I Shared My Last Sandwich With a Nervous Stranger Before My Interview—Then He Walked In as the Mafia Boss Who Owned the Company. Nineteen minutes before the biggest job interview of my l -

Chapter 9 – THE BLACK ROSARY BEAD

I stared at the black rosary bead, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The note beneath it was written in jagged, angry cursive.

You took my brother’s empire. I will take everything you love. — V.

“Jack!” I screamed, grabbing the box and running down the executive hallway.

I burst into his office. Jack was on the phone, but he dropped the receiver the moment he saw my face.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, rounding his desk.

I shoved the box into his hands.

Jack looked at the black bead, and the color instantly drained from his face.

“Vincent,” Jack whispered.

“Who is Vincent?” I panicked.

“Silas’s younger brother,” Jack said, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. “He runs the Chicago outfit. The ones your mother was trying to run from twenty years ago.”

“I thought Silas was the mastermind,” I said, trembling.

“Silas was the muscle,” Jack corrected grimly. “Vincent is the architect. And he uses black rosary beads to mark his targets.”

Before Jack could say another word, the power in the skyscraper cut out.

The emergency lights flickered on, casting eerie red shadows across the corporate offices.

The building’s intercom crackled to life.

“Hello, Jack. Hello, Emily,” a smooth, chilling voice echoed through the speakers. “I locked down the elevators and the stairwells. You have ten minutes to bring me the deeds to Northbridge, or the C4 strapped to the building’s support columns detonates.”

“He’s in the building,” Jack growled, pulling his sidearm from his desk drawer.

He looked at me, his eyes filled with a terrifying resolve.

“Stay behind me,” Jack ordered. “We’re going to end this family feud tonight.”

We crept out of the office and into the red-lit hallway. The silence was oppressive.

We reached the executive elevator banks. Jack pried the doors open with his bare hands, revealing the empty elevator shaft.

“We have to climb down to the maintenance floor,” Jack said, gesturing to the cables.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out from the end of the hall.

Jack shoved me into the open elevator shaft.

I fell.