Chapter 4 - THE MAID'S ROSARY
The heavy silver revolver caught the soft, warm light of the restaurant’s chandeliers. The wealthy guests who had been eavesdropping in stunned silence now scrambled backward, chairs tipping over, crystal glasses shattering on the floor.
“Put the gun down, Arthur,” Richard said. His voice was remarkably steady for a man staring down the barrel of a weapon.
Arthur’s polite, elderly demeanor had vanished. His eyes were cold, calculating. “I served the Monteiro family for three decades, Richard. I cleaned up Eduardo’s messes. I drafted the fake death certificates. I even helped Clara construct her new identity so she could hook a whale like you. Twenty-eight million is my severance package.”
I couldn’t breathe. “You helped her?” I stammered. “You’re the one who told us she was a fraud!”
Arthur chuckled dryly. “Only because she tried to cut me out of the vineyard deal, my dear Sofia. There is no honor among thieves.”
He began to back slowly toward the private exit. “Don’t follow me. By the time you untangle the offshore accounts, I’ll be sipping rum in a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty.”
With a final, mocking tip of his head, Arthur slipped through the velvet curtains and disappeared into the night.
The silence he left behind was suffocating.
Richard didn’t chase him. Instead, he turned his furious gaze down to Clara, who was still kneeling on the floor, weeping over the broken locket.
“Get up,” Richard ordered. “We are going to Queens. Right now.”
“I can’t,” Clara sobbed. “If I see her… if I see Elena…”
“You’re going to look your sister in the eye and tell her exactly what you did to her life,” Richard snarled, dragging her to her feet by her expensive silk lapels. He looked at me. “Lead the way, Sofia.”
The drive to Queens in Richard’s black town car felt like a funeral procession. The rain began to fall in heavy, angry sheets, blurring the neon lights of the city. I held the 1998 Monteiro Reserve bottle tightly in my lap, terrified I would drop it.
When we reached the crumbling brick apartment building where I had grown up, I threw the car door open and sprinted up three flights of stairs.
“Mom!” I screamed, pounding on the flimsy wooden door. “Mom, open up!”
The door swung inward.
My mother stood there in her faded grey cleaning uniform. Her hands were rough and calloused, her hair pulled back in a severe bun peppered with grey. But her back was perfectly straight.
She didn't look like a woman who was running. She looked like a queen waiting for a siege.
Her eyes bypassed me entirely and landed on Clara, who was trembling behind Richard.
“Hello, sister,” my mother said. Her voice was calm. Too calm.
“Elena,” Clara whimpered.
My mother stepped aside, gesturing us into the cramped, peeling living room.
“Mom,” I cried, rushing to her. “Arthur is gone. He took all of Mr. Whitmore’s money. He said Clara stole your identity!”
My mother gently placed a hand on my cheek. “I know, meu amor.”
“Why didn't you go to the police?” Richard demanded, stepping into the small room. He looked wildly out of place in his tailored suit amidst our thrift-store furniture. “Clara stole your name, she stole your inheritance, she nearly killed you in a fire!”
My mother walked over to the small wooden dining table. Sitting in the center of the table was a heavy, silver rosary. The same rosary she prayed with every night.
“Clara didn’t steal my identity, Richard,” my mother said softly, her eyes locked on her sister. “I gave it to her.”
I stared at her in shock. “Why? Why would you give up everything to scrub toilets and live in poverty?”
My mother picked up the silver rosary. She pressed a hidden latch on the crucifix, and the bottom of the cross slid open. From inside, she pulled out a tiny, tightly rolled piece of paper.
“Because if I didn’t let her take my name,” my mother whispered, looking at me with eyes full of sorrow, “she was going to tell the police what you really did that night, Sofia.”
May you like
I froze. “What I did?”
Clara stepped forward, a cruel, desperate smirk returning to her face. “Tell her, Elena. Tell the sweet, innocent waitress how she murdered her own grandfather.”
