Chapter 5 – THE BROKEN GOLD BRACELET

The room went dead silent.

I walked past Natalie and her drawn gun, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor. I knelt down and picked up the broken gold bracelet. The metal was sticky. The blood was fresh.

“She was supposed to be on a plane,” I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger. I stood up and looked into the eyes of the man I had slept next to for nearly three decades. “You said she was on a plane.”

Vincent swallowed hard. For the first time all night, he looked genuinely terrified. Not of the gun in Natalie’s hand, but of the expression on my face.

“The exchange went wrong,” Vincent rasped. “Mia didn’t want to give up the boy. She fought back. Carlo’s men… they were rough. The bracelet caught on the car door.”

“Where is she, Vincent?” I demanded, stepping closer to him, entirely ignoring the barrel of Natalie’s weapon.

“Carlo took her too,” Vincent admitted, looking at the floor. “He took Mia and Leo. He told me if I tried to stop him, he would kill them both. That’s why I have to leave. If I stay, he’ll use them to torture me into signing over the territory.”

“Liar!” Natalie screamed, her finger tightening on the trigger. “My brother wouldn’t kidnap a woman! He just wanted his son!”

“Your brother is an animal,” Vincent spat back. “He took my daughter.”

I closed my eyes. The image of my bright, beautiful Mia—bleeding, terrified, holding her child in the back of a Marino car—burned into my mind.

I opened my eyes. The dutiful, reasonable wife was gone.

“Natalie,” I said calmly. “Lower the gun.”

Natalie shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “He ruined my life. He lied to me.”

“Lower the gun,” I repeated, my voice turning to ice. “If you shoot him, the gunshot will alert his security outside. You’ll be dead before you reach the front door. And I need him alive for the next hour.”

Natalie looked at me, trembling, and slowly lowered the weapon.

“What are you going to do?” Vincent asked, eyeing me warily.

“I’m going to get my daughter back,” I said.

I walked over to the large oil painting of the Amalfi Coast hanging above Vincent’s desk. Vincent frowned, confused, as I reached behind the heavy gilded frame.

For twenty-eight years, Vincent believed he was the only one with secrets in this house. He believed I spent my days gardening and attending charity luncheons. He didn’t know that for the past ten years, I had been making copies of every single document he brought into this study.

I pulled a thick, black leather ledger from behind the painting.

Vincent’s eyes widened in sheer panic. “Claire, where did you get that?”

“You think you run this empire, Vincent?” I asked, dropping the heavy ledger onto his mahogany desk. “You run the street. But I own the deeds to the hotels. I own the shell companies holding the shipping ports. I transferred the majority voting rights into a blind trust under my maiden name three years ago.”

Vincent stared at the ledger, realizing the absolute reality of his situation. He was a king without a kingdom.

“I don’t need you to save my daughter,” I told him.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number I had memorized but never used.

“Who are you calling?” Natalie whispered.

“Carlo Marino,” I said.

The line clicked.

“Who is this?” a deep, gravelly voice answered.

“This is Claire Romano,” I said smoothly. “I have the deeds to Vincent’s entire legitimate empire. I want my daughter and my grandson. We are going to make a trade.”

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