Chapter 1 – THE SILVER LOCKET NEVER LIES

Luca didn’t drop the phone.

He didn’t yell.

He simply lowered the device and looked at the woman he was supposed to marry in less than forty-eight hours.

Vanessa’s hands were shaking so badly that her diamond ring clinked against the pearl buttons of her blouse.

“Luca, please,” she whispered. “Whatever Daniel is telling you, it’s a mistake. The cameras are old. The shadows play tricks.”

Luca took a slow step toward her.

“Daniel didn’t say it was a shadow.”

“He’s mistaken!”

“Daniel said my mother held up a piece of paper to the camera.” Luca’s voice was terrifyingly calm. “A piece of paper telling me she didn’t leave.”

Vanessa backed up until her shoulders hit the doorframe.

Giuseppe was weeping quietly in his wheelchair, his good hand clutching the armrest. I stood frozen by the window, the cold October wind whipping through the room, afraid that if I moved, the fragile tension in the room would snap.

“You requested the cameras be turned off,” Luca said, stepping closer. “Why?”

“My dress…” Vanessa stammered. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Your dress was delivered on Monday.”

Vanessa stopped breathing.

“I signed for it myself,” Luca continued, his dark eyes boring into her. “So I’m going to ask you one last time. Who was the man posing as Anthony Russo, and why did he bring my mother to this house?”

“I don’t know!”

“Liar.”

Luca reached out and grabbed the delicate gold chain around Vanessa’s neck. The one that had held his father’s key.

With a sharp tug, he snapped it.

Vanessa gasped, clutching her chest.

But Luca wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking at the pendant that had been hidden beneath her collar. It wasn’t the diamond she usually wore.

It was a silver locket.

Tarnished. Scratched.

Giuseppe let out a broken, agonizing sound when he saw it.

“Lu…” the old man choked out. “Your mother’s.”

Luca’s thumb traced the dent on the silver casing. I knew that locket. I had dusted the photograph of his mother a hundred times. She had been wearing it the day she disappeared.

Luca opened the locket.

Inside wasn’t a picture. It was a tightly folded piece of prescription paper.

He unfolded it.

I watched the blood completely drain from Luca Moretti’s face.

He looked at Vanessa, his expression shifting from anger to pure, unfiltered horror.

“Where is she?” Luca whispered.

Vanessa burst into tears. “If I tell you, he’ll kill my daughter.”

Luca grabbed her arms. “Who?”

Vanessa looked past him, her tear-filled eyes landing on the bedroom doorway.

I turned.

Standing in the hall was Luca’s uncle, Carmine Moretti, holding a silenced pistol aimed directly at Giuseppe’s chest.

“Put the locket down, Luca,” Carmine smiled. “Or your father dies tonight instead of Saturday.”

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