Chapter 3 – THE BOY WITH THE BLUE EYES
The phone slipped from my trembling fingers, clattering onto the cold marble floor of the vault.
“Caroline?” Luca grabbed my shoulders, turning me to face him. “What did she say?”
“She has my mother,” I choked out, a sob tearing from my throat. “She’s at the hospice. She wants the ledger, Luca. She told me to come alone.”
Luca’s expression hardened into pure granite. The gentle man who had just grieved over his sister’s bracelet vanished. The mafia boss returned, cold, calculated, and lethal.
“You are not going alone,” he stated, picking up my phone. “We are going together. If she wants a war, I’ll bring the entire syndicate down on her head.”
“No!” I grabbed his arm, my nails digging into his leather jacket. “She’ll kill her, Luca! She has men inside the hospice. My mother is helpless. I have to do exactly what she says.”
Answer One: Vanessa is leveraging the only thing I have left in the world to get the information about her son.
Luca stared at me. He saw the sheer, unadulterated terror in my eyes. He knew I was right. A frontal assault would end in a bloodbath, and my mother would be the first casualty.
“Okay,” Luca breathed, stepping back. He picked up the heavy leather ledger and handed it to me. “You take this. But you are not walking in there unprotected.”
He reached to his waist, unclipped his holster, and pulled out a sleek, matte-black handgun. He pressed it into my shaking hands.
“I don’t know how to shoot!” I cried, pushing it back.
“You won’t have to,” Luca promised, wrapping my fingers around the cold grip. “It’s a tracker. There’s a micro-GPS embedded in the handle. Keep it in your pocket. I will be exactly one mile behind you. When you hand over the ledger, I’ll raid the hospice. You just keep her talking until I give the signal.”
Open Two: Can a housemaid bluff a desperate mobster long enough for a rescue mission?
Thirty minutes later, I parked Luca’s secondary car—a modest sedan—at the edge of Pier 4. The abandoned shipyards loomed in the fog like rusted skeletons of steel. The rain had stopped, leaving a heavy, suffocating mist rolling off Lake Michigan.
I clutched the ledger to my chest, the heavy gun weighing down my coat pocket.
I walked into the massive, empty warehouse. The only light came from the moon cutting through the shattered skylights.
“Vanessa!” I called out, my voice trembling in the cavernous space.
A pair of headlights suddenly blinded me. A black SUV rolled forward from the shadows, stopping ten feet away.
The door opened, and Vanessa stepped out. She was no longer wearing her emerald gown. She wore black tactical gear, a suppressed pistol resting casually against her thigh. Two massive men with Russian tattoos on their necks stepped out behind her.
“You brought the book,” Vanessa smiled, though her eyes were dead. “Good girl.”
“Call your men off my mother,” I demanded, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
Vanessa chuckled. “Hand over the ledger first.”
I took a deep breath, clutching the book tighter. “No. I need proof she’s safe.”
Vanessa sighed, pulling out her phone. She hit a button and put it on speaker. “Dmitri. Is the old woman breathing?”
A gruff voice echoed through the warehouse. “Da. She is asleep.”
Vanessa hung up. “There. Now, give me the book.”
I walked forward slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs. I held out the ledger.
Vanessa snatched it from my hands. She eagerly flipped to the back page, shining a small flashlight on the ink. Her eyes scanned the numbers, her face twisting in sudden, violent shock.
“No,” Vanessa breathed, taking a step back. “No, this is impossible.”
Reversal: The ledger didn’t contain the name of the family who took her son. It contained something much worse.
“What is it?” I asked, confused.
Vanessa looked up at me, her eyes wide with a terrifying realization. “Your mother’s name is Sarah Hayes, isn’t it?”
My blood froze. “How do you know my mother’s name?”
Vanessa turned the ledger around, pointing a shaking finger at the faded ink.
“Because according to this book,” Vanessa whispered, her voice cracking, “Antonio Moretti didn’t sell my son to the Russians. He paid a hospice nurse named Sarah Hayes three million dollars to hide the boy in plain sight.”
I stopped breathing.
“My son didn’t go to New York,” Vanessa said, raising her gun and pointing it directly at my chest. “You grew up with him. Where is my boy, Caroline?”
TITLE: The Brother I Never Knew
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