Chapter 6 - THE MUSIC BOX
The explosion tore through the night like a physical blow.
The ground shook, throwing Clara and Leo flat against the manicured lawn. A massive fireball erupted from the first-floor kitchen windows, shattering glass and sending a shockwave of heat over them.
Clara looked up, terrified.
Rico had been thrown from the window by the blast. He landed heavily in the azalea bushes ten feet away, rolling to a stop on the grass.
“Rico!” Clara scrambled to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in her ankle. She pulled Leo up and ran to the bushes.
Rico was covered in dirt and blood, a deep laceration across his forehead, his custom suit torn at the shoulder. He groaned, pushing himself up on one arm. His right arm hung uselessly at his side, the fabric soaked in dark blood from a piece of flying shrapnel.
“I’m alright,” Rico rasped, though his pale face betrayed him. He looked at Leo, grabbing his son with his good arm and pulling him close. “Are you hurt? Clara?”
“We’re fine,” Clara said, pulling off her apron and rapidly tying it tight around his bleeding bicep to stem the flow. “We need a car. Dante’s men will be coming out to check the bodies.”
“The garage is gone,” Rico said, pointing to the flaming wreckage of the estate. “They’ll have the perimeter locked down.”
“I have my car,” Clara said.
Rico blinked. “You drove here?”
“I parked three blocks down the street because your guards wouldn't let my 2008 Honda Civic through the gates,” Clara said, her voice shaking but determined. “If we can get over the back wall, we can walk there.”
Rico stared at her, an unexpected spark of respect flashing in his exhausted eyes. He reached into his pocket with his good hand and pulled out a small, ornate wooden music box.
Clara recognized it. It had been sitting on Elena’s vanity in the nursery before the explosion.
“You went back for a music box?” Clara asked incredulously as sirens began wailing in the distance.
“Dante thinks he won,” Rico gritted his teeth, leaning heavily on Clara’s shoulder as they limped toward the dark tree line at the back of the property. “He thinks killing me gives him the Moretti empire. But my father didn't leave the syndicate’s offshore accounts in a ledger. He left them in a safety deposit box in Manhattan. Whoever has the key, controls the money.”
He flipped the music box open. The tiny ballerina inside was broken.
The secret compartment beneath the velvet lining was empty.
Rico stopped walking. The blood drained from his face completely. “It’s gone.”
Clara looked at the empty box, then down at Leo.
The three-year-old was holding her hand, his face smeared with soot. He looked up at his father, then pointed a small, dirty finger at his own mouth.
“Shiny,” Leo said simply.
Clara’s heart stopped. “Leo… did you put the shiny key in your mouth?”
Leo nodded solemnly. “Hide it from the bad man.”
Rico let out a breathless curse. “When? When did he swallow it?”
“Two days ago,” Leo said, holding up two little fingers.
Clara’s mind raced. “Two days ago… Rico, his diaper bag. When the nanny brought him to the restaurant tonight, she left his backup diaper bag in the employee coat room.”
Rico looked at her, the realization hitting him like a freight train. The key to the entire Moretti criminal empire had passed through the digestive tract of a toddler, and it was currently sitting in a soiled diaper inside a canvas bag at Il Stellino.
“We have to go back to the restaurant,” Rico said.
“No,” Clara said, pulling him forward toward the stone wall. “Dante will have men watching Il Stellino. We have to go somewhere he won’t expect us. Somewhere he is completely vulnerable.”
May you like
Rico frowned. “Where?”
Clara looked at the smoke billowing into the Brooklyn sky. “We’re going to the St. Jude Pediatric Clinic in upstate New York. We’re going to find Dante’s son.”
