Chapter 5 – THE ROSARY IN HER HAND
The phone slipped from my fingers and shattered against the stone floor.
I couldn’t hear Dominic shouting my name. I couldn’t feel Mia clutching my apron. The basement walls spun violently around me.
Dead for hours.
I had kissed my mother’s forehead this morning. I had made her oatmeal. I had promised her I would be home right after Mrs. Moretti’s birthday dinner.
“Elena!” Dominic grabbed my shoulders, shaking me hard. “What did they say?”
“She’s gone,” I choked out, my knees buckling. “My mother. They said she’s dead.”
Bianca laughed again. “You see, Dominic? Vincent handles loose ends. Just like he handled Caroline. Just like he handled this pathetic maid’s mother.”
Dominic spun around. He grabbed Bianca by the throat and slammed her against the steel door.
“You disgusting coward,” he growled, his face inches from hers.
“Go ahead,” Bianca gasped, a sickening smile on her face. “Kill me. But Vincent’s men are already on their way here. And they have orders to burn this estate to the ground with everyone inside it.”
Mrs. Moretti cried out, rushing forward to grab Dominic’s arm. “Dominic, stop! Let her go! We have to get Mia out of here!”
Dominic held Bianca against the steel door for five terrifying seconds. I saw the pure violence in his eyes. The mafia boss weighing vengeance against survival.
Slowly, he released his grip. Bianca collapsed to the floor, coughing.
“Elena,” Dominic said, his voice unnervingly calm. “Pick up the gun. Point it at my sister.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes. My hands were shaking, but the grief suddenly hardened into something sharp and cold. I raised Vincent’s heavy pistol and aimed it squarely at Bianca’s chest.
“If she moves, shoot her,” Dominic ordered.
He rushed into the dark wine cellar. “Aunt Rosa,” he said gently, crouching beside the wheelchair. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Rosa reached out with trembling, fragile hands. “Dominic… you’ve grown so big.”
“I’m sorry, Auntie. I’m so sorry I didn’t know.”
Dominic carefully wheeled her out of the dark room into the corridor. Mrs. Moretti immediately fell to her knees beside the chair, embracing her sister-in-law in a flood of tears.
“Eleanor,” Rosa whispered, crying softly. “She told me you forgot about me.”
“Never,” Mrs. Moretti sobbed. “I never forgot you, Rosa.”
I kept the gun locked on Bianca. She stared back at me with pure hatred.
“You won’t shoot me,” Bianca sneered. “You’re a maid. You don’t have the stomach for it.”
“You murdered my mother,” I whispered, my finger resting heavy on the trigger.
“Your mother was collateral damage,” she spat.
Suddenly, little Mia tugged on my skirt.
I looked down.
Mia reached into her small yellow coat pocket and pulled out an object. She held it up to me.
It was a beautiful, intricate silver rosary.
“The bad man dropped this,” Mia said softly. “When he pushed my mommy down the stairs.”
I stared at the beads.
My heart completely stopped.
I recognized that rosary.
It didn’t belong to Vincent. It didn’t belong to Bianca.
It belonged to my mother.
“Where did you get this?” I asked Mia, my voice cracking.
“The bad man,” Mia repeated.
Bianca saw the rosary and went completely still. Her arrogant smile vanished.
“Elena,” Dominic said, stepping forward. “What is it?”
I couldn’t breathe. I looked at Dominic.
“This is my mother’s rosary,” I said. “It never leaves her bedside table. If Vincent dropped this when he killed Caroline last night…”
Dominic’s eyes widened as he realized the truth.
“Then Vincent didn’t go to Seattle to find Caroline,” Dominic said slowly.
“No,” I whispered, staring in horror at the beads. “He didn’t.”
I grabbed Bianca by the collar of her expensive dress, hauling her to her feet with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.
“Where was Caroline Bennett living?” I screamed in her face.
Bianca swallowed hard, terrified for the first time all night.
“Where was she!” I roared, pressing the barrel of the gun against her shoulder.
Bianca squeezed her eyes shut.
“She was living in your house, Elena.”
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