Chapter 5 - THE BLACK ROSARY
I stared at the black wooden beads resting on the cold pavement. My heart stopped beating.
I fell to my knees and picked up the rosary. The small silver cross at the end was slightly bent. I had bent it myself when I was ten years old, trying to pry open a locked drawer. It was my father's. He never took it off.
"Where did you get this?" I screamed at Marcus, who was groaning on the ground.
Marcus laughed through the pain, clutching his bleeding leg. "We needed an insurance policy," he spat. "Just in case the engagement didn't go as planned."
I looked up at Luca. Tears blurred my vision. "They have my father."
My father. A man recovering from a stroke. A man who could barely walk across his own living room without help.
Luca’s expression darkened. He grabbed Marcus by the collar, hauling him halfway off the ground. "Where is her father?"
"At the safe house," Marcus choked out. "With the kid. The Russians have them both."
Vanessa was weeping against the side of the SUV. "I didn't know about her father! I swear, Luca! Marcus handled the leverage!"
"You're both dead to me," Luca said coldly.
He threw Marcus back to the ground and turned to me. "Get in the car, Emma."
"I... I can't," I stammered. "I'm just a housekeeper."
"You're the woman who just kept me from walking into an ambush," Luca said, opening the passenger door. "And they have your blood. You're coming with me."
I climbed into the SUV. Luca shoved Vanessa into the back seat and zip-tied her hands to the door handle using emergency restraints from the trunk. He got into the driver's seat and gunned the engine.
We tore down the winding driveway of the Gold Coast estate, leaving Marcus bleeding on the pavement for the estate guards to handle.
"What's the address?" Luca demanded, looking at Vanessa in the rearview mirror.
"1402 Industrial Way," she cried. "It's an abandoned warehouse near the docks."
Luca drove like a madman. The city lights blurred past us. My hands gripped the black rosary so tightly the beads dug into my palms.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I shouldn't have brought my family into this."
Luca glanced at me. The hard, ruthless mafia boss I had worked for was gone. In his place was a man who looked profoundly exhausted.
"You didn't bring them into this, Emma. My world bled into yours. I promise you, we will get your father back."
We arrived at the warehouse district twenty minutes later. Luca parked two blocks away in the shadows. He turned off the headlights.
He reached under his seat and pulled out a tactical vest and a spare handgun. He held the gun out to me.
"I don't know how to shoot," I said, my voice shaking.
"You don't need to," Luca said. "Just point it. If anyone comes through a door who isn't me, you pull the trigger until it clicks."
I took the heavy metal weapon.
"Stay here and watch her," Luca ordered, nodding toward Vanessa in the back seat.
He slipped out of the car and disappeared into the darkness toward the warehouse.
I sat in the silence, my heart hammering against my ribs. Vanessa sniffled in the back seat. "He's going to die in there," she whispered. "There are ten Russian guards. He's one man."
"Shut up," I said, gripping the gun.
Ten minutes passed. Then, a massive explosion shook the ground. Flames shot out of the top floor of the warehouse down the street. Gunfire echoed through the night.
I gasped, pressing my hands against the windows.
Suddenly, the back door of the SUV was yanked open. A man in a dark suit reached in and grabbed Vanessa by her zip-tied hands. He wasn't Luca.
I raised the gun and screamed, "Let her go!"
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The man turned to me. It was one of the Russian guards. He smiled, raised his own weapon, and pointed it directly at my chest. But before he could pull the trigger, a heavy gold necklace dropped from his wrist.
I recognized the pendant immediately. It was the Moretti family crest. The necklace that had been locked in Luca's private safe.
