Chapter 5 – The Voicemail

I stared at the photograph until the edges blurred. My father, the gentle man who used to make me pancakes on Sundays, standing in a warehouse with Daniel Reed, laundering mafia money.

“That’s a lie,” I choked out, handing the photo back. “My father was a schoolteacher.”

“He was a bookkeeper,” Luca corrected gently. “Daniel got him involved. When my uncle found out money was missing, Daniel panicked. He ran your father off the road to silence him.”

The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. That was why Daniel had the watch. He had taken it as a trophy, or to stage a robbery.

“And my mother?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Sophie said my mother signed the autopsy report for your wife.”

Luca looked away, out into the rain. “My wife’s boating accident wasn’t an accident. She was murdered. Daniel and Vanessa paid your mother to falsify the report, making it look like a drowning. They blackmailed her with your father’s theft to force her hand. When I started digging into the accident months later, your mother panicked and turned to alcohol.”

I leaned against the cold frame of the SUV, the air completely knocked out of my lungs. I hadn’t just been a victim of circumstance. I had been a pawn in Vanessa and Daniel’s game for years.

“Why didn’t you fire me when you found out?” I asked.

“Because you loved Sophie,” Luca said simply. “And because I owed you the truth. But I needed proof before I could move against Daniel.”

He ushered us into his town car. “We can’t go to the brownstone. They’ll expect that. We’re going to a safe house in the city.”

We drove in silence. Sophie fell asleep against my shoulder, exhausted by the trauma. I held the antique pearl necklace she had taken from Vanessa, the cold beads pressing into my palm.

As we pulled into a dark, underground parking garage beneath a luxury high-rise, my cell phone buzzed.

It wasn’t a call. It was a voicemail notification.

I pressed play and held it to my ear.

“Emily,” Vanessa’s voice purred through the speaker. “I see you survived the brake failure. Pity. I wanted this to be clean. But since you and Luca want to play hero, I thought I should secure some leverage.”

There was a muffled sound in the background. A girl crying.

“Say hello to your sister, Emily,” Vanessa said.

My blood turned to ice. My younger sister, Maya, was supposed to be at college in Boston.

“Bring me the pearl necklace you let that brat steal from my purse,” Vanessa commanded. “And bring me Luca’s vault codes. You have two hours, or Maya is going to have a tragic accident of her own.”