Chapter 5 - THE EMERALD BRACELET
The cell phone slipped from my trembling fingers and clattered onto the linoleum floor.
The screen cracked, fracturing the image of my mother’s terrified face and Carlo Vitale’s cruel, victorious smile.
Luca moved instantly.
He didn’t ask what was wrong. He didn’t hesitate.
He bent down, scooped up the phone, and looked at the glowing screen.
I watched his dark eyes scan the photograph.
I watched the realization hit him.
The muscles in his jaw locked. The veins in his neck stood out in sharp relief.
“Daniel!” Luca roared, his voice tearing through the quiet mansion like a gunshot.
Heavy footsteps thundered down the hallway. Daniel appeared in the locker room doorway, his hand resting on the holster at his hip.
“Boss?”
“Carlo Vitale is not in the basement,” Luca said, his voice a low, terrifying growl.
Daniel blinked, confused. “We locked him in the wine cellar ten minutes ago, sir.”
“You locked a decoy in the cellar,” Luca snapped, tossing the cracked phone to his head of security. “Vitale slipped out during the chaos. He’s at an apartment on the South Side. I want three cars ready in sixty seconds.”
“Yes, sir.” Daniel took one look at the photo and sprinted back down the hall, shouting orders into his radio.
Luca turned back to me.
I was backed against the metal lockers, my hands covering my mouth, trying to hold back the sobs tearing at my throat.
“Emily,” Luca said, stepping close and gripping my shoulders firmly. “Look at me.”
I shook my head wildly. “He’s going to kill her. He’s going to kill my mother.”
“He is not going to touch her,” Luca promised, his dark eyes fierce and absolute. “I swear on my life, Emily. We are getting her back.”
He looked down at my pocket.
“The text said to bring the bracelet,” Luca noted quietly.
His eyes lifted to mine, searching my face.
“What bracelet, Emily?”
Mrs. Gable’s warning screamed in my head.
If Luca sees his mother’s stolen bracelet in your hands, he won’t listen to the story! He’ll think you’re working for them!
I looked at the man standing in front of me.
He was a mafia boss. He had lived his entire life in a world built on deception and violence.
But he was also the man who had just promoted a maid because she told the truth.
I couldn’t lie to him. Not with my mother’s life on the line.
I reached into my pocket.
My fingers wrapped around the cold metal and the heavy stones.
I pulled it out and opened my palm.
The emerald bracelet caught the light, glittering with a brilliant, haunted green fire.
Luca stared at the jewelry.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t pull a weapon.
He just stopped breathing.
Slowly, reverently, he reached out and touched the largest emerald in the center.
“My mother wore this every day of her life,” Luca whispered, his voice cracking with a vulnerability I had never expected to hear from him. “My father gave it to her on their tenth anniversary. The police said it was lost in the river when her car went off the bridge.”
He slowly raised his eyes to look at me.
The betrayal and confusion in his gaze broke my heart.
“How do you have it, Emily?”
“My mother put it in my coat,” I cried, the tears finally falling. “Her name is Clara. She was your father’s secretary twenty-five years ago. Salvatore Bellini’s men gave it to her after they orchestrated your mother’s crash. They used it to threaten her into silence.”
Luca processed the words, his brilliant mind working through the timeline.
“Your mother was Clara?” Luca asked, his voice softening. “My father spoke of her. He said she was the most loyal employee he ever had. She disappeared a week after my mother’s funeral.”
“She ran,” I sobbed. “She hid to protect me.”
Luca looked back down at the bracelet.
Then he looked at the cracked phone on the floor.
“Carlo didn’t just escape,” Luca realized, his eyes hardening into black ice. “He knew exactly where to go. He knew your mother was the only loose end from twenty years ago. And he knows Vanessa took the adoption file tonight.”
Luca gently closed my fingers around the emerald bracelet.
“Keep it safe,” he said.
He grabbed my hand.
“Come with me.”
We ran through the mansion, out the back doors, and into the cold Chicago night.
Three black SUVs were idling on the cobblestone driveway. Armed men were piling into the vehicles.
Luca opened the passenger door of the lead SUV and helped me inside. He climbed into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut.
“Hold on,” Luca warned.
The heavy vehicle surged forward, tearing through the iron gates and speeding into the city streets.
The drive to my mother’s apartment usually took forty minutes. Luca made it in fifteen.
He slammed on the brakes, the SUV skidding to a halt outside my dilapidated brick apartment building.
The other two vehicles boxed in the street.
Luca drew a heavy black handgun from the holster beneath his arm.
“Stay in the car, Emily,” he ordered.
“No!” I grabbed his arm. “She’s my mother!”
Luca looked at my terrified face.
He nodded once.
“Stay behind me,” he instructed.
We rushed up the concrete stairs to the third floor.
My apartment door was slightly ajar. The lock had been forced open.
Luca kicked the door wide, sweeping the room with his weapon.
“Clear!” Daniel shouted from the kitchen.
I pushed past Luca, running into the small living room.
The apartment was destroyed. The coffee table was smashed, the lamp overturned.
But it was empty.
My mother’s wheelchair was sitting in the center of the room.
Empty.
“Mom!” I screamed, dropping to my knees beside the chair.
Luca was beside me in an instant.
“They took her,” I wept, gripping the wheels of the chair. “He took her!”
Luca stood up, surveying the wreckage.
His eyes locked onto the small dining table in the corner.
He walked over to it.
Sitting perfectly centered on the cheap wooden table was a crisp white envelope.
Luca picked it up.
He opened it, pulled out a piece of paper, and read it.
His face turned to stone.
He walked back to me and knelt down, handing me the letter.
“They didn’t take her to a warehouse, Emily,” Luca said quietly.
I looked at the elegant, looping Italian handwriting on the paper.
Carlo’s handwriting.
Bring the sister to the restaurant. Midnight. Come alone, Luca. Or Clara burns with the building.
I stared at the words.
Bring the sister.
“He wants your missing sister,” I whispered, looking up at Luca. “But we don’t know who she is. Vanessa has the file.”
Luca looked at me.
His dark eyes were filled with a sudden, overwhelming realization.
“Emily,” Luca said softly. “Read the letter again.”
I looked down.
I read the Italian words again.
Porta la sorella.
Bring the sister.
But then I looked at the bottom corner of the paper.
Tucked into the envelope, hidden behind the letter, was a small, faded photograph.
I pulled it out.
It was a picture of a baby girl, wrapped in a pink blanket, lying in a hospital crib.
Attached to the crib was a St. Jude’s Medical Center name tag.
May you like
The name on the tag wasn’t Moretti.
It was Emily Carter.
