Chapter 10 – THE SILVER ROSARY
I wrapped the heavy silver rosary around my left wrist, the metal cool against my skin. It had belonged to my mother, the only piece of true, innocent faith left in this house. In my right hand, I held my father’s revolver.
I picked up the phone and called Mia.
“Mom?” she answered, the sound of children playing in the background at the park.
“Mia, listen to me very carefully,” I said, my voice projecting a calm, absolute authority. “Do not come back to the house. Take Leo, get in your car, and drive to the safe deposit box at the downtown bank. Wait inside the vault room. Do not leave until I come for you.”
Mia didn’t ask questions. She had survived the Marinos; she knew the tone of my voice meant survival. “I’m on my way. Be safe, Mom.”
I hung up.
I walked through the quiet, beautiful house I had maintained for twenty-eight years. I turned off the lights, locked the heavy reinforced front doors, and sat in the velvet armchair in the dark hallway, facing the entrance.
I didn’t have to wait long.
At 9:00 PM, the security cameras on the front porch went dark. The alarm system beeped once, then died—cut from the outside.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel driveway.
The heavy glass of the back patio door shattered.
Three men stepped into the kitchen, their silhouettes illuminated by the moonlight cutting through the broken glass. They held suppressed weapons, moving with the quiet precision of professional hitmen.
They crept through the kitchen, entering the main hallway.
I sat perfectly still in the dark armchair.
“Looking for me?” I asked quietly.
The three men spun around, raising their weapons toward the shadows.
But before they could fire, the front door of my house kicked open with explosive force.
Four figures dressed in black tactical gear flooded into the hallway from behind the hitmen.
“Drop the weapons!” a female voice shouted.
The hitmen hesitated for a fraction of a second. It was all the time the tactical team needed. They moved with brutal efficiency, disarming and subduing the three men in a matter of seconds, driving them to the hardwood floor and securing their wrists with heavy zip-ties.
I stood up, lowering the revolver, and turned on the hallway light.
Standing in the center of my foyer, holding a tactical shotgun, was Natalie.
She looked nothing like the polished mistress in the red dress. She wore combat boots, a dark jacket, and an expression of pure, unyielding command.
“You’re late,” I said to her.
Natalie offered a small, grim smile. “Traffic on the Eisenhower.”
She lowered her weapon and looked at the men on the floor. “Vincent thought he could buy the last of my brother’s men. He didn’t realize that when Carlo fled, I took over the family.”
I nodded. When Natalie had called me to warn me about the hit, we hadn’t just talked about the journal. We had made a deal. I had the financial power; she had the street muscle. Together, we were the most dangerous force in Chicago.
Natalie walked over to me. She looked at the silver rosary wrapped around my wrist.
She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a matching silver cross.
“My mother gave me this before she died,” Natalie said softly. “She told me faith was the only thing that could survive a war.”
She held her cross out to me.
I reached out and touched my rosary to hers. A silent pact between two women who had been used, underestimated, and betrayed by the men in our lives.
“The hitmen are neutralized,” Natalie said, signaling her team to drag the men out the front door. “Vincent’s last play failed. The city is yours, Claire. What do you want to do with it?”
I looked around the beautiful, bloodstained hallway of my home.
“I want to burn it to the ground,” I said.
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