Chapter 3 - THE ASHES OF A LIE
My chest tightened so hard I couldn't pull air into my lungs.
"Aunt Marie," I gasped, lunging toward the front seat.
"Dante, turn the car around!"
"She's inside that building!"
Alessandro’s arm locked around my waist.
He pulled me back onto the seat, holding me firm against his chest.
"Dante, continue to the safe house," Alessandro commanded.
"No!" I screamed, beating my fists against his chest.
"She raised me! She's all I have left!"
Alessandro did not flinch beneath my blows.
He caught my wrists with one hand.
He held them gently, but with an immovable grip.
"Sophia, listen to me," he said, his voice cutting through my hysteria.
"Marie Chen was not in that building."
I stopped struggling.
Tears burned hot against my cold cheeks.
"What are you talking about?"
"Marie Chen left that apartment forty minutes before I arrived at the bakery," Alessandro revealed.
"She took two suitcases."
"She boarded a private sedan registered to Dominic Vance."
Dominic Vance.
The head of the rival docks syndicate.
The man who had supposedly sent loan sharks to beat down my apartment door every Tuesday.
"You're lying," I whispered, shaking my head in denial.
"She cried every time they threatened to break my legs."
"She took my paychecks to protect us!"
Alessandro pulled a slim leather folder from the side pocket of his seat.
He dropped it into my lap.
"Look at the bank transfers, Sophia."
My trembling fingers opened the leather folder.
Inside lay twenty pages of printed bank records.
Every single deposit I had made from my bakery earnings.
Every hundred-dollar bill I had scraped together, skipping meals, walking in the snow.
Deposited into an account under Marie Chen's name.
And immediately transferred out.
Not to loan sharks.
Not to mafia collectors.
Transferred to a luxury timeshare in Nassau.
Transferred to high-end boutiques in Chicago.
Transferred to private offshore holding accounts.
"She was never in debt," Alessandro said.
His voice was thick with cold fury.
"She was paid sixty thousand dollars a year by Dominic Vance to keep you broke."
"To keep you exhausted."
"To keep you working in that bakery where they could monitor every move you made."
I stared at the black-and-white numbers on the paper.
The paper blurred beneath my tears.
Four years.
Four years of eating stale, leftover bread at midnight.
Four years of wearing shoes with holes in the soles, stuffing cardboard inside to block the slush.
Four years of guilt, believing I was responsible for an old woman’s debts.
All of it had been a theatre.
A cage built by the woman who had tucked me into bed after my father was buried.
"Why?" I choked out, a dry, ragged sob tearing from my throat.
"Why would she do that to me?"
"Because of the envelope in your hand," Alessandro said.
He leaned forward, his gray eyes locking onto mine with hypnotic intensity.
"Your father’s ledger had a biometric lock."
"It requires the retinal scan of his daughter."
"And the signature of her legal husband."
"Vance couldn't open the vault with just you."
"He had to wait until he could find me."
Alessandro raised his left hand.
He pulled back his suit cuff.
Beneath his wristwatch, wrapped around his wrist, was a thin silver band.
The identical match to the wedding ring I had thrown into the river four years ago.
"I didn't lose my ring, Sophia," he murmured.
"I wore it every day."
"I let the world think I was hunting you to kill you."
"Because as long as they thought we were enemies, Vance wouldn't slaughter you in that bakery."
The SUV slowed down, turning off the highway onto a private, wooded driveway.
Towering iron gates swept open in the headlights.
A three-story limestone estate rose through the bare pine trees, surrounded by ten-foot stone walls and armed sentries.
Dante brought the vehicle to a smooth stop under the portico.
"We're secure, boss," Dante said.
"Dr. Rosini is waiting in the library."
Alessandro opened his door, stepping out into the cold rain.
He did not wait for me to move.
He reached inside, scooped me up into his arms, and carried me out of the car.
"I can walk, Alessandro," I protested weakly.
"You've been walking in the cold for four years, Sophia," he said softly, kicking the front double doors open with his boot.
"Tonight, you rest."
He carried me into the warmth of the grand foyer.
The smell of cedar, beeswax, and woodsmoke washed over me.
A tall, elderly man in a white lab coat rushed toward us from the drawing room.
"Alessandro! Thank God. We heard the transmission—"
Dr. Rosini stopped dead in his tracks.
His eyes fell upon my face.
His jaw dropped.
"Sophia...?" the old doctor stammered.
"She's alive?"
"She's injured," Alessandro barked, carrying me straight toward the leather sofa in the library.
"Stitch her hand."
"Check her ribs."
"And do it gently, or I'll break your fingers."
Dr. Rosini hurried behind us, setting his medical kit onto a brass side table.
Alessandro laid me down against the soft velvet cushions.
He did not leave my side.
He knelt on the oriental rug beside the sofa, holding my uninjured right hand between his large, warm palms.
Dr. Rosini cut away the blood-soaked linen from my left palm.
A four-inch laceration ran across the fleshy part of my thumb, deep and jagged from the porcelain shards.
The doctor prepped a syringe of local anesthetic.
"This will sting, child," Dr. Rosini warned.
I braced myself, but before the needle could touch my skin, Alessandro’s hand slid to the back of my neck.
He pulled my face toward his chest.
"Don't look at the needle," he whispered into my hair.
"Look at me."
I pressed my forehead into the crook of his neck.
The needle bit into my flesh.
A sharp, burning agony flared through my hand, but Alessandro’s scent—cedar, rain, and clean soap—anchored me against the pain.
His thumb rhythmically stroked the base of my skull.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against my ear.
"For what?" I breathed, my tears soaking his shirt.
"For taking four years to bring you home."
Dr. Rosini worked quickly, placing eight neat nylon sutures across my palm.
He bandaged the wound with sterile gauze, then used a stethoscope to listen to my bruised ribs.
"Three fractured ribs on the right side, Alessandro," Dr. Rosini reported grimly.
"Heavily contused."
"She needs bed rest and high-protein nutrition."
"She looks starved."
Alessandro’s jaw tightened until the muscles jumped beneath his skin.
He stood up, towering over the room like an avenging shadow.
"Dante," Alessandro called out toward the doorway.
Dante stepped into the library, holding an electronic tablet.
"Boss?"
"Where is Dominic Vance's cargo arriving tonight?"
"Pier 14," Dante answered.
"Two in the morning."
"Unmarked freight vessel carrying arms from Montreal."
Alessandro turned toward the stone fireplace, his gray eyes flashing with lethal intent.
"Call the strike team."
"We're seizing the shipment."
"And if Dominic Vance is on that dock,"
"bring him to me on his knees."
Before Dante could acknowledge the order, a loud, piercing alarm began to wail throughout the estate.
The crystal chandelier overhead rattled.
On Dante’s tablet, three red warning lights began flashing simultaneously.
"Boss!" Dante yelled, drawing his weapon.
May you like
"The south perimeter wall has been breached!"
"Four armored vehicles just smashed through the iron gates!"
