Chapter 6 – THE TRAIN TICKET

My entire world stopped.

I stared at the wall, unable to process the words coming through the phone.

My father’s wedding ring?

He had been buried with it fourteen years ago.

“Emily, are you listening to me?” Vincent’s voice pulled me back from the edge of a total collapse.

“How do they have it?” I whispered, my voice shaking uncontrollably. “My father is dead, Vincent. They buried him with that ring.”

“I don’t know,” Vincent said grimly. “But there was something wrapped around it. A vintage train ticket. Union Station. Platform 9. Departing at midnight.”

I looked at the grandfather clock in the corner of the parlor.

It was 11:15 PM.

“They want me there,” I said, my blood turning to ice.

“No,” Vincent said immediately. “It’s a trap, Emily. Volkov is playing games. I am sending Joseph to take you and my mother to the safehouse right now.”

“They have my mother, Vincent!” I screamed, the polite maid completely disappearing. “If I don’t go to that station, they will kill her! I am going!”

I slammed the phone down.

Margaret was watching me. Her wise, ancient eyes were filled with sorrow.

She slowly stood up and walked over to me.

“You are your father’s daughter,” Margaret said softly.

She reached out and took my hands.

“Joseph,” Margaret commanded without looking away from me. “Get the car ready. We are going to Union Station.”

“Mrs. Morelli, it’s too dangerous!” Joseph protested.

“My son is fighting a war,” Margaret said, her voice turning to steel. “But this girl’s mother is innocent. And Thomas Parker saved my husband’s life. I will not let his family die while I hide in a mansion.”

Ten minutes later, Joseph was driving us through the dark, rain-slicked streets of New York.

Margaret sat beside me in the back seat, holding my trembling hand.

“Mrs. Morelli,” I whispered, staring out the window. “How could they have my father’s ring? Did they dig up his grave?”

Margaret looked down. She took a deep breath, her fingers tightening around her pale-pink cardigan.

“There is something Joseph and I never told you, Emily.”

I looked at her.

“What?”

Margaret swallowed.

“Your father didn’t die of a heart attack fourteen years ago.”

The air left my lungs.

“What are you talking about? I was at the funeral. I saw the casket.”

“The casket was closed,” Margaret said quietly.

Tears filled her eyes.

“Thomas Parker became Joseph’s most trusted advisor. But the Russians found out who pulled Joseph from that burning car. They put a hit out on your father.”

My mind spun perfectly out of control.

“Joseph faked Thomas’s death to protect you and your mother,” Margaret explained, crying now. “He gave your mother a new life, a pension, and safety. But Thomas had to disappear.”

“He’s alive?” I choked out, a sob tearing from my throat. “My father has been alive this whole time?”

Margaret nodded.

“He has been working deep undercover inside Volkov’s organization for fourteen years. He is the reason the Russians never managed to kill my husband. He is our guardian angel.”

I covered my face, sobbing hysterically.

My father. The quiet man who used to carry me on his shoulders. He gave up his entire life, his family, to honor a blood oath.

And now, Volkov had finally discovered his true identity.

They hadn’t just kidnapped my mother to threaten Vincent.

They kidnapped her to break my father.

We pulled up to Union Station. The massive, cavernous terminal was eerily empty.

It was 11:45 PM.

“Stay behind me,” Joseph ordered, pulling a heavy pistol from his jacket.

We walked through the echoing main hall, heading toward Platform 9.

The hiss of a waiting steam locomotive echoed in the damp air.

Standing on the platform, surrounded by six heavily armed Russian enforcers, was a massive man in a heavy fur coat. Volkov.

And kneeling on the concrete in front of him was a man with graying hair, his face beaten and bloody.

My father.

Beside him, shivering in her hospital gown, was my mother.

“Mom! Dad!” I screamed, trying to run forward.

Joseph held me back.

Volkov smiled, a terrifying, gold-toothed grin.

“Ah. The daughter arrives,” Volkov said smoothly. “A family reunion.”

My father looked up. His eyes were bruised, but when he saw me, a tear cut through the dirt on his face.

“Emily,” he whispered. “You’ve grown so beautiful.”

“Let them go!” I screamed at Volkov.

“I will,” Volkov said, pulling a heavy revolver from his coat. “As soon as Thomas gives me the access codes to the Morelli offshore accounts. He’s the only one who knows them. Not even Vincent knows them.”

Volkov aimed the gun directly at my mother’s head.

“The codes, Thomas. Or your wife dies first.”

My father squeezed his eyes shut.

“If I give you the codes, you’ll kill the Morelli family,” my father said, his voice breaking.

“If you don’t, I kill yours.”

Suddenly, a voice echoed from the shadows of the train platform.

“He’s not giving you a damn thing, Volkov.”

Vincent stepped out from behind a concrete pillar.

His suit was torn, he was covered in dirt, and he was holding a massive assault rifle.

Behind him, Carmine and thirty heavily armed Boston enforcers flooded the platform, surrounding the Russians entirely.

Volkov’s smile vanished.

“Drop the gun, Volkov,” Vincent ordered, aiming directly at the Russian boss’s chest. “Or they’ll be cleaning you off this train for a week.”

Volkov grabbed my mother by the hospital gown, yanking her up and pressing the gun to her temple.

“Shoot me, and she dies!” Volkov roared.

My father screamed, lunging for Volkov’s legs.

Volkov kicked him hard in the jaw, sending my father crashing onto the concrete.

I couldn’t watch.

Without thinking, I reached into my deep apron pocket.

My fingers closed around the heavy brass object I had taken from Claudia’s discarded purse earlier that evening.

The heavy, antique brass key to the safe.

With all my strength, I threw it.

The heavy brass key struck Volkov squarely in the eye.

He yelled in pain, stumbling backward, his gun firing harmlessly into the ceiling.

In that split second, Vincent didn’t hesitate.

BANG.

Vincent fired a single, perfect shot.

Volkov collapsed backward onto the train tracks, dead before he hit the ground.

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