Chapter 2 - THE EMERALD BRACELET
The explosion ripped through the north exit with the force of an earthquake.
The sound was deafening, a horrible, tearing crash of metal and shattered glass. The floor of The Obsidian violently shuddered beneath Mia’s small shoes. The massive crystal chandeliers above them swung wildly, raining a thousands glittering shards down onto the screaming guests.
Instinct took over before thought.
Lorenzo Moretti didn’t freeze. He didn’t run for the door like the panicked billionaires and socialites around him.
He lunged across the table.
His large, heavy frame collided with Mia, driving the ten-year-old girl down to the cold marble floor. He shielded her entirely with his body, his tailored suit absorbing the shower of broken glass that rained down upon them.
Smoke, thick and smelling of sulfur, immediately flooded the dining room.
“Stay down,” Lorenzo’s voice rumbled against her ear. It was calm. Ice-cold.
Mia squeezed her eyes shut, her small hands covering her head. She could hear men shouting in Italian. She heard the distinct, terrifying pop of gunfire echoing through the smoke. Lorenzo’s bodyguards had formed a protective wall around their boss, their weapons drawn.
“Lorenzo!” Celeste’s voice shrieked through the chaos. “Lorenzo, help me! I’m scared!”
Mia opened her eyes.
Through the haze of the smoke, she saw Celeste crouching near a fallen table. The woman was crying, holding her hands over her perfect hair, acting like a terrified victim.
But Mia saw something else.
Lying on the marble floor, just inches from Celeste’s high heels, was a heavy emerald bracelet.
It hadn’t fallen off Celeste’s wrist. Celeste was still wearing all her jewelry. The bracelet had snagged on the sleeve of a man dressed in a waiter’s uniform who was currently sprinting toward the kitchen—one of the men who had just fired a gun.
“She’s lying,” Mia whispered, her voice trembling but clear.
Lorenzo looked down at her.
Mia pointed a shaking finger through the smoke. “The man running away. He dropped that green bracelet. It matches her necklace. She gave it to him.”
Lorenzo’s dark eyes locked onto the emerald jewelry on the floor. His jaw tightened so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He didn’t need any more proof. The message on the phone. The perfectly timed explosion. The matching jewelry used as a payoff to an assassin inside his own restaurant.
Celeste had sold him out.
Lorenzo stood up, pulling Mia to her feet with one powerful arm. He didn’t look at Celeste. He didn’t offer her a hand.
“Silas,” Lorenzo barked to his towering second-in-command. “Leave her.”
Celeste’s fake tears vanished instantly. Her face contorted into absolute panic. “Lorenzo, wait! You can’t leave me here!”
Lorenzo didn’t look back. He kept his massive hand firmly on Mia’s small shoulder, guiding her swiftly through the panicked crowd and into the kitchen.
They bypassed the terrified cooking staff, bursting through the back service doors into the cold Chicago alleyway. A line of armored black SUVs was already waiting, engines roaring.
Silas shoved the back door of the lead SUV open. Lorenzo practically tossed Mia inside, diving in right behind her as the heavy door slammed shut.
The tires screamed against the wet asphalt as the convoy tore away from the burning restaurant.
Mia sat pressed against the leather door, gasping for air. Her heart was beating so fast it hurt her chest. She had survived.
But as the SUV hit a pothole, the zipper on Mia’s cheap school backpack broke open.
Her schoolbooks spilled onto the floorboard.
And tumbling out right beside Lorenzo’s polished leather shoes was her small, crumpled envelope.
The envelope she carefully guarded with her life.
Lorenzo reached down. He picked it up before Mia could stop him.
He stared at the messy, handwritten words on the front: MOM’S MEDICINE.
Mia tried to snatch it back. “Give it back! Please, it’s all I have for her!”
Lorenzo didn’t hand it back. His dark eyes remained fixed on the envelope. But he wasn’t looking at her handwriting. He was looking at the back of the envelope.
Mia’s mother had drawn a tiny, unique doodle on the corner—a small sparrow with a broken wing. It was a drawing her mother put on all her lunch bags.
Lorenzo’s face went completely, terrifyingly pale.
“Where did you get this drawing?” Lorenzo whispered, his voice suddenly stripped of all its power.
“My mom drew it,” Mia cried, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. “Please, she’s in the hospital. I have to go to her.”
Lorenzo looked up at the ten-year-old girl in the oversized uniform. His eyes searched her face—the shape of her jaw, the color of her eyes.
“What is your mother’s name?” Lorenzo asked, his voice shaking.
“Rachel,” Mia sobbed. “Rachel Carter.”
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Lorenzo closed his eyes. A heavy, broken sound escaped his chest.
“My God,” the most feared man in Chicago whispered. “You’re Thomas’s little girl.”
