“EMPTY YOUR PURSE ON THE TABLE, YOU OLD THIEF.” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED THE SEVENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD WOMAN WHO HAD RAISED HIM IN FRONT OF TWENTY DINNER GUESTS—BUT WHEN I PICKED UP A SMALL PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE FLOOR, THE MOST FEARED MAN IN NEW YORK LOOKED AT HIS BRIDE-TO-BE AND ASKED, “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LYING TO ME?” -

Chapter 3 – THE ROSARY BEADS OF SAINT JUDE

My lungs stopped working.

“Who is this?” I demanded, pressing the phone tight against my ear.

“Your brother finishes his nursing shift at Mercy Hospital in ten minutes,” the voice hissed. “But Sloane’s men are waiting in the parking lot. You have a choice, housemaid. Let Adrian walk into the trap at the orphanage, or save your own blood.”

The line went dead.

I stared at the black screen, trembling. Beside me, Adrian was loading a spare magazine into his pistol. Ruth was praying silently next to him.

If I told Adrian, he would turn the car around to save my brother. He was that kind of man. But if we didn’t go to Saint Jude’s, his brother Leo—and the little boy from the photo—would be murdered by Sloane’s remaining guards.

“Claire?” Adrian asked, noticing my pale face in the rearview mirror. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed the bile in my throat. I couldn’t sacrifice an innocent child. “Nothing, sir. Just worried.”

The SUV tore through the flooded streets, arriving at the rotting brick facade of Saint Jude’s. The clock tower loomed in the dark.

We kicked open the rusted iron doors. The building smelled of mold and gasoline.

“Leo!” Adrian roared into the darkness.

A shadow moved at the top of the grand staircase.

We aimed our flashlights up. It wasn’t Leo. It was a little boy, no older than seven, wearing oversized, filthy clothes. He was holding a heavy wooden rosary in his tiny, shaking hands.

It was Toby. The boy from the photograph.

“Are you the monster?” the boy whimpered, looking at Adrian. “The lady said the monster was coming to kill us.”

Adrian dropped his gun to the floor. He slowly walked up the stairs, his hands raised. “I’m not a monster, Toby. I’m your Uncle Adrian.”

The boy stared at him. Then, he looked down at Mama Ruth.

“Are you… the lady who leaves the hallway light on?” Toby whispered.

Ruth burst into tears. “Yes, baby. That’s me.”

Toby ran down the stairs and threw his arms around Ruth’s waist. But as he hugged her, a loud, metallic click echoed from beneath the floorboards.

Adrian froze. He looked down at his leather shoe.

“Nobody move,” Adrian whispered, his eyes wide with horror. “I just stepped on a pressure plate.”