Chapter 6 - THE KEY HIDDEN IN THE WOODEN ROSARY
Marcus Bellini stood in the arched doorway of the dining room. He was a tall, imposing man in his late sixties, wearing a camel-hair overcoat over a tailored suit. His silver hair was slicked back, but his eyes were wild and desperate. Two large men in dark jackets stood behind him, their hands resting menacingly on the grips of their holsters. “Where is he?” Marcus bellowed, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. Luca stood up from behind the table. He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t raise his hands. He just stared at Marcus with absolute, freezing contempt. “You have exactly three seconds to get out of my house, Marcus,” Luca said. Marcus laughed, a harsh, grating sound. He pointed the silver revolver at Luca’s chest. “My daughter just called me from her car, crying hysterically!” Marcus shouted. “She told me you broke the engagement and embarrassed her in front of the governor’s staff! You ruined my family, Moretti!” “Your family ruined itself,” Luca replied calmly. “Your company is bankrupt. And pulling a gun in my dining room won’t fix your balance sheets.” “It will if you sign the merger documents right now!” Marcus reached into his overcoat and threw a thick stack of legal papers onto the table. “Sign them, Luca. Sign over half your assets, or I swear to God, I’ll kill you where you stand.” From behind the table, I held my breath. Teresa was trembling violently next to me. Michael had his massive hands clamped over Leo’s ears to muffle the shouting. Luca looked at the papers. Then he looked at Marcus’s gun. “You’re pathetic,” Luca said softly. Marcus’s face twisted in rage. He cocked the hammer of the revolver. Click. Before Marcus could pull the trigger, a strange, rhythmic clicking sound echoed from the far side of the room. Clack. Clack. Clack. Everyone froze. Even Marcus lowered his gun a fraction of an inch to look. Uncle Michael was standing up. He wasn’t holding a weapon. He was holding the dark wood rosary that belonged to Luca’s mother. He was sliding the wooden beads through his thick, calloused fingers. Clack. Clack. Clack. “Put that away, old man,” Marcus sneered. “Praying won’t save him.” Michael didn’t stop. He looked directly at Marcus. “I’m not praying for him, Marcus,” Michael said, his Chicago accent thick and gravelly. “I’m looking for something.” Michael’s fingers stopped on the heavy wooden crucifix at the bottom of the rosary. With a sudden, violent twist, Michael snapped the wooden cross in half. Teresa gasped. But it wasn’t broken. The cross had been hollowed out. And resting inside the hollowed wood was a small, perfectly preserved brass key. Michael pulled the key out and held it up to the chandelier light. It had a series of numbers engraved on the head: Box 402. Marcus Bellini’s eyes widened in absolute horror. The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse. “No,” Marcus whispered, taking a step backward. “That’s impossible.” Luca stared at the brass key, then at his uncle. “Michael? What is that?” “It’s the key to your mother’s safety deposit box,” Michael said, never taking his eyes off Marcus. “The box your father swore he destroyed before he died.” Luca’s brow furrowed. “What’s in the box?” “The truth,” Michael said. He walked slowly around the table, holding the key out to Luca. “Twenty-five years ago, Marcus didn’t just bankrupt your father through bad business deals, Luca. He framed him. He planted evidence of federal tax fraud in your father’s company files.” Marcus raised the gun again, his hand shaking violently. “Shut up!” Marcus screamed. “He blackmailed your father,” Michael continued, his voice booming over Marcus’s panic. “He told your father that if he didn’t sign the company over to the Bellini family, he would send the fake evidence to the FBI. Your father would have died in federal prison.” Luca’s eyes snapped to Marcus. The realization hit him like a physical blow. “You stole my family’s legacy with a lie,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “I survived!” Marcus shouted defensively. “That’s what this city is, Luca! You eat or you get eaten! Your father was weak!” “My father took his own life because of you,” Luca said. The words were heavy, carrying twenty-five years of buried grief. Marcus sneered, though the gun in his hand was trembling uncontrollably. “And now I’m going to take yours. Unless you give me that key.” “You aren’t taking anything,” a new voice commanded. Daniel, the head of security, stepped out from the shadows of the hallway. He wasn’t alone. Five of Luca’s heavily armed guards stepped into the dining room, their weapons drawn and aimed directly at Marcus and his two thugs. Marcus’s men instantly dropped their hands from their holsters, stepping away from their boss. They were paid to intimidate, not to die in a shootout with the Moretti security team. Marcus looked around, realizing he was completely surrounded. His gun arm wavered. “Put it down, Marcus,” Luca said. “You’re a dead man anyway. Tomorrow morning, I am opening Box 402. I am handing the contents directly to the US Attorney’s office. You aren’t just bankrupt. You’re going to federal prison for extortion and fraud.” Marcus looked at the brass key in Luca’s hand. He looked at the heavily armed guards. And then, desperately, he looked at me. He saw me crouching behind the table, trying to shield Teresa. His eyes locked on little Leo, who was peeking out from behind my apron. “If I go down,” Marcus snarled, his eyes wild, “I’m taking something of yours with me.” Before anyone could react, Marcus swung his gun away from Luca. He aimed it directly at the six-year-old boy. And he pulled the trigger.
