Chapter 5 – The Mother’s Rosary

The door opened. Rosa wheeled herself in, pushing the wheels with her one good arm. She looked at the ledger on the desk, then at Vincent’s face.

She didn’t look surprised. She looked exhausted.

“Ma,” Vincent said, his voice cracking for the first time since I’d met him. “Tell me this is a mistake.”

Rosa stopped the wheelchair in the center of the room. She reached into her cardigan and pulled out the heavy silver rosary she always carried. She laid it on her lap.

“Marco is careless,” Rosa said. Her speech was slow, but the words were perfectly clear. “He brought that girl into our world. A civilian. A baker. It was dangerous.”

“She was innocent!” I yelled, stepping forward. Vincent put a hand on my arm, holding me back.

“Our world does not care about innocent, Claire,” Rosa said, looking at me with sad, tired eyes. “I saw Vanessa watching him. I saw the jealousy. Vanessa is ruthless. If I hadn’t moved your sister, Vanessa would have killed her.”

The room spun. “You moved her?” I asked, my voice breaking. “You didn’t hurt her?”

“I bought her a new life,” Rosa said. “Far away from Marco. Far away from Vanessa. I paid a security firm to relocate her to a safehouse in Maine.”

“Then why didn’t you take Mia?” Vincent asked, demanding the truth. “Why leave the kid at that house?”

Rosa’s face crumbled. “Lily was supposed to go back for her. But the night she was supposed to leave… Vanessa found out. Vanessa sent her own men. They intercepted the transport.”

“So Vanessa has her,” Vincent said.

“Vanessa thinks she killed her,” Rosa whispered. “But the security team I hired… they hid her. They’ve been waiting for my signal. But then I had the stroke. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t write the checks. The money stopped.”

I covered my mouth, stifling a sob. My sister was alive. Hidden. Trapped without resources because the only woman who knew where she was had been incapacitated.

“Vanessa and Marco wanted to put you in that home so they could take control of the accounts,” Vincent realized. “They wanted to see where the money was going. They were hunting for Lily.”

Vincent grabbed his coat. “Where is the safehouse, Ma?”

Rosa pointed a trembling finger at the silver rosary on her lap. “Open the cross.”

Vincent knelt down, picked up the rosary, and pressed a small indent on the back of the crucifix. It popped open. Inside was a tightly folded slip of paper. A train ticket receipt.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my apron pocket.

I pulled it out. The screen showed an unknown number.

I answered it, putting it on speaker.

“Hello, Claire,” Vanessa’s smooth, venomous voice filled the room. “Did you really think Marco and I would leave town empty-handed? Bring the little girl to the docks. Or you’ll never see your sister again.”