THE LOCKET IN HIS HAND
The heavy oak doors of The Golden Palm burst open at 9:42 p.m.
Every conversation in the restaurant stopped.
A little girl ran across the marble floor in a torn white dress.
Blood covered the front of it.
Not enough to know whose.
Too much to ignore.
She pushed past the hostess, slipped between two tables, and ran directly toward Vincent Torino.
His men moved before he did.
Tony Russo rose.
Two guards reached inside their jackets.
Vincent lifted one hand.
Everyone stopped.
The girl grabbed the front of his black suit.
“They’re beating my mama! She’s dying!”
Her voice broke across the restaurant.
Vincent looked down.
Seven years old, perhaps.
Tangled dark-brown hair.
Tears on her face.
Bare knees scraped.
No shoes.
She clung to him as if she had been told he was the only person in Chicago who could save her.
Vincent lowered himself.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Sophie Martinez.”
The surname meant nothing.
The fear did.
“She won’t wake up,” Sophie cried. “There’s blood everywhere!”
Vincent stood.
His expression changed.
Not louder.
Colder.
He looked at Tony.
“Call an ambulance. Get the car. Nobody involved leaves Chicago.”
Every man at the table moved.
No questions.
Vincent removed his suit jacket and wrapped it around Sophie.
The gold watch on his wrist caught the chandelier light.
Sophie looked at it.
Then reached beneath her dress.
A small silver locket hung around her neck.
She pulled it free and placed it in his hand.
“Mama said you would recognize this.”
Vincent opened it.
His body went still.
Inside was a faded photograph.
A younger Vincent.
No gray in his hair.
No scar near his eyebrow.
No empire behind his name.
Beside him stood Maria Bellini.
The woman he had loved before power.
The woman he believed died in a warehouse fire thirty years earlier.
On the back of the photograph, written in Maria’s handwriting:
IF OUR CHILD EVER FINDS YOU, BELIEVE HER.
Vincent looked at Sophie.
“Who is your mother?”
“Maria Martinez.”
His chest tightened.
Maria had changed her name.
Survived.
Had a child.
A daughter old enough to have a daughter.
Sophie pointed toward the doors.
“She’s in the alley.”
Vincent carried her outside.
Behind the restaurant, a woman lay beside a delivery truck.
Blood stained her blouse.
Her face was bruised.
She was alive.
Barely.
Tony knelt near her.
“Ambulance is two minutes out.”
The woman opened her eyes.
She saw Vincent.
For one second, fear replaced pain.
Then recognition.
“Papa?”
Vincent stopped.
The word entered deeper than any bullet ever had.
He knelt beside her.
“What is your name?”
“Isabella.”
“Your mother?”
“Maria.”
“You’re my daughter?”
Her eyes closed.
Before losing consciousness, Isabella whispered:
“Don’t trust Tony.”
Vincent slowly looked up.
Tony Russo stood six feet away.
His oldest friend.
His most loyal lieutenant.
The man who had just called the ambulance.
May you like
Tony’s face revealed nothing.
But in the alley beyond him, one of Vincent’s guards was quietly wiping blood from his cuff.
