Chapter 4 – THE GOLD BRACELET’S SECRET

I hit the wet pavement hard, the breath knocked out of my lungs.

A man in a black tactical vest stood over me, his face hidden behind a ski mask. He aimed an assault rifle directly at my chest.

“Get the kid,” the man barked to a second figure emerging from the shadows.

“No!” I screamed, scrambling backward and grabbing the man’s combat boot.

He kicked me viciously in the ribs. I gasped in pain but refused to let go.

Inside the SUV, Mia was screaming for her father. The second masked man reached through the shattered window, unlocking the door and dragging the terrified eight-year-old out by her arms.

“Leave her alone!” Isabella shrieked from the ground.

She tried to crawl toward them, but the first man aimed his rifle at Isabella’s head.

“You failed your assignment, Isabella,” the man sneered. “You were supposed to get the kid to the Swiss facility quietly. Now we have to do it messy.”

He placed his finger on the trigger.

Suddenly, a gunshot echoed through the alley.

The man holding the rifle stiffened, dropping his weapon, and collapsed backward onto the concrete.

Dante dropped from the fire escape, moving like a shadow. He didn’t hesitate. He fired twice more, hitting the second man holding Mia. The man let go, crying out in pain as he fell to his knees.

Dante scooped Mia up with his left arm, keeping his pistol raised with his right.

“Sarah! Get up!” Dante ordered.

I pushed through the pain in my ribs, scrambling to my feet. I grabbed Isabella’s arm, hauling the bleeding woman up with me.

We piled back into the SUV. Dante threw it in reverse, slamming the gas and tearing out of the alley before more men could arrive.

The silence inside the car was deafening, broken only by Mia’s quiet sobs and Isabella’s ragged breathing.

Dante kept his eyes on the road. “Isabella. Talk. Now.”

Isabella leaned her head against the window, clutching her bleeding side. “My father owed the Morettis five million dollars. They said they would kill him if I didn’t get close to you.”

“Why Mia?” Dante demanded.

“Because of her mother’s trust fund,” Isabella choked out. “Mia’s mother didn’t just leave her money, Dante. She left her the voting shares to the entire waterfront casino project. But Mia can’t inherit them until she’s eighteen.”

Dante gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “Unless she’s declared legally unfit or placed in a permanent psychiatric facility.”

Isabella nodded weakly. “The boarding school in Switzerland. It’s owned by the Morettis. Once she was committed, the shares would transfer to her legal guardian. Me.”

My stomach churned. It was never about a cruel stepmother not liking a child. It was a calculated, multi-million dollar corporate theft.

“I didn’t want to hurt her,” Isabella wept, looking at Mia. “I tried to do it through the school so she would just be far away. But Vance… Vance lost his patience.”

Dante’s face was a mask of pure fury. “Where is Sarah’s sister?”

Isabella handed Dante the heavy gold bracelet she had pulled from her coat earlier.

“Vance is holding her at the shipyard,” Isabella whispered. “He’s using her as bait to draw you out.”

Dante looked at the bracelet.

Then he looked at me.

“Sarah,” Dante said softly. “Look at this bracelet.”

I leaned forward. My heart stopped.

It wasn’t a mafia heirloom. It wasn’t Isabella’s jewelry.

It was a cheap, gold-plated charm bracelet with a tiny engraved sunflower.

It was Chloe’s bracelet.

But as I stared at it, I noticed something horrifying.

“The clasp,” I whispered, my blood running cold. “It isn’t broken. It’s perfectly intact.”

Dante looked at me, realizing exactly what I meant.

Chloe hadn’t dropped this in a struggle.

She had handed it over willingly.

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