Chapter 2 – THE SILVER ROSARY

I stared at the silver beads gleaming against the dark oak floorboards.

My grandmother had a rosary just like it, but this one was unmistakable. It bore the heavy silver cross of the late patriarch, Giovanni Moretti. Luca kept it locked in the private family study.

If this rosary was dropped here, it meant someone with access to Luca’s inner sanctum had searched my coat.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Luca appeared in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the frame. Michael and Enzo, the investigator, were right behind him.

“Do you have it, Emily?” Luca asked, his voice tight.

I slowly turned around, holding out my empty hands. “It’s gone, Mr. Moretti. Someone took the ledger.”

Michael dragged a hand down his face, a raw sound of despair escaping his throat. “If Dominic gets rid of those papers, I have no defense. I’ll go to federal prison for twenty years.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “Who else was in this hallway?”

“No one from the dinner party,” I said softly. I pointed to the floor. “But I found this.”

Luca’s eyes fell on the silver rosary. All the color drained from his face.

He didn’t just recognize it. He knew exactly what it meant.

“Enzo,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Lock down the estate. No one leaves. Not the guests, not the staff. Nobody.”

“Yes, boss.” Enzo hurried away.

Michael looked confused. “Luca, what is it? It’s just Dad’s rosary. How did it get out of the study?”

“That’s the problem,” Luca said, picking up the beads. His hands were shaking. “I didn’t just lock the study, Mike. I changed the combination to the safe yesterday. Only two people in the world have it. Me. And Uncle Marco.”

Marco Moretti. Their father’s brother. The man who had raised them after Giovanni died. The man who sat at the head of the table tonight, blessing the meal.

A brutal reversal hit me.

Dominic Bellini wasn’t the mastermind. He was just the businessman. Marco Moretti was the one orchestrating his own nephew’s downfall.

“Uncle Marco?” Michael stammered, stepping back. “No. He loves us. He built this company with Dad.”

“And he’s always resented that Dad left it to me instead of him,” Luca realized, his eyes darkening with betrayal. “Dominic couldn’t have pulled off the waterfront fraud without an inside signature. Marco authorized it.”

We hurried back to the dining room.

The heavy mahogany doors were wide open. The guests were murmuring in panicked clusters. Dominic was pacing furiously near the windows. Vanessa was crying into her hands.

But the chair at the head of the table was empty.

Uncle Marco was gone.

“Where is he?” Luca roared, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings.

Anna ran over, gripping Michael’s arm. “He left, Luca. Right after Emily ran to the coat room. He said he needed to make a phone call.”

I noticed something on the table where Marco had been sitting. A small, folded piece of paper tucked beneath his wine glass.

“Mr. Moretti,” I pointed.

Luca snatched the paper. He unfolded it, his eyes scanning the words. His expression shifted from rage to pure, visceral terror.

He handed the note to Michael.

Michael read it, and his knees buckled. He would have collapsed if Luca hadn’t caught him.

“Mike? Talk to me,” Anna pleaded, grabbing her husband. “What does it say?”

Michael looked at his wife, his eyes hollow with a fear I had never seen in a grown man.

“He doesn’t have the ledger,” Michael whispered, his voice cracking. “Marco didn’t take it to destroy it. He took it to trade.”

“Trade for what?” Anna cried.

Michael looked toward the grand staircase.

“He has the kids, Anna. Marco took the children.”

My stomach plummeted. Leo was seven. Sophia was four. They had been asleep in the third-floor nursery with their nanny.

Before anyone could move, a small, trembling voice drifted from the top of the marble staircase.

“Daddy?”

We all snapped our heads up.

It was Leo. He was standing in his dinosaur pajamas, rubbing his eyes.

Anna screamed his name and sprinted up the stairs, pulling her son into a desperate hug. Michael was right behind her, weeping as he kissed his boy’s head.

Luca took the stairs two at a time. “Leo. Where is your sister? Where is Sophia?”

Leo looked up, his little face pale. “Uncle Marco woke us up. He said we were going for a late-night car ride. But Sophia was crying because she couldn’t find her favorite blanket.”

“And then?” Luca urged gently.

“Uncle Marco said he couldn’t wait. He picked Sophia up and carried her down the back stairs. He told me to wait here.” Leo looked confused. “He dropped this when he carried her away.”

Leo held out a small, crumpled photograph.

Luca took it. I stood on the step below him and saw the image clearly.

It wasn’t a picture of Marco. It wasn’t a picture of Sophia.

It was a Polaroid photograph of a young woman standing in front of a modest Chicago apartment building. She was smiling, holding a baby.

I stopped breathing.

The woman in the photo was my mother. And the baby was me.