Chapter 4 – THE ROSARY BEADS

Gabriel’s face turned to stone.

“Lock the gates,” he ordered the guard. “Nobody leaves this estate. Not even Isabella.”

The guests began murmuring in panic, but a sharp look from Gabriel silenced them. He turned to his mother.

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me Dad had another will?”

Margaret’s hands shook as she pulled a string of wooden rosary beads from her pocket, clutching them tightly.

“Daniel swore he destroyed it,” she whispered, her voice fragile. “He told me if I ever mentioned it to you, he would make sure Sarah and Claire never saw a dime of the trust.”

I held Leo tighter against my chest. “What did the will say, Margaret?”

She looked at me with deep sorrow. “It gave control of the Moretti family business to Gabriel… but it gave the majority of the financial assets to Sarah. Your father wanted to make amends for abandoning her.”

Gabriel ran a hand through his dark hair. “Daniel didn’t just steal half a million dollars. He stole Sarah’s inheritance. And if Isabella’s nurse has that document, they’re going to use it to blackmail us.”

“Sir,” one of the guards interrupted, stepping forward with a cell phone. “It’s Isabella. She’s demanding to speak with you.”

Gabriel took the phone, putting it on speaker.

“You think you can just throw me out, Gabriel?” Isabella’s voice crackled through the speaker, dripping with venom. “I have the will. I have proof that your precious father was a cheat, and that your empire was built on stolen money.”

“What do you want, Isabella?” Gabriel asked, his voice dead flat.

“My dignity,” she spat. “And twenty million dollars. Wired to an offshore account by midnight. Or I leak the will to the Five Families. They’ll see you as weak. They’ll tear you apart.”

The phone clicked dead.

Gabriel handed the phone back to the guard. He looked at me, then at little Leo, who was quietly playing with Margaret’s rosary beads, trying to soothe the old woman.

“Claire,” Gabriel said, his tone softening. “Take Leo and my mother upstairs to the master suite. Stay there.”

“Gabriel, what are you going to do?” Margaret pleaded.

He knelt beside her and gently kissed her forehead.

“I’m going to get our family’s honor back.”

He turned and walked toward his private office, his guards falling in step behind him.

I helped Margaret up, carrying Leo on my hip. We made our way up the grand staircase. The mansion felt entirely different now. Just hours ago, I was a maid trying to survive. Now, I was standing in the center of a mafia war, fighting for a family I never knew I had.

When we reached the master suite, I tucked Margaret into the heavy velvet armchair. Leo sat at her feet.

“Claire,” Margaret whispered, reaching into her pocket. “There is something else you need to know.”

I knelt beside her. “What is it?”

She unclasped her hands. In her palm lay a small, tarnished silver key.

“This didn’t belong to Gabriel’s father,” she said. “This belonged to Sarah’s mother. Your grandmother.”

I stared at the key. “What does it open?”

Margaret looked toward the window, out into the rainy night.

“It opens a safety deposit box at the First National Bank,” she said. “Daniel thinks he took all the money. But he doesn’t know about the box.”

“What’s inside it?” I asked, my heart pounding.

Before Margaret could answer, the bedroom door flew open.

Standing in the doorway wasn’t Gabriel.

It was Daniel.

He was holding a gun.

“Hand over the key, Mom,” Daniel said, stepping into the room and locking the door behind him. “Or I’ll finish what I started twenty-nine years ago.”

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