Chapter 4 – The Coat On The Marble Floor

The sight of Maya’s dark wool coat on the floor made my heart stop.

It was the coat I had bought her for Christmas. The one she wore to her biology lab because the classrooms were always freezing.

“Maya!” I screamed, trying to stand up.

Luca’s hand clamped down on my shoulder in the darkness, forcing me to stay low behind his father’s wheelchair.

“Stay down, Natalie,” Luca commanded, his voice a low, steady rumble.

He stepped out from behind the table, entirely unarmed, placing himself between the tactical team and his guests.

“Daniel,” Luca said. “You’re making a mistake you can’t walk away from.”

Daniel Bennett sneered. He looked terrified and exhausted, sweat glistening on his forehead in the flashlight beams.

“Shut up, Luca! Where’s my sister?!”

“Right here,” Marcus’s voice boomed from the shadows near the pillar.

Marcus stepped into the beam of light, holding Camille by the back of the neck.

“Daniel, help me!” Camille shrieked. “They know everything! They found the ticket!”

Daniel’s face contorted in panic. He aimed his gun directly at Luca.

“Let her go! Let her go right now, or I blow your head off!”

“If you shoot me,” Luca said calmly, “Marcus breaks her neck. Then my men cut you to pieces. You don’t leave this room.”

Daniel’s hands were shaking. The two hired guns behind him looked at each other, clearly realizing they had walked into a suicide mission. They had been paid to intimidate a rich family, not go to war with the Chicago syndicate.

“I have the girl!” Daniel screamed, pointing to Maya’s coat. “She’s in the SUV! If I don’t walk out of here in two minutes, my driver puts a bullet in her!”

I couldn’t breathe. The edges of my vision went dark.

“What do you want, Daniel?” Luca asked, never breaking eye contact.

“The combination to the wall safe!” Daniel yelled. “Anthony knows it! Give me the crypto keys, and we trade the girl!”

Luca looked down at his father.

Anthony was sitting perfectly still in the darkness, his eyes fixed on the man who had held him down on the basement stairs seven months ago.

“Dad,” Luca whispered. “Do you know the combination?”

Anthony slowly nodded.

“Give it to him,” Luca said.

“No,” Anthony rasped.

Daniel cocked his weapon. “I’ll kill him! I swear to God I’ll kill him!”

“Mr. Moretti, please!” I begged, tears streaming down my face. “It’s just money! Please, she’s my baby sister. She’s all I have.”

Anthony turned his head to look at me.

His eyes were incredibly soft. Filled with a profound sorrow.

“Natalie,” Anthony whispered. “He… won’t let her go. If he gets the money… he kills her anyway. She is… a witness.”

The truth of his words hit me like a physical blow.

Daniel wasn’t a master criminal. He was a panicked coward. Cowards didn’t leave loose ends. If he got the money, Maya was dead.

“Time’s up, old man!” Daniel shouted, taking a step forward.

“Wait,” Luca commanded.

He looked at Daniel.

“You want the combination? Fine. But my father can barely speak. He can’t yell a sequence of numbers across a room.”

Luca raised his hands slowly.

“Let me wheel him to you. He’ll whisper it to you. You get the combination, you leave the house.”

Daniel hesitated. He looked at Camille, who nodded frantically.

“Do it!” she hissed.

“Slowly,” Daniel warned, keeping his gun aimed at Luca’s chest.

Luca gripped the handles of his father’s wheelchair. He began to push it across the dark dining room, moving toward the beam of Daniel’s flashlight.

I stayed on the floor, clutching Maya’s coat to my chest, praying to a God I hadn’t spoken to in years.

As Luca pushed the chair, the wheels squeaked softly against the marble.

When they were ten feet away, Daniel held up a hand.

“Stop.”

Luca stopped.

“Tell me,” Daniel demanded, looking at Anthony.

Anthony lifted his trembling right hand.

He reached into his jacket pocket.

Daniel tensed, raising his gun higher. “Hands where I can see them!”

Anthony pulled his hand out.

He wasn’t holding a weapon.

He was holding a beautiful, intricately carved silver rosary.

The beads caught the flashlight beam, scattering tiny prisms of light across the dark room.

“What the hell is that?” Daniel spat.

“My wife’s,” Anthony whispered, his voice suddenly clear and steady. “She prayed for… forgiveness. For men like you.”

Before Daniel could process the words, Anthony did something impossible.

The seventy-four-year-old stroke victim, the man who hadn’t walked in seven months, suddenly kicked his right leg out with terrifying force.

His heavy leather shoe smashed directly into Daniel’s kneecap.

A sickening crack echoed through the room.

Daniel screamed, dropping the flashlight and collapsing to the floor.

In the same fraction of a second, Luca moved.

TITLE: The Rosary In The Darkness

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