Chapter 6 - THE GHOSTS IN THE SAFE
The silver charm bracelet swung back and forth from Emily’s small fingers, the tiny metal charms clinking together in the deafening silence of the dining room.
I felt physically sick. That bracelet hadn’t just belonged to Catherine—it was locked around her wrist the day we closed her casket. The only way it could be under the seat of Michael’s car was if someone had violated her resting place before the burial.
Dominic stared at the bracelet, his breathing heavy, ragged. The veins in his neck strained against his collar.
“You stole from her grave,” Dominic whispered. He didn’t sound angry anymore; he sounded like a man possessed by a demon.
Michael fell to his knees on the marble floor. “Dom, please. Please, you have to understand. I was desperate.”
“You grave-robbing piece of garbage!” Dominic lunged.
I grabbed Emily, pulling her tightly against my chest and turning her face away so she wouldn’t see her father’s violence. Dominic grabbed Michael by the throat, slamming him backward into the heavy mahogany dining table. Silverware crashed to the floor.
“Why?” Dominic bellowed, lifting his brother half off the ground. “Why did you take it? What debt was worth my wife’s dignity?”
Michael gasped for air, his hands desperately clawing at Dominic’s iron grip. “The Morettis! They were going to kill me, Dom! I owed them two million dollars! I didn’t have it! Vanessa said—Vanessa said the bracelet was worth half a million on the black market! She said she knew a buyer!”
Answer One. The woman with the butterfly tattoo—the one Emily drew—was a Moretti enforcer. Michael had let a rival family’s assassin into the house to kill Catherine, all to wipe out a debt.
Open Two. But why was Michael in debt to the Morettis in the first place? He was a Romano. He had access to endless funds. And what was Vanessa’s true endgame?
“You let a Moretti into my house,” Dominic growled, tightening his grip. “You let them poison my wife to pay off a gambling debt.”
Reversal.
“It wasn’t gambling!” Michael choked out, tears streaming down his bruised face. “Dom, I swear to God, it wasn’t gambling!”
Dominic loosened his grip just enough for Michael to breathe. “Then what was it?”
Michael looked past Dominic, his terrified, bloodshot eyes locking onto Vanessa. Vanessa was inching toward the dining room doors, her face a mask of pure terror.
“Don’t you dare, Michael,” Vanessa hissed, her voice trembling. “If you say it, we both die.”
“He’s going to kill me anyway!” Michael sobbed. He looked back at his brother. “Dom… the debt wasn’t for me. It was for Oliver.”
Dominic froze. “Oliver? Vanessa’s nephew?”
“He’s not her nephew,” Michael cried, the truth finally tearing out of him. “He’s not her sister’s kid. He’s mine, Dom. He’s mine. And he’s hers.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
I stared at Vanessa in horror. Oliver, the eight-year-old boy sitting at the far end of the table earlier, the child Vanessa claimed was her sister’s... was the product of a secret affair between Vanessa and Michael.
“Vanessa hid the pregnancy,” Michael confessed, sliding down the table to the floor as Dominic stepped back in shock. “She sent him to live with her sister to keep the secret. But the Morettis found out. They found the boy. They threatened to kill him if I didn’t pay them for protection. I was being bled dry.”
“So you let them kill Catherine,” Dominic said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. “To save your bastard son.”
“Vanessa set it up!” Michael yelled. “She promised them that once Catherine was gone, she would marry you. She would merge the families. She would give the Morettis full access to the Romano ports!”
Vanessa didn’t wait another second. She spun around and sprinted for the heavy oak doors.
“Grace!” Dominic barked.
I didn’t hesitate. I dropped Emily’s hand, surged forward, and grabbed Vanessa by the back of her expensive crimson gown. The fabric tore with a loud rip. Vanessa screamed, flailing her arms, but I shoved her hard against the wall.
“Don’t move,” I snarled, surprising even myself with the venom in my voice. Seventeen years of serving this woman’s tea, and now I was holding her hostage.
Dominic walked over to the antique credenza in the corner of the room. He punched a code into the hidden wall safe behind a painting. He opened it and pulled out a stack of documents Vanessa had placed there earlier that week.
He threw them onto the floor.
Among the jewelry and cash were two one-way train tickets to Montreal.
“You were never going to marry me,” Dominic said, looking at the tickets. “You were going to let Michael take the fall, take the boy, and run with the Romano accounts.”
Vanessa, pinned against the wall by my arm, suddenly stopped struggling. She began to laugh. It was a cold, hysterical sound that sent shivers down my spine.
“You think you’re so smart, Dominic,” Vanessa sneered. “You think you’ve won because you figured it out?”
She looked directly at me.
“Check the corner, Grace.”
I frowned, confused. I glanced back toward the dining table.
My heart completely stopped.
May you like
The chair where I had left Emily was empty. The heavy glass doors leading out to the dark terrace were swinging gently in the night breeze.
Emily was gone.
