Chapter 3 - THE FORGER'S TOUCH
“Where did you get that?” I breathed, my voice echoing in the deadened silence of the locked hall.
Vincent took the rosary from his guard. The metal beads slipped through his long fingers. He looked at the chipped cross, his jaw working as if chewing on glass.
“You recognize this?” Vincent asked me, his gaze piercing.
“It was my father’s,” I said, pulling Lily closer. “I placed it in his hands in the casket myself. How is it here? In your vault?”
Celeste let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Oh, God. You really don’t know, do you? You think your daddy was just a poor, starving painter who died of a sudden heart attack?”
“Shut your mouth, Celeste,” Vincent warned.
But she was unraveling. The fear that had crossed her face earlier had mutated into frantic, desperate malice. “Tell her, Vincent! Tell the little charity case who her father really was. Tell her who forged the paintings in your vault!”
My blood ran cold.
I looked at Vincent. “What is she talking about?”
Vincent didn't look at me. He looked at the paintings on the walls. The ones I had been hired to restore.
“Your father, Thomas, was the greatest art forger on the East Coast,” Vincent said quietly. “He didn't just paint. He created leverage. He forged documents, ledgers, certificates of authenticity. He worked for my father.”
The room spun. My father? A criminal? The gentle man who taught me how to mix oils on a palette? The man who smelled of turpentine and peppermints?
“No,” I whispered. “He died of a heart attack. He had no money.”
“He died because he stole something from my family,” Celeste spat, stepping toward us. “And he hid it. My family has been looking for that key for nine years. Give it to me, you little brat.”
Celeste lunged at Lily.
She didn't make it two steps.
Vincent’s hand shot out, catching Celeste by the throat. He didn't squeeze, but the sheer force of his grip stopped her dead in her tracks.
“You touch that child,” Vincent said, his voice a lethal whisper, “and they will never find enough of you to bury.”
Celeste gasped, clawing at his wrist. Vincent shoved her backward. She stumbled and fell onto the cold marble floor.
“Take her to the East Wing. Lock her in,” Vincent ordered his men.
“You can’t do this!” Celeste screamed as two guards dragged her away by her arms. “The Maroni family will kill you for this, Vincent! You know what that key opens! You know what’s on that ledger!”
When the heavy doors clicked shut behind her, the silence was deafening.
I was trembling so hard I could barely stand. Lily was crying silently into the oversized coat.
“I need to sit down,” I whispered.
Vincent guided me to a velvet sofa in the corner of the hall. He knelt on the floor in front of us, disregarding his expensive trousers.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and for the first time, the untouchable Don looked human. “I didn't want you to find out this way.”
“Is it true?” I asked, tears spilling down my cheeks.
He nodded slowly. “Your father stole a ledger from the Maroni crime family. It contained the names of every corrupt judge and politician in the state. He did it to protect my father. He hid it, and he left clues to find it.”
“Why?”
“Because the Maronis were going to wipe us out,” Vincent said.
Lily reached into her pocket. She pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was a child’s drawing she had made in the car on the way here.
“Mr. Romano?” Lily’s small voice trembled.
Vincent looked at her with surprising gentleness. “Yes, Lily?”
She unfolded the paper. It was a drawing of a man with a silver scar on his face. The man who had visited her at school.
But underneath the man, Lily had drawn a symbol. A circle with a jagged line through it.
“The man at my school,” Lily whispered. “He had a tattoo of this on his hand.”
Vincent stared at the drawing. All the color drained from his face.
“That’s impossible,” Vincent breathed.
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“What is it?” I asked.
“That’s not a Maroni tattoo,” Vincent said, standing up, his eyes wide with a terrifying realization. “That’s the crest of my own family. The man who visited her… he works for me.”
