Chapter 3 – The Mother’s Missing Rosary

Nico stared at the broken wood of his father’s desk.

The splintered mahogany was a violent scar in the middle of the elegant room.

“My mother’s rosary?” Nico repeated, his voice dangerously low. “The silver one with the emerald beads?”

Mr. Santoro nodded weakly.

“She never took it off,” Nico murmured. “She held it when she died.”

I remembered that rosary.

Mr. Santoro kept it in a velvet box inside that locked drawer. He polished it every Sunday morning. It was his most prized possession.

“Why would Victoria want a rosary?” Nico asked.

“Because of what’s hidden inside the silver cross,” his father answered.

Nico turned back. “What are you talking about?”

“Your mother didn’t just pray with it, Nicky. The cross is a locket. There is a tiny brass key inside.”

Nico’s jaw tightened.

“A key to what?”

“To a safe deposit box,” Mr. Santoro said, his voice barely a whisper. “A box containing the original bearer bonds for the Santoro estate. They are worth twelve million dollars. Unregistered. Untraceable.”

My breath hitched.

Twelve million dollars.

No wonder Victoria was desperate to get the old man out of the house. With him locked away in a facility, and Nico distracted by the wedding, she could empty the box and no one would ever know.

“Dr. Evans,” Nico said without turning around.

The doctor flinched. “Yes, Nico?”

“You have exactly ten seconds to leave my property before I have my men throw you through the front window.”

Dr. Evans dropped the manila folder on the bed and sprinted out of the room.

Nico walked over to his father and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m going downstairs,” Nico said. “I’m going to get my mother’s rosary back.”

“Be careful, Nicky,” the old man warned. “She is not the woman you think she is.”

“I know that now.”

Nico turned to me.

“Sophie. Stay here. Lock the door from the inside. Do not let anyone in unless it’s me or Rosa.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

Nico left the room. I immediately closed the heavy oak door and turned the deadbolt.

I poured a glass of water from the nightstand pitcher and handed it to Mr. Santoro.

“Thank you, Sophie,” he said kindly. “You are a brave girl to speak up about the forged signature.”

“She was hurting you,” I said simply. “I couldn’t let her.”

Downstairs, the atmosphere in the dining room had turned toxic.

Victoria was standing by the fireplace, pretending to sip champagne while the guests murmured nervously.

When Nico walked back in, the room fell dead silent.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t make a scene.

He just walked straight up to his fiancée.

“Where is it?” he asked.

Victoria forced a laugh. “Where is what, darling? You’re acting so strangely.”

“The rosary, Victoria. Hand it over.”

Her smile finally broke.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your father is delusional.”

Nico didn’t argue. He simply reached out and grabbed Victoria’s designer evening bag from the mantelpiece.

“Nico! You can’t do that!” she shrieked, trying to snatch it back.

He unclasped the bag and dumped its contents onto the long dining table.

Lipstick. A compact mirror. A cell phone.

And a heavy, velvet box.

The guests gasped.

Nico picked up the box and opened it.

The silver and emerald rosary gleamed under the chandelier light.

Victoria took a step back. “Nico, I can explain. I was… I was going to get it cleaned for the wedding! A surprise!”

“You broke open my father’s locked desk to get it cleaned?”

Victoria looked around the room. The elite of New Jersey were staring at her with undisguised disgust.

She realized the charade was over.

Her posture suddenly changed. The sweet, elegant fiancée vanished, replaced by someone cold and calculated.

“Fine,” Victoria snapped. “You want the truth? My family is bankrupt, Nico. My father made terrible investments. We owe money to people you know very well. The Moretti family.”

Nico’s eyes narrowed. The Morettis were his biggest rivals.

“They told me if I didn’t pay them ten million by the end of the month, they would kill my brother,” Victoria said, her voice shaking with genuine fear. “I needed those bearer bonds.”

Nico looked at her with pure ice in his eyes.

“So you decided to sell out my father to save your own.”

“I had no choice!”

“There is always a choice,” Nico said. “And you chose to betray me.”

He turned to his head of security, a massive man in a tailored suit standing by the door.

“Marcus. Escort Miss Ashford off the premises. Throw her things on the lawn.”

Victoria panicked. “Nico, please! The Morettis will kill my brother!”

“That is no longer my problem.”

As Marcus grabbed her arm, Victoria thrashed against him.

“Wait!” she screamed. “Nico, wait! The rosary doesn’t have the key anymore!”

Nico froze.

He looked down at the rosary in his hand.

He pressed the tiny hidden latch on the silver cross. It clicked open.

The hollow compartment inside was completely empty.

“Where is the key, Victoria?” Nico demanded.

She gave a bitter, terrified laugh.

“I didn’t take it, Nico. The compartment was already empty when I opened it upstairs.”

Before Nico could process this, a deafening crash echoed from the floor above us.

It sounded like breaking glass.

And it came directly from the master bedroom.

Where I was locked inside with his father.

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