LET GO OF THE MICROPHONE. THAT BOY WILL TELL HIS STORY.” THE BILLIONAIRE’S FIANCÉE GRABBED HIS 64-YEAR-OLD FORMER -

Chapter 5 – THE SILVER ROSARY

Graham ducked, but the heavy steel bar clipped his shoulder. He grunted in pain, stumbling back against the wet hood of the truck.

David raised the tire iron again, his face twisted in rage. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, kid.”

I didn’t think. I reacted purely on the instinct of a teacher who had spent thirty years breaking up schoolyard fights. I reached into my purse, grabbed the heaviest thing I had—a thick hardcover copy of Great Expectations I had planned to give Eli—and hurled it directly at David’s face.

The heavy book caught him squarely on the bridge of his nose. He staggered backward, dropping the tire iron to clutch his bleeding face.

Graham lunged. He tackled his uncle to the wet pavement, pinning him down and kicking the weapon under the truck.

“Margaret, get in the truck!” Graham yelled, wrestling with the older man. “Lock the doors!”

I shoved Sarah into the back seat and climbed into the front, locking the doors just as a police cruiser rounded the corner, its lights flashing red and blue. The station manager had must have called them when he saw the fight.

Two officers jumped out, weapons drawn. “Break it up! Hands on the ground!”

Graham immediately backed away, raising his hands. David stayed on the ground, swearing as the officers cuffed him.

Ten minutes later, after giving our statements, Graham slid into the driver’s seat of the disabled truck. His shoulder was bruising badly, but he turned around to look at Sarah in the back seat.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her.

She shook her head, clutching his damp suit jacket. “Thank you. Both of you.”

Graham pulled his phone out. “I’m calling my security team to send an SUV. We’re going back to the hotel.”

While we waited, Sarah reached into her pocket. She pulled out a delicate silver rosary. Some of the beads were missing, and the cross was bent.

“David took this from me the night I was arrested,” she said quietly. “He was the one who broke into my house to plant the fake evidence. When he cornered me just now, he tossed it at my feet. He said it was a reminder that nobody was coming to save me.”

She handed the rosary to Graham.

Graham stared at it. The color drained from his face.

“This isn’t yours,” he whispered.

Sarah looked confused. “Yes it is. It was my grandmother’s.”

“No,” Graham said, his voice shaking. He turned the bent silver cross over in his hand. “I recognize the repair on the back. My father did this with a soldering iron thirty years ago. This belonged to my mother.”

I felt a chill run down my spine. “Graham, what are you saying?”

“My mother lost this rosary the week before she died,” he said, staring blankly at the dashboard. “She said someone broke into our apartment and stole it from her nightstand. I thought she was just confused from the medication.”

He looked back at Sarah. “If David had this… it means he’s been stealing from our family long before I ever had money.”

Before I could process the magnitude of that betrayal, my phone buzzed again.

It was Dr. Reeves.

“Margaret,” the principal’s voice was breathless, panicked. “You need to get back here right now.”

“Helen, what’s wrong? Are the children okay?”

“The children are fine,” she said. “But someone just broke into the foundation’s main office upstairs. They set a fire. The entire archive room is burning.”