Chapter 3
The silence in the basement vault was deafening. The only sound was the hum of the climate-control vents overhead.
I stared at Michael, my brain violently rejecting what he had just said.
“No,” I whispered, stepping backward until my shoulders hit the cold metal of the filing cabinet. “No, you’re wrong. My grandmother wouldn’t hide a kidnapped child! She was a seamstress. She went to mass every Sunday. She—”
“Emily, look at the drawing,” Michael pleaded, holding out the crayon-colored paper. “Look at the blue door. I remember coloring that door. I broke the blue crayon pressing too hard. I remember giving it to a woman who smelled like lavender and flour. She kept me in a basement room with a sewing machine for three days before the scary man came and took me to Antonio.”
Lavender and flour.
My stomach plummeted. That was exactly how my grandmother smelled. Every day of her life.
Luca stared at the ledger, his mind working furiously. “Dominic Bellini didn’t sell his own son to my father. He stole a child and sold him to my father to cover his mafia debts.”
“And Antonio knew!” Michael cried, his voice echoing in the vault. “Dad paid ten thousand dollars to the woman hiding me! He knew I was stolen, and he bought me anyway!”
“Don’t say that,” Luca barked, his protective instinct flaring. “You don’t know the whole story. Antonio loved you.”
“He bought a stolen kid, Luca! He bought me!”
“Mr. Moretti!” a panicked voice shouted from the top of the basement stairs.
We all turned. It was Marcus, Luca’s head of security. He hurried down the stairs, his face pale.
“Sir, you need to come upstairs right now,” Marcus said.
“I’m busy, Marcus,” Luca snapped.
“It’s Dominic Bellini, sir. He just breached the front gates. He’s in the foyer, and he brought two lawyers with him. He says if you don’t sign the commercial real estate deeds over to him tonight, he’s going to the police.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed into dark, dangerous slits. The billionaire businessman vanished, replaced instantly by the ruthless street survivor his father had raised him to be.
“Keep him in the foyer,” Luca ordered. “Do not offer him a drink. Do not let him sit down.”
He turned to Michael and me. “Bring the ledger and the drawing. We are going to end this tonight.”
My legs felt like lead, but I followed them up the stairs. My soaked uniform was freezing against my skin, but I was sweating. My family was implicated in a kidnapping. If Dominic went to the police, my grandmother’s name would be dragged through the mud. My mother could lose her job. We could lose our apartment.
We reached the grand foyer. The chandelier cast a brilliant, cold light over the marble.
Dominic Bellini stood by the front doors. He was a tall, silver-haired man in a bespoke navy suit. Beside him stood Vanessa, her mascara still smudged, looking both terrified and triumphant. Two men in cheap suits holding briefcases flanked them.
“Luca, my boy,” Dominic said smoothly, though his eyes were frantic. “I apologize for the late intrusion. But my daughter came home crying with a very disturbing story about a book.”
Luca didn’t stop walking until he was three feet away from Dominic. He towered over the older man.
“Where did you steal him from, Dominic?” Luca asked. No pleasantries. No hesitation.
Dominic’s fake smile faltered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“November 14th, 1999,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “You brought a seven-year-old boy to my father’s door. You owed fifty grand to the Outfit. You couldn’t pay. So you brought a kid. Only, it wasn’t your kid, was it?”
Vanessa gasped and looked at her father. “Dad? What is he talking about? You told me Michael was your mistake with a mistress!”
“Shut up, Vanessa,” Dominic hissed. He looked back at Luca, his composure cracking. “Antonio knew exactly what he was buying. Don’t paint your father as a saint. He wanted a second son, and I provided one.”
“From where?” Michael shouted, stepping out from behind Luca. His fists were clenched. “Who are my real parents?!”
Dominic looked at Michael and laughed. It was a cold, cruel sound. “Your parents? Your father was a degenerate gambler who owed me money. He skipped town. Left you behind. I just collected what was mine.”
“You’re a liar,” Luca said, stepping closer to Dominic. “You kidnapped him to pay your debt to Antonio. And you used a seamstress named Rosa Carter to hide him until the deal was done.”
Dominic’s eyes flicked to me. He noticed me standing in the shadows for the first time.
“Rosa Carter?” Dominic sneered. “That stupid old bat didn’t hide him for me. She hid him from me.”
I froze.
Luca frowned. “What?”
Dominic reached into his coat pocket. Marcus immediately put his hand on his holster, but Dominic just pulled out a small, velvet pouch.
“Your father didn’t pay Rosa ten grand for her silence,” Dominic said, looking directly at me. “He paid her to disappear. Because she was the one who stole the boy first.”
Dominic tossed the velvet pouch onto the marble floor. It landed at my feet with a soft clatter.
“Go ahead, little maid,” Dominic sneered. “Open it. Tell them what your precious grandmother was hiding.”
My hands shook violently as I knelt and picked up the pouch. I pulled the drawstrings open.
Inside was a delicate, silver rosary.
It was beautiful, with deep blue glass beads and a tarnished silver crucifix.
I stared at it. The air rushed out of my lungs. The foyer started to spin.
“Emily?” Luca asked, seeing the blood drain from my face. “What is it?”
I reached up to my neck. I unbuttoned the top button of my soaked uniform collar. I reached under my shirt and pulled out a silver chain.
Hanging from my neck, resting against my collarbone, was the exact same rosary. Deep blue glass beads. A tarnished silver crucifix.
“My mother gave me this,” I whispered, my voice breaking. I looked up at Michael. The world was tilting on its axis. “She gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. She said it belonged to her baby brother. The one who died in a fire.”
Michael stared at the rosary around my neck, then down at the one in my hand.
“I didn’t die,” Michael whispered.
