Chapter 3 - THE TARNISHED BRACELET
Gunfire chewed through the drywall above our heads.
Dust choked the narrow aisles of St. Agnes.
“Through the loading dock!” Salvatore yelled, moving with a speed that defied his eighty years.
Gabriel provided cover fire while I grabbed the old woman’s uninjured arm, dragging her behind us. We burst through the heavy steel doors into the freezing Brooklyn night.
A black SUV idled in the alleyway. Gabriel’s driver was already returning fire toward the street.
We threw the wounded woman into the back seat. Salvatore pushed me in next.
Gabriel climbed into the front, slamming the door. “Drive. Now.”
The SUV tore out of the alley, tires screaming against the wet asphalt.
I pressed my hands against the old woman’s shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding. She was pale, breathing in shallow gasps.
“Where to, boss?” the driver asked frantically.
Gabriel opened his mouth, but no words came out. The man who always had a plan, always had a safe house, was paralyzed. He wasn’t a Rossi. The empire he thought he commanded suddenly felt like enemy territory.
“Astoria,” I said loudly.
Everyone looked at me.
“Angelo told me a story once,” I explained, my voice surprisingly steady. “In Sicilian. He said if the wind ever blew too hard from the city, there was a brick building above a bakery in Astoria where the flour hides the scent of blood.”
Salvatore stared at me from the passenger side.
Answer One. Angelo hadn’t just been telling me bedtime stories. He had been giving me the keys to the family’s hidden fortresses, encrypted in a language only the bloodline respected.
“Go to Astoria,” Salvatore ordered the driver.
Twenty minutes later, we carried the wounded woman up a narrow, flour-dusted staircase above a silent Greek bakery.
The apartment was spartan. Dusty furniture. Heavy blackout curtains.
Gabriel dropped onto a worn sofa, burying his face in his hands. The silver pocket watch I had given back to him sat heavily on his lap.
I walked into the small bedroom to search for medical supplies.
In the back of the closet, beneath a stack of coarse blankets, I found a wooden first-aid box.
But sitting on top of the box was something else.
A tarnished silver bracelet.
It was heavy, delicate, and deeply engraved. I picked it up, wiping away the dust with my thumb.
The name Isabella curved along the metal.
My mother. My biological mother.
I slipped it onto my wrist. It fit perfectly.
Open Two. Why was my mother’s bracelet in Angelo’s secret safe house? Had she been planning to run away with me before she died?
I walked back into the living room, tossing the medical kit to Gabriel. He wordlessly began patching the old woman’s shoulder. She was stable, but unconscious.
I looked at Salvatore. He noticed the bracelet on my wrist.
His face crumbled.
“She tried to take you back,” Salvatore whispered, confirming my fear. “Isabella packed a bag. Angelo was going to help her disappear with you. But her heart gave out the night before they could leave. Angelo kept her bracelet. He never forgave me.”
I felt a sudden, fierce anger.
“You ruined everyone’s life just to sit at the head of a table,” I said.
Before Salvatore could answer, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
An unknown number.
I answered it, putting it on speaker.
“Tessa,” Richard’s smooth, mocking voice filled the dusty room.
Gabriel’s head snapped up.
“You missed a hell of a shift tonight,” Richard continued. “But I’m glad I caught you. I’m currently sitting in a very uncomfortable plastic chair.”
My blood ran cold.
May you like
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“Mount Sinai Hospital,” Richard said pleasantly. “Your mother, Maria, is sleeping peacefully. The nurses think I’m her devoted nephew. But her oxygen tube looks awfully fragile, Tessa. It would be a shame if something happened to it before you got here.”
