Chapter 5 - THE DOCTOR’S BAG
"Dr. Russo?" I stared at the yellow pawnshop slip trembling in my fingers while Leo rested his chin on my shoulder, his small breath warm against my neck. "He was just at the mansion stitching my foot. You left him alone in the study with Marcus!"
Dominic didn't hesitate for half a heartbeat.
He snatched his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial as we hurried back up the basement stairs into the pouring rain.
"Marco," Dominic barked into the receiver as Daniel held the SUV door open for me and Leo. "Get into the study right now. Do not let Russo touch Marcus again."
Through the thin speaker, I heard a shout from the mansion, followed by the heavy crash of overturning furniture.
"Boss!" Marco's voice came back, breathless and sharp. "The study window facing the side garden is wide open! Marcus is still on the rug—he's alive, breathing steady—but Russo's gone! Left his medical bag right on the floor!"
Dominic ended the call, his jaw set like granite as he climbed into the back seat across from me and pulled the door shut.
Leo shrank back against my chest, his wide eyes darting from Dominic's stern face to the gun holster visible beneath his open coat.
"Who's that man, Mommy?" Leo whispered, his little hand reaching up to pat my wet cheek. "Is he a policeman?"
Immediately, Dominic's entire posture changed.
The ruthless mafia boss who had terrified ten millionaires over dinner seemed to vanish; he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and offered Leo a quiet, gentle smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
"No, Leo," Dominic said softly. "My name is Uncle Dominic. I'm your mom's family, and I'm taking you both home where nobody is going to bother you again. Are you hungry?"
Leo nodded slowly, clutching his blue plastic dinosaur when Dominic reached into his pocket and handed it back to him.
"My dinosaur!" Leo gasped, his face lighting up for a second before he looked down at my bandaged ankle. "Did the bad door bite your foot again, Mommy?"
"It's all fixed now, buddy," I murmured, kissing the top of his head and wrapping the warm cashmere coat around both of us.
While Leo began softly humming to himself and making his dinosaur walk across the leather armrest, I handed the pawnshop receipt and the First Midwest Bank key to Dominic.
Dominic angled the receipt toward the passing streetlights.
"Three weeks ago," Dominic read in a low voice so Leo wouldn't hear. "Dr. Russo redeemed a diamond tennis bracelet from a pawnshop on Cermak Road for four thousand dollars. And Clara's signature is on the back as the original seller."
"Wait," I whispered, leaning forward. "That bracelet... did it belong to your late wife?"
Dominic looked at the item description on the slip, then shook his head slowly.
"No," he said, his voice tightening. "This serial number belongs to an estate piece I kept in the third-floor cedar closet alongside your mother's locket. Dr. Russo was the only person besides me who went near the third floor over the last four years—because that was where my wife Elena spent her last six months when she was sick before the boating accident."
My breath hitched. "I thought Elena died when her boat capsized on Lake Michigan."
"That's what the coast guard report said," Dominic replied darkly. "And Russo was the family physician who signed her death certificate before the city coroner could ask why her sedative levels were so high."
The pieces clicked together with a sickening thud.
"Clara is a nurse's aide at Mercy Hospital," I whispered, my stomach twisting. "She met Dr. Russo there two months ago. If Russo was stealing jewelry from your third floor to pay off gambling debts—"
"—and he accidentally grabbed the silver frame with your mother's locket inside," Dominic finished, his eyes gleaming in the dark cab of the SUV. "When Clara saw the name Sofia Bellini on the back of the locket and recognized the locket from your childhood photos, she realized you were Dominic Valenti's niece."
"So Clara and Russo teamed up with Tommy Romano," I said, feeling a cold ache in my chest at my half-sister's betrayal. "Clara used Leo to force Marcus to help them, because she knew Marcus's father had faked my mother's death."
"Except Marcus wasn't helping them," Dominic said quietly.
I blinked at him. "What?"
"Think about it, Emma. If Marcus wanted you to switch that photograph tonight for Russo and Romano, why was the original locket still upstairs in the cedar closet when we went up there?"
I stopped.
"And why did Marcus swallow a double dose of his heart medication in my study right before Dr. Russo walked in?" Dominic continued. "Marcus knew Russo was in the house. If Marcus had talked to me while Russo was standing there with a syringe, Russo would have killed him on the spot. Marcus faked a heart crisis to get me and you up to the third floor—and then down into the study where my guards would surround Russo."
My hand covered my mouth as I remembered Marcus's shaking hand at the dinner table—and the terrible, desperate look in his eyes when he asked me to switch the frame.
He hadn't been threatening me.
When he slammed the car door that morning, Tommy Romano's van had been parked across the street.
Marcus had hurt my foot on purpose so I would leave a trail of blood in his car and limp into the dining room—forcing Dominic Valenti to notice me in front of ten witnesses without Marcus saying a single word out loud.
When we pulled through the iron gates of the Valenti estate ten minutes later, the front courtyard was flooded with security lights.
We rushed inside the study.
Marcus was sitting up on the sofa with an ice pack on his chest, Marco standing beside him.
On the rug lay Dr. Russo's black leather medical bag, its brass clasp sprung open.
"He didn't try to kill me," Marcus rasped as soon as we walked in, his eyes going straight to Leo in my arms and softening with immense relief. "Thank God you found him. Russo didn't come in here to silence me, Dominic. While you were at the church, he used my study phone to call the night guard at your marina."
May you like
Dominic froze. "The marina?"
I knelt beside the open medical bag and pulled out a laminated harbor pass sitting on top of the gauze rolls—along with a freshly printed prescription bottle made out not to Dominic, and not to Clara, but to Elena Valenti, dated yesterday.
