Chapter 5 – THE MEDICAL BRACELET

“The feds?” Carmine shouted from the doorway, his face twisting in panic. “You led the FBI to my safehouse, you stupid woman?”

“I didn’t lead them!” Claudia sobbed, clutching the ledger. “They were waiting for us! They hit the car two blocks from the drop zone. I barely got away!”

I couldn’t breathe.

The FBI had my mother. She didn’t know anything about the Mafia. She barely remembered what she had for breakfast. The stress of being in a federal raid could kill her.

I ran past Vincent, down the marble steps, and grabbed Claudia by the shoulders.

“Where is she?” I screamed, shaking the woman who had humiliated me for months. “Where did they take her?”

Claudia looked at me with wild, terrified eyes.

She opened her trembling hand.

Sitting in her palm was a snapped plastic hospital bracelet. My mother’s medical ID bracelet.

“They dragged her into an armored van,” Claudia wept. “They said they’re using her as leverage to make Vincent testify.”

Vincent walked down the steps.

He didn’t look at Claudia. He looked at the heavy leather ledger she was clutching to her chest.

“Give me the book, Claudia.”

“No!” she screamed, scrambling backward on the gravel. “It’s my only protection! If I give it to you, Carmine will kill me!”

“If you don’t give it to me,” Vincent said softly, “I will kill you right now.”

He raised his weapon, pointing it directly at her forehead.

Claudia froze. She looked at the cold, merciless eyes of the man she had planned to marry. She slowly handed over the thick leather book.

Vincent took it.

Then he looked up at the dark driveway.

“They aren’t feds,” Vincent said.

Carmine frowned. “What do you mean?”

Vincent opened the ledger. He pulled a small, glowing GPS tracking chip from between the pages and crushed it under his heel.

“The FBI doesn’t do snatch-and-grabs in unmarked vans without local sirens,” Vincent explained rapidly. “And they don’t leave the primary target—Claudia—behind to escape with the evidence.”

Vincent looked at his brother, Michael, who was standing quietly in the doorway.

“Who did you sell us out to, Michael?”

Michael swallowed hard. “I didn’t sell anyone out!”

“Don’t lie to me!” Vincent roared. “Claudia was working for Boston. But you hired the muscle to empty Mom’s room. Who were those men?”

Michael’s face crumpled.

“They were Russians,” Michael whispered. “Volkov’s men. I owed them money too. I promised them the offshore accounts if they helped me secure the house.”

Carmine cursed violently in Italian.

The Russian syndicate. The most brutal, unforgiving faction in the city.

They didn’t want to arrest Vincent. They wanted to execute him and take over the entire East Coast.

And they had my mother.

Vincent turned to me.

“Emily. Go back inside.”

“I am not hiding while my mother is out there!” I yelled, tears streaming down my face. “She’s terrified! She’s sick!”

Vincent grabbed my shoulders. His grip was strong but grounding.

“I am going to get her,” Vincent promised, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “But I cannot fight a war if I’m worried about you taking a bullet. Stay with my mother. Guard her.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a heavy silver pocket watch.

He pressed it into my hand.

“My father’s watch,” Vincent said. “It keeps perfect time. I am going to the Russian docks. If I am not back in exactly one hour… you take my mother, you take the real will, and you run to Joseph. He has a plane waiting.”

I stared at the ticking silver watch.

It felt incredibly heavy.

“Vincent,” I whispered, realizing I was using his first name for the first time.

“I’ll bring her back,” he swore.

Vincent turned to Carmine.

“Boston has a choice tonight,” Vincent said coldly. “You can die on my lawn, or your men can get in those SUVs and ride with me to the docks to wipe out the Russians.”

Carmine looked at the Black Rosary still hanging from Margaret’s hand on the porch.

He nodded slowly. “Boston rides with New York tonight.”

Vincent and the men piled into the heavily armored SUVs. The engines roared to life, tearing out of the gates into the dark night.

I stood on the porch with Margaret and Joseph, watching the taillights disappear.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

I looked down at the silver pocket watch in my hand.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Thirty minutes passed.

Then forty.

Margaret and I sat in the parlor. Claudia had been locked in the basement by Joseph. Michael was tied to a chair in the corner, weeping quietly.

Fifty minutes passed.

My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.

If Vincent didn’t come back, my mother was dead.

Fifty-five minutes.

Suddenly, the landline phone on the parlor desk rang.

It was a sharp, piercing sound.

I lunged for it, picking up the receiver.

“Hello?” I gasped.

“Emily.”

It was Vincent. His voice was exhausted, heavy, and completely hollow.

“Vincent!” I cried. “Are you okay? Did you find her?”

There was a long, terrible silence on the other end of the line.

“I found the van,” Vincent whispered.

My stomach dropped.

“Vincent… where is she?”

“Emily, I’m so sorry.”

His voice broke.

“The van was empty. There was blood in the back. And they left something on the seat for you.”

The phone slipped from my ear.

“What did they leave?” I choked out.

Vincent swallowed hard.

“They left your father’s wedding ring.”

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