father would have the police wipe the record, and they would come back to finish the job on Sarah.”
Sal looked at the charred floorboards.
“So Nico put Sarah in a cab to the bus station. He told her to run and never come back. Then, burned and bleeding, he got into his car.”
“Why?” Adrian whispered, his voice cracking.
“To lead the Romanos away from the restaurant,” Sal said. “He sped toward the highway to draw their hitmen away from you and your mother. They ran him off the road in the rain. They made it look like a crash.”
The devastating truth finally settled over the room.
Nico hadn't died in a tragic accident. He had sacrificed himself to save his brother, the woman he loved, and his unborn child.
And Celeste had started it all.
Celeste let out a bitter, ugly laugh. The terrified mask finally broke, revealing the venomous, entitled monster underneath.
“He deserved it,” Celeste spat, wiping the rain from her face. “He was a Moretti! He was supposed to marry me, merge our families, and rule the city. Instead, he threw it away for a pathetic waitress!”
She glared at me, her eyes burning with pure hatred.
“You think you’re so innocent, Kate?” Celeste sneered. “You think your mother was a saint? She was a coward! She ran away and let Nico die alone in the dirt.”
“She ran to protect me!” I yelled, stepping forward, clutching my mother’s burnt rosary in my fist. “She gave up everything because of you!”
Celeste laughed again. “And what did it get her? Dead in a trailer park while I moved into the mansion.”
Adrian moved.
It was so fast I barely saw it.
He crossed the distance between them, grabbed Celeste by the collar of her expensive red silk coat, and slammed her violently against the stainless-steel refrigerator.
The impact rattled the heavy appliances.
“You burned my brother,” Adrian roared, the grief finally exploding into a terrifying rage. “You destroyed my family. You lied to my face for three years, slept in my bed, and tried to throw my mother’s legacy in the garbage!”
Celeste gasped for air, her hands clawing at his grip. “Adrian, please! You can't touch me! My father—”
“Your father is going to watch you rot in a federal cell,” Adrian snarled, his face inches from hers.
He reached into his pocket to pull out his phone, ready to call Daniel to drag her away.
But as he pulled the phone out, the heavy, scorched pocket watch fell from his jacket pocket.
It hit the tile floor.
The force of the impact jarred the twisted silver casing. The back panel of the watch popped open.
Adrian froze.
He slowly let go of Celeste. She slumped against the refrigerator, coughing and gasping for breath.
Adrian knelt on the floor.
He picked up the open pocket watch.
Hidden inside the hollowed-out back panel was a small, tightly folded piece of paper.
Adrian pulled it out.
He unfolded it.
I watched his dark eyes scan the writing on the small, square note.
All the color drained from his face.
He looked up at Sal, the old restaurant owner.
“Sal,” Adrian whispered, his voice hollow. “You said Nico put Sarah in a cab to the bus station before he drove away.”
“He did,” Sal confirmed softly.
Adrian held up the note.
“Then why did my mother write this?”
Adrian turned the paper around so we could see it.
In Teresa Moretti’s unmistakable, sharp cursive handwriting were four chilling words.
May you like
I paid the driver.
TITLE: The Blood On The Steering Wheel
