Chapter 6 - THE BREADCRUMBS
Dominic dropped Marco’s lifeless body, the thud echoing in the empty, hollowed-out vault. The silence that followed was deafening, pressing in on him from all sides.
She already has the boy.
"No," Dominic breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "No, Rosa would never let them in. She would have called me."
Evelyn was already moving, her face a mask of pale intensity. "We need to get back. Now."
They stole a black sedan from the gallery's parking garage, the tires screaming as Dominic threw it into reverse and tore out into the waking city. The morning sun was just beginning to break through the overcast sky, casting long, gray shadows across the wet pavement. Dominic drove like a man possessed, weaving through traffic, running red lights, his hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough to snap the leather.
Evelyn sat in the passenger seat, quietly checking the magazine of her pistol. "If Isabella took him, she won't keep him in the city," Evelyn analyzed, forcing her mind to work logically while Dominic drowned in panic. "She has the money. She has her son. She knows your men will eventually rally when they realize you aren't dead. She needs an immediate exit."
"The airstrip," Dominic growled. "The Costa family owns a private strip in the northern hills."
"Too exposed. The FAA logs everything. She needs a ghost route," Evelyn countered. "Water. She's taking a boat to international waters to meet a seaplane."
Dominic slammed the brakes as they skidded to a halt outside Rosa’s apartment building in Little Italy. He didn't even put the car in park before kicking his door open and sprinting up the fire escape. Evelyn was right behind him.
The front door to Rosa’s apartment was ajar. The lock had been shot out.
Dominic burst in, gun raised, but the small, cozy living room was empty. Furniture was overturned, porcelain teacups shattered on the rug. But there was no blood.
"Rosa!" Dominic yelled. Nothing.
Evelyn walked slowly into the center of the room. Her keen eyes scanned the chaos, looking past the obvious destruction. She stopped near a knocked-over side table.
"Dominic. Look."
Lying on the floor, perfectly positioned in the center of a faded floral rug, was the small, carved wooden bear Leo had been holding earlier.
Dominic rushed over to pick it up, his chest tightening. But Evelyn stopped his hand.
"Don't touch it. Look how it's placed."
The bear wasn't just dropped. It was set deliberately upright, its wooden nose pointing directly toward a small, framed painting on the wall that had been knocked askew. The painting was of an old, weathered lighthouse overlooking a rocky harbor.
"Pier 44," Dominic whispered, recognizing the specific lighthouse from a defunct smuggling route his father used to run. "Rosa knew Isabella was coming. She couldn't fight them off, but she left us a map."
Evelyn pulled out her phone, dialing a scrambled number. "I'm calling in the last of my father's favors. We need to lock down the harbor. Isabella isn't just taking your nephew. She's taking my father's legacy, and I won't let her walk away with it."
They rushed back down to the car. As Dominic sped toward the docks, the radio crackled with static, picking up a police scanner frequency Evelyn had tuned into. Reports were flooding in. The Venetian Estate—Dominic’s home—was fully engulfed in flames.
Isabella was truly burning the old world to ashes.
Fifteen minutes later, they abandoned the car a block away from Pier 44. The smell of salt and diesel fuel hung heavy in the damp morning air. They moved silently through the maze of rusted shipping containers, using the morning fog as cover.
Through the mist, they saw it. A sleek, black speedboat was idling at the end of the wooden dock. Four armed men were loading heavy duffel bags into the hull.
And there, standing on the edge of the pier in a dark trench coat, was Isabella. She was gripping Rosa by the hair with one hand. With the other, she was dragging a screaming, struggling Leo toward the boat.
"Let me go!" Leo cried out, kicking his small feet against the wooden planks. "I want my Uncle Dom!"
"Shut up!" Isabella snapped, her sweet, melodic voice replaced by something harsh and ugly. She pulled a silver revolver from her pocket and pressed it against the side of Rosa’s head. "Get in the boat, Leo, or the old woman dies right here."
Dominic’s vision went red. He stepped out from behind the shipping container, raising his gun, ready to end the woman he almost married.
But as he moved, a cold, hard piece of metal pressed into the back of his own skull.
"Drop it, Dom," a familiar, gravely voice whispered from behind him.
May you like
Dominic froze. Evelyn, a few feet away, spun around, her gun raised.
Standing behind Dominic, holding him at gunpoint, was the one man Dominic thought was safely locked in a basement miles away. Father Thomas. And he wasn't alone. Six of Isabella's guards materialized from the fog, leveling automatic rifles at Dominic and Evelyn. They had walked right into a trap.
