Chapter 3 – THE TRAITOR’S RING

“Drop the gun, Boss,” Marco said. His voice was completely devoid of the loyalty I had heard downstairs.

Luca froze in the doorway, his own weapon halfway raised. The sight of his small, terrified son sitting on the dusty floorboards shattered the last of his composure.

“Marco,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a deadly, vibrating baritone. “You have five seconds to take that gun off my son before I put a bullet in your spine.”

“You’re not in a position to make threats, Luca,” Marco replied smoothly. He didn’t flinch. He tightened his grip on Leo’s shoulder. The little boy squeezed his eyes shut, trembling in his stained sweater.

I stood paralyzed behind Luca. My breath hitched in my throat.

Answer One: Marco was the one who had taken Leo. He was working with Vanessa.

“Why?” Luca asked, slowly lowering his gun to the floor. He kicked it away. “I paid you a fortune. You ate at my table.”

“Vanessa offered me something better than a paycheck,” Marco sneered. “She offered me your seat at the Commission. Once the old lady was in an asylum and the kid was gone, Vanessa was going to inherit the entire estate when you suffered a tragic, sudden heart attack next week.”

A wave of nausea hit me. The wedding wasn’t a celebration. It was a deadline for Luca’s murder.

“Let the boy go, Marco,” I said, stepping slightly out from behind Luca. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”

Marco laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “The maid speaks. You should have kept your mouth shut downstairs, Claire. Now you’re going to die in an attic.”

I looked at Leo. The poor boy was clutching a broken silver pocket watch so tightly his knuckles were white.

Open Two: Why was Leo holding that specific watch? It looked old, heavy, and completely out of place for a child.

I needed to buy time. I needed to shift Marco’s focus.

“You’re wearing his ring,” I blurted out.

Marco blinked, briefly confused. “What?”

I pointed a shaking finger at Marco’s left hand, wrapped around the gun. “That gold signet ring on your pinky. That belongs to the Moretti family. Vanessa gave it to you, didn’t she? As a promise.”

Luca’s eyes snapped to Marco’s hand.

The reversal was instant. Marco wasn’t just Vanessa’s muscle. He was her lover. The betrayal ran deeper than money; it was deeply personal.

Marco’s face darkened. For a split second, his eyes shifted down to his own hand to check the ring.

It was the only opening Luca needed.

With terrifying speed, Luca didn’t go for his gun. He grabbed a heavy iron fireplace poker leaning against the attic wall and hurled it like a spear.

The heavy iron struck Marco directly in the shoulder.

Marco screamed, his gun firing wildly into the ceiling as he stumbled backward.

“Leo, run!” Luca roared.

Leo scrambled across the floorboards. I didn’t think; I just dropped to my knees and caught the boy, pulling his small, shaking body against my chest. I covered his ears as Marco recovered and leveled his gun at Luca.

But Luca was already moving. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, tackling his former bodyguard to the floor. The two massive men crashed into a stack of old wooden crates, splintering them into a hundred pieces.

“Take him downstairs, Claire!” Luca shouted, struggling to keep Marco’s gun pointed away from them.

I picked Leo up. He was incredibly light, fragile as a bird. I ran toward the servant stairs.

As I reached the landing, Leo buried his face in my neck.

“The bad man,” Leo whispered, his voice hoarse from disuse. “He took my grandfather’s watch.”

I stopped. I looked down at the silver watch in Leo’s hand.

It popped open. Inside wasn’t a clock face. It was a hidden compartment containing a tiny, black microchip.

Before I could process what it meant, a deafening gunshot echoed from the attic above.

Then, absolute silence.

I squeezed Leo tighter, my heart stopping. I stared at the dark stairwell, praying to hear Luca’s footsteps.

A shadow moved at the top of the stairs. A man stepped into the dim light.

It wasn’t Luca.

And it wasn’t Marco.

Standing at the top of the stairs, holding a smoking gun, was a man in an impeccable white tuxedo—one of the dinner guests.

TITLE: The Man In The White Tuxedo

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