Chapter 2 - THE SILVER ROSARY
The medical wing of the Moretti estate was located on the second floor, hidden behind a set of heavy oak doors that most guests never noticed. It smelled of rubbing alcohol and expensive leather. I sat on the edge of the examination table, staring at the floor. My left hand rested on a white towel. Dr. Harris had just finished wrapping my index and middle fingers in stiff medical tape. He was a quiet man. He hadn’t asked how a linen closet door could possibly leave deep, horizontal bruising across the back of my wrist. He just worked. “Keep the swelling down,” he said softly, handing me a small bottle of anti-inflammatories. “Ice it every two hours. You have a minor hairline fracture in the second knuckle.” I nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.” “And Claire?” I looked up. “Stay away from whatever doors close that fast.” Before I could answer, the heavy oak door swung open. Luca Moretti stepped into the room. He had left his own engagement dinner. The twenty-three guests downstairs were likely eating their sea bass, completely unaware that the head of the table was now standing in a sterile medical room, staring at my fractured hand. He looked at Dr. Harris. “Leave us.” The doctor didn’t hesitate. He packed his black bag, nodded to Luca, and slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind him. The silence in the room became absolute. I had worked in this house for nine months. I knew the rules. You kept your head down. You didn’t ask questions. You didn’t look the boss in the eye unless he spoke to you first. But tonight, the rules had already been broken. Luca walked slowly toward the examination table. His dark eyes shifted from my bruised hand up to my face. He didn’t look angry. He looked calculating. Like a man who had just discovered a crack in the foundation of his own home. “Twenty-seven photographs,” Luca said quietly. My heart stopped. My blood ran entirely cold. “Your locker was searched,” he continued, his voice perfectly level. “My security team found an SD card hidden inside your spare uniform.” I couldn’t breathe. “I can explain,” I whispered. “I hope so.” He pulled his phone from his inside jacket pocket and placed it on the stainless-steel counter next to me. On the screen was the final photograph. The image of Vanessa handing a document to his best man, Julian. “My fiancé,” Luca said, tracing the edge of the phone. “And my oldest friend. Standing in my private study yesterday afternoon.” I stared at the photo. I had taken it from the slightly open door of the adjoining library. “You wrote something on the back of the document,” Luca said. “Security enhanced the image. Do it before he says I do.” I swallowed hard. The throbbing in my hand faded beneath the sheer terror radiating through my chest. If Luca believed I was part of whatever plot Vanessa was hatching, I wouldn't just lose my job. In his world, people who plotted against the boss disappeared. “I didn’t write that,” I said. My voice shook, but I forced myself to look directly into his dark eyes. “Vanessa wrote it.” Luca went completely still. “Why were you taking photographs of my fiancé, Claire?” “Because she scares me,” I admitted softly. It was the truth. “I clean her rooms. I do her laundry. For the last three weeks, I’ve watched her pacing at night. I’ve heard her making phone calls in Italian. Angry calls.” I looked down at my fractured fingers. “Poor people survive by paying attention, Mr. Moretti. I knew she was planning something. I just wanted proof so if she tried to fire me, I’d have leverage.” It was a pathetic, desperate strategy. But when you have eighty dollars in your checking account and a mother in a nursing home, you do desperate things. Luca studied my face. He was a human lie detector. It was how he had kept his empire alive. After ten agonizing seconds, he gave a slow, single nod. He believed me. “What was the document she gave Julian?” he asked. “I don’t know. It was heavy parchment. It had a red wax seal at the bottom.” Luca’s jaw tightened. The deed to the South Side shipping ports. It was the crown jewel of his family’s legitimate business front, kept in a secure safe in his desk. “Why would she give that to Julian?” Luca murmured, almost to himself. “She didn’t give it to him,” I corrected quietly. Luca’s eyes snapped back to me. “What do you mean?” “I heard them talking before I took the picture. Julian didn’t want to take it. He looked terrified. Vanessa told him it was the only way he was getting what he really wanted.” I had just answered one question for him. Vanessa wasn’t having an affair with his best man. She was extorting him. But I had opened two massive, terrifying new questions. Why did Julian need the deed? And what kind of leverage did Vanessa have over a seasoned mafia underboss? Luca turned away, running a hand over his jaw. “She slammed your hand in the closet today because she caught you,” he deduced. “Yes.” “Did she find the camera?” “No. I hid it in the laundry chute before she could reach me.” “Then why did she break your hand?” I took a deep, trembling breath. I reached into the pocket of my black skirt with my good hand. My fingers brushed against the cold metal object I had been carrying since 4:00 P.M. “Because she wasn’t looking for the camera,” I said. “She was looking for this.” I pulled my hand out and placed the object on the white examination paper next to him. It was a heavy, antique silver rosary. The beads were worn smooth from decades of prayer. The crucifix was custom-forged, bearing a tiny, intricate crest on the back. Luca stared at the rosary. All the color drained from his face. He didn’t touch it. He just stared at it as if a ghost had materialized in the room. “Where did you get this?” his voice was a dangerous, barely controlled whisper. “I found it hidden inside a false bottom in Vanessa’s jewelry box when I was dusting,” I said. Luca finally reached out. His large fingers traced the silver cross with a reverence that didn't belong to a ruthless mob boss. “This belonged to my mother,” he said softly. He looked up at me, and the coldness in his eyes was terrifying. “It was stolen from her neck the night she was murdered twenty years ago.”
