Chapter 5 – THE ENEMY’S ROSARY

The name dropped into the dining room like a live grenade.

Falcone.

The Falcones were the Moretti family’s oldest and most ruthless rivals in Chicago. A decade ago, a brutal turf war between the two syndicates had nearly burned the city to the ground.

“The Falcones?” Michael repeated, stepping forward, his face pale. “Vanessa is a Falcone plant?”

Luca stared at the gold rosary in the silver box. His jaw was clenched so tight I thought his teeth might shatter.

“This rosary belonged to Don Vincenzo Falcone,” Luca said, his voice a low, lethal rumble. “It went missing the night he was assassinated five years ago.”

He looked up at Clara. “How do you know she works for them?”

“Because she told my mother,” Clara explained, her arms wrapped defensively around herself. “When Vanessa forced our mother to empty Catherine’s safe deposit box, she warned her that if she ever went to the police, the Falcone family would handle the cleanup.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. My mother—the quiet, frail woman who taught me how to bake bread and speak Italian—had been living under the shadow of the mafia for three years.

“Emily,” Luca said gently, pulling my attention back to him. “Did your mother ever mention a woman named Vanessa?”

“No,” I whispered. “But… she started locking the doors differently three years ago. She stopped answering the phone. I thought it was just her illness getting worse.”

I realized with sickening clarity that my mother hadn’t been sick. She had been terrified.

“We need to get to the bank,” Michael said urgently. “If Catherine left evidence against Vanessa in that deposit box, it might also implicate the Falcones. That’s why Vanessa wanted us all dead tonight. She was cleaning house before she made her escape.”

Luca nodded. He picked up the gold key from the table.

“Michael, take your wife home. Put your security detail on high alert,” Luca ordered. He turned to his head bodyguard. “Take Clara to the safe house. Keep her out of sight.”

“Wait,” I said, stepping forward.

Luca looked at me, his expression softening instantly. “Emily, you need to go home and pack a bag for you and your mother. My men will relocate you to—”

“I’m coming with you to the bank,” I interrupted.

Luca frowned. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”

“Luca, please,” I pleaded, taking a step closer. “My mother’s name is tied to that box. If Vanessa forced her to sign for it, the police might think my mom was an accomplice. I need to know what’s inside.”

Luca stared into my eyes. He saw the fierce, unyielding determination there.

Slowly, he nodded.

“Fine,” Luca said. “But you stay exactly by my side.”

Thirty minutes later, Luca and I stood in the vault of a private downtown bank. The manager, pale and sweating under Luca’s intense gaze, had opened the heavy steel door after hours.

Luca slid Catherine’s gold key into box number 402. He turned it.

The lock clicked.

Luca pulled the long metal drawer out and set it on the viewing table.

Inside were two items.

The first was a thick manila folder filled with financial documents—the proof Catherine had gathered of Vanessa embezzling Moretti funds to pay Falcone hitmen.

The second item was a small, velvet jewelry box.

Luca opened the box.

He stopped breathing.

“What is it?” I asked softly.

Luca reached in and pulled out a delicate, silver chain. Hanging from the chain was a child’s fingerprint pressed into a small silver charm.

“It’s Isabella’s fingerprint,” Luca whispered, tears shining in his dark eyes. “Catherine had this made when Bella was a baby.”

But there was something else in the velvet box.

A folded piece of paper.

Luca opened it. He read the handwritten note, and then he slowly handed it to me.

“Luca,” the note read. “If you are reading this, Vanessa has won. But she doesn’t know I moved the real evidence. Look inside the silver locket Isabella wears every day. It holds the key to destroying the Falcones.”

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