Chapter 8 – THE EXCHANGE

“NOAH!” I screamed, lunging forward.

But one of Vanessa’s remaining guards struck me across the face with the butt of his rifle. I hit the concrete hard, tasting blood.

Through my blurred vision, I saw Vanessa dragging Noah toward a sleek silver Mercedes parked near the ramp. Noah was kicking and crying, his little hands desperately reaching for me. He dropped his wooden horse onto the oily garage floor.

“Let him go!” Dominic roared, abandoning his cover. He fired twice, dropping the guard who had hit me, but Vanessa was already using Noah as a human shield.

She pressed a small silver pistol against my son’s temple.

“Drop it, Dominic!” she shrieked, her aristocratic mask completely shattered. “Drop the gun, or I blow his brains out right here!”

The entire garage went dead silent. Even Marco stopped firing.

Dominic froze. The ruthless Mafia boss who controlled the Chicago underworld looked completely broken. Slowly, his fingers opened. His gun clattered onto the concrete.

“Slide it over,” Vanessa ordered.

Dominic kicked the gun away. “Take me. Let the boy go.”

“You?” Vanessa laughed bitterly. “You’re useless to me alive now. Get in the car, Dominic. You’re going to drive us to the private airstrip. Once I’m out of the country, maybe I’ll leave the kid in a ditch for you.”

I tried to push myself up, but my arms shook. Sarah, my sister, crawled over to me, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Claire, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. I kept my eyes locked on my son.

Vanessa shoved Noah into the backseat of the Mercedes. “Get in, Dominic!”

Dominic walked slowly toward the driver’s side. He looked at me for one split second. A look of absolute apology.

But as he reached for the door handle, a voice echoed from the shadows of the ramp.

“I wouldn’t open that door, Vanessa.”

Uncle Silvio stepped out from behind a concrete barrier, holding his bleeding shoulder. He was holding a remote detonator.

Vanessa sneered. “What is that, an explosive? You’re going to blow up your own nephew?”

“No,” Silvio coughed, a bloody smile forming on his lips. “I’m going to blow up the Bellini family’s offshore accounts. All of them.”

He looked at me. “Claire. The rosary.”

I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out the pearl rosary, pulling the tiny micro-drive from the cross.

“That drive is connected to a dead-man’s switch on my private server,” Silvio said to Vanessa. “I sent the encrypted files to the New York syndicate ten minutes ago. The only way to stop the decryption is if I input the code.”

Vanessa’s face went pale. “You’re bluffing.”

“Call your father,” Silvio challenged.

Vanessa’s hand trembled. She pulled out her phone and hit speed dial. She put it on speaker.

“Dad—”

“Vanessa!” her father’s voice screamed through the phone, frantic and terrified. “The New York families just called! They know about the stolen shipments! They’re hitting our warehouses! Run, Vanessa! Get out of—”

Gunfire erupted through the phone speaker, followed by dead silence.

Vanessa dropped the phone. She looked completely lost. Her empire had just crumbled in thirty seconds.

In her moment of distraction, Dominic moved.

He didn’t go for Vanessa. He ripped the back door of the Mercedes open, grabbed Noah, and shielded him with his body as he dove to the floor.

Vanessa snapped out of her shock, raising her pistol to shoot Dominic in the back.

But I was already on my feet.

I didn’t have a gun. But I had my sister’s heavy silver locket clutched in my fist.

I swung it with everything I had, striking Vanessa directly in the eye.

She screamed, dropping her gun as she stumbled backward. Marco stepped forward and pinned her to the hood of the car, zip-tying her wrists in seconds.

I collapsed onto the floor next to Dominic.

He uncurled his body, revealing Noah, completely unharmed.

“Mommy,” Noah whimpered, reaching up to touch my bruised cheek.

I pulled them both into my arms, sobbing into Dominic’s chest. For the first time in five years, the three of us were together.

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