Chapter 7 – THE CONTRACT IN THE VAULT

The entire bank lobby seemed to hold its breath.

Vanessa’s confident sneer froze on her perfectly painted face. She looked down at the diamond bracelet on the marble floor, then back up at me.

“What did you just say?” she demanded, her voice losing its cruel amusement.

“You didn’t get that bracelet from my father,” I said, stepping forward, keeping the Glock aimed squarely at her heart. “You got it from Uncle Paulie. He bought it for his wife twenty years ago. She wore it every Sunday.”

Luca’s eyes darted from the bracelet to Vanessa. The pieces were finally locking into place.

“Paulie wasn’t just working for your father,” Luca realized, his voice dropping into a deadly register. “He was working for you.”

Vanessa’s grip on her champagne glass tightened until her knuckles turned white.

“My father is an old fool,” Vanessa spat, dropping the elegant facade entirely. “He wanted to ally with you, Luca. He thought marrying me off to you would create peace. But Paulie and I knew the truth. Peace doesn’t make money. War does.”

I felt physically sick. “You were sleeping with his uncle to orchestrate a war?”

“Paulie gave me the codes to your security,” Vanessa admitted, tossing the champagne glass aside. It shattered against the marble. “He told me about the ledger. And when I found out you, the pathetic little housewife, were sitting on the greatest piece of blackmail in Chicago, I knew I had to take it.”

She held up my father’s silver pocket watch.

“With this ledger,” Vanessa smiled, a terrifying gleam in her eyes, “I won’t just control my father’s family. I’ll control the entire city. And you, Luca, will take the fall for Paulie’s murder.”

“Kill them,” Vanessa ordered her men.

Before the guards could pull their triggers, Luca moved.

He didn’t fire at the guards. He fired his rifle directly into the massive glass chandelier hanging above the lobby.

The glass exploded.

Thousands of shards rained down on the guards in a blinding, deafening cascade. The emergency lights short-circuited, plunging the room into absolute darkness.

“Move!” Luca grabbed my waist, tackling me behind a massive marble pillar as automatic gunfire erupted from the blinded guards.

Bullets chipped away at the marble inches from my head. The noise was apocalyptic.

“We can’t hold them off!” I screamed over the gunfire.

“We don’t need to!” Luca yelled back, reloading his rifle. “We just need the watch!”

Through the darkness, I saw a shadow darting toward the heavy steel doors of the underground vault.

It was Vanessa. She was trying to lock herself inside with the ledger.

“She’s going for the vault!” I shouted.

Without thinking, I broke cover.

“Emma, no!” Luca roared.

But the adrenaline overrode my fear. I sprinted across the dark lobby, sliding across the glass-covered floor just as Vanessa yanked the heavy vault door open.

I slammed into her, knocking her inside the vault.

We hit the cold steel floor hard. The silver pocket watch slipped from her hand, skittering across the floor.

Vanessa screamed in rage. She scrambled to her feet, lunging for the watch.

I kicked her knee. She stumbled, grabbing a heavy gold bar from a shelf and swinging it at my head. I ducked, the gold bar denting the metal wall behind me.

I raised my Glock.

“Don’t move,” I gasped, pointing the gun directly at her face.

Vanessa froze, breathing heavily, trapped inside the steel vault.

Outside, the gunfire abruptly ceased.

“Clear!” Luca’s voice echoed through the lobby. He had taken down her guards.

Luca walked into the vault, his rifle lowered. He looked at Vanessa, then bent down and picked up my father’s silver pocket watch.

“It’s over, Vanessa,” Luca said coldly.

Vanessa leaned against the safety deposit boxes. She didn’t look defeated. Instead, she began to laugh. A slow, hysterical laugh that echoed off the steel walls.

“You think this is about the ledger?” she gasped, clutching her stomach. “You think my father really cared about some old bribed judges?”

Luca frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Vanessa reached into the bodice of her red dress.

I instantly raised my gun, ready to shoot, but she didn’t pull out a weapon.

She pulled out a folded piece of ancient, yellowed parchment paper.

“My father didn’t send me to your house tonight to negotiate a marriage,” Vanessa smiled, holding the paper up. “He sent me to enforce the one that already exists.”

Luca stared at the paper, the color draining from his face.

“That’s impossible,” Luca whispered.

“What is it?” I asked, looking between them.

Vanessa unfolded the parchment. It was covered in faded Italian script, bearing three distinct signatures at the bottom.

“It’s a blood contract,” Vanessa said smoothly. “Signed thirty years ago by your grandfather, Luca. And by my grandfather.”

She looked at me, her eyes filled with pure, unadulterated triumph.

“It dictates that the firstborn Bellini daughter is legally, and permanently, the matriarch of the Moretti family,” Vanessa sneered. “I’m not his mistress, Emma. Under mafia law, I am his true wife.”

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