Chapter 5 - THE BETRAYAL
The gunshots tore through the silent mansion like thunder.
Eleanor screamed, clutching her chest as her knees gave out. Vincent caught his mother, dragging her behind the heavy mahogany pillars of the foyer.
“Emma! Get down!” Vincent roared.
I dove behind the velvet drapes near the coat closet, clutching Sabrina’s silk coat to my chest. My hands were shaking so violently I dropped the empty glass vial on the carpet.
Upstairs, the heavy oak doors of the master bedroom burst open.
Marcus stumbled out onto the landing. His suit jacket was torn, and blood stained his white shirt. He gripped his pistol, breathing heavily as he looked down over the balcony at Vincent.
“Boss!” Marcus yelled, his voice echoing in the cavernous entryway. “She had a gun! I breached the door, and she fired at me! I had to put her down!”
Vincent froze. He stared at his trusted driver, then up at the dark doorway of the bedroom. “Is she dead, Marcus?”
“Yes, boss. She’s gone.”
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the house. Sabrina Carbone—the ruthless, cunning woman who had controlled this family for nearly three decades—was dead.
Vincent didn't look relieved. He looked devastated. He had hated what she became tonight, but she was still his wife.
“Put your weapon away, Marcus,” Vincent ordered, his voice hollow. “I’m calling our lawyers. We have to report this.”
Marcus didn't lower his gun.
Instead, he wiped a smear of blood from his cheek and slowly aimed the barrel directly down at Vincent.
“I’m sorry, Vincent,” Marcus said, his voice dropping its respectful tone. “But you aren't calling anyone. Sabrina wasn't the only one who planned for tonight.”
Vincent stiffened, pushing Eleanor further behind the stone pillar. “What are you doing, Marcus? Put the gun down.”
“Sabrina figured it out,” Marcus said, taking a slow step down the grand staircase. “She figured out that I was the one selling our shipping routes to the Rossi family. She found my offshore accounts. That’s why she went to Dr. Thorne’s clinic today—not for cancer treatment. She went to retrieve copies of my financial records that she hid in a safety deposit box at his office.”
My mind raced. The medical report I found in her clutch—the one diagnosing her with terminal cancer—it was a fake. It was a cover story Sabrina carried in case Vincent found out she was visiting the clinic. She was investigating Marcus.
“You killed the doctor,” I whispered from behind the drapes, unable to stop myself.
Marcus snapped his gun toward the coat closet. “Shut up, Emma. Yes, I killed Thorne. I poisoned his coffee, planted the old man’s hat, and took the financial records. And when Sabrina confronted me in the bedroom just now, threatening to expose me to you, Vincent... I shot her.”
Vincent’s eyes burned with a lethal, quiet rage. “You’ve worked for this family for twenty years. My father trusted you.”
“Your father paid me pennies while he made millions,” Marcus spat. He pointed the gun back at Vincent. “Sabrina’s recording will go to the feds, Harold will take the fall for Thorne’s murder, and tonight, the great Vincent Carbone and his mother will die in a tragic home invasion.”
Marcus raised his weapon, his finger tightening on the trigger.
“Vincent!” Eleanor screamed.
I couldn't just watch them die. I gripped the heavy brass key—the key to the South Side container—that Vincent had dropped on the floor earlier.
With all my strength, I hurled the heavy brass key across the foyer. It smashed into the crystal chandelier control panel on the wall, shattering the glass dial.
Sparks showered the wall, and the massive chandelier above the entryway instantly plunged into darkness, taking the hallway lights with it.
Marcus fired blindly in the sudden dark. The bullet shattered a vase inches from my head.
“Run!” Vincent shouted.
I scrambled on my hands and knees, hearing Vincent dragging his mother down the hallway toward the kitchen.
“You can't hide in your own house, Vincent!” Marcus yelled, his heavy boots pounding down the wooden stairs.
I crawled through the darkness and slipped through the slightly open door of Vincent’s private study. I locked the heavy oak door behind me, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The study was pitch black, lit only by the moonlight filtering through the tall windows. I backed away from the door, praying Marcus wouldn't check here first.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I bumped into Vincent’s massive desk. Something clattered to the floor.
I reached down and picked it up.
It was a small, velvet jewelry box. It had popped open when it fell.
Inside was a delicate gold locket, the kind that held tiny photographs.
I didn't want to pry, but the moonlight caught the edge of a photograph sticking out of the locket. I gently pulled it open.
Inside wasn't a picture of Sabrina, or Vincent, or even Eleanor.
It was a photograph of a young woman with bright blue eyes and a familiar smile.
It was Clara Whitmore. Harold’s daughter who had died of leukemia twenty-five years ago.
And wrapped around the chain of the locket was a small, handwritten note that made the blood freeze in my veins.
“Vincent, thank you for paying for her treatments. Harold can never know you are her real father.”
I covered my mouth to muffle a gasp.
Vincent Carbone was Clara’s father? Harold was raising the mafia boss’s secret child?
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Before I could process the massive secret, the heavy oak door of the study rattled violently.
“Open the door, Emma,” Marcus’s voice growled from the hallway. “I know you’re in there.”
