Chapter 3 - THE ROSARY ON THE EMPTY BED
The emergency backup lights flickered on, casting a harsh, bloody glow across the library.
Standing in the doorway was a man we had never seen before. He was dressed in a tactical black uniform, holding an assault rifle aimed perfectly at Luca’s chest.
Two more armed men stepped in behind him.
They weren’t Luca’s guards. They were a professional strike team.
“Drop the weapon, Mr. DeSantis,” the lead mercenary ordered. His voice was calm, dead, and utterly professional.
Luca didn’t flinch. He kept the gun pressed to Richard’s head. “Who the hell are you?”
“We represent the Board,” the man said. “And the Board has decided Mr. Cole is no longer effective.”
Richard’s face drained of color. The arrogance vanished, replaced by sheer, animal terror. “No! Wait! I have the trust documents! I can still get the signatures!”
“The Board doesn’t need signatures anymore,” the mercenary said. “They’re taking the estate by force.”
The mercenary casually adjusted his aim and fired a single, silenced shot.
Not at Luca.
At Richard.
The lawyer gasped, his eyes going wide as a red stain bloomed across his chest. He collapsed onto the Persian rug, dead before he realized he had been discarded.
Grace screamed. Celeste covered her mouth, backing into the corner.
Dr. Warren tried to run toward the door, but the second mercenary grabbed him by the collar, throwing him brutally against the wall.
“You’re coming with us, Doctor,” the guard sneered. “The facility needs a new medical director.”
I moved instinctively, stepping in front of Rose to shield her. I was a nurse. I was trained to save lives, not watch them end in a mafia library. But my heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear my own thoughts.
“Take the women to the basement,” the lead mercenary ordered. “Keep DeSantis alive. We need his biometric access for the offshore accounts.”
Before they could move, a deafening crash echoed from the front of the house.
The heavy oak doors of the mansion were blown completely off their hinges.
Gunfire erupted in the foyer.
The mercenaries spun around, raising their rifles.
Through the smoke and falling plaster, Michael Romano walked into the room. He was holding a pump-action shotgun, flanked by ten of Luca’s most loyal, heavily armed men.
“Get away from my wife,” Michael said.
The brief firefight was brutal and over in less than ten seconds. Luca’s men overwhelmed the strike team.
Celeste ran across the room, throwing herself into Michael’s arms. She sobbed violently into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Michael. I’m so sorry.”
Michael held her tight, his eyes squeezed shut. “I know, Cece. I know everything. You’re safe now.”
Luca stood up, wiping a splatter of Richard’s blood from his cheek. He looked at Michael. “You brought my men.”
“I’ve been watching this house for seven years, Luca,” Michael said. “When Rose called me, I knew the Board would make a move. I intercepted your security detail outside and told them the truth.”
Luca nodded once. A silent pact of respect between two men whose lives had been destroyed by the same people.
“The lawyer is dead,” Luca said coldly. “And he said my daughter isn’t at St. Jude’s anymore.”
Michael reached into his pocket. “He was lying.”
Michael pulled out a GPS tracker monitor. A blinking red dot pulsed on the small screen.
“Seven years ago, Maria asked me to find her,” Michael explained. “I bribed a nurse at St. Jude’s to sew a tracker into the lining of Sofia’s winter coat. The signal hasn’t moved in three years. She is still there.”
Luca didn’t waste a single second. He turned to his head of security. “Fuel the jet. We leave for New York in ten minutes.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said, grabbing my medical bag.
Luca stopped and looked at me. “It’s going to be a warzone, Emily. You’ve done enough. You saved my mother.”
“Your daughter has been medically tortured for seven years,” I fired back, my voice hard. “She is going to need a nurse, not a mafia boss with a gun. I’m coming.”
Luca stared at me for a long moment. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched into the faintest hint of a smile.
“Try to keep up,” he said.
Three hours later, we kicked down the reinforced steel doors of St. Jude’s Long-Term Care facility.
The building was supposed to be a hospital. It looked like a prison. Concrete walls, flickering fluorescent lights, and a heavy smell of bleach and decay.
Luca’s men neutralized the private security within minutes.
We sprinted down the third-floor corridor, following the blinking dot on Michael’s tracker.
Room 304.
Luca blew the electronic lock off the door with his handgun. He kicked it open.
“Sofia!” he yelled, his voice cracking with the desperate hope of a father meeting his child for the first time in seven years.
But the room was completely empty.
The bed was made. The closet was bare.
My stomach dropped. We were too late.
Then, Grace walked slowly toward the small bedside table.
Resting perfectly in the center of the table was a delicate, silver rosary.
Grace picked it up, her hands trembling violently.
“This was Mom’s,” Grace whispered. “She was holding it the night she died.”
But beneath the rosary was something worse.
A small, handwritten note on a prescription pad.
I recognized the handwriting immediately. It belonged to Dr. Warren.
Luca, the note read. Did you really think I came to your house tonight without a backup plan? Look out the window.
Luca rushed to the reinforced glass.
I stood beside him, looking down into the courtyard.
A black medical transport van was speeding out of the rear gates.
And standing in the courtyard, watching us from below, was a woman holding a lighter.
She dropped it into a trail of gasoline.
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The entire east wing of the hospital exploded in a wall of fire.
TITLE: THE CHILD’S DRAWING IN THE FIRE
