Chapter 6 - The Boy In The Trunk
Panic exploded.
Guests screamed and scrambled under the table.
Vanessa dragged her gasping father behind the heavy velvet curtains.
Luca immediately stepped in front of me and his father, shielding us with his body.
“Daniel, put the gun down!” Luca roared at his security chief.
Daniel didn’t flinch. He kept the weapon leveled perfectly.
“Sorry, boss. The Bellinis pay well. But the rival families pay better.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Who is Toby Reed?!” I screamed over the chaos.
Michael grabbed my arm, pulling me behind a heavy oak serving cart.
“Toby is your younger brother, Emma,” Michael rasped, his breathing suddenly shallow.
I stared at him. “I don’t have a brother.”
“Clara got pregnant a year after I gave you to her,” Michael said quickly, his eyes darting around the room for an exit.
“She had a little boy. She named him Toby.”
“But my mother never had another baby!” I argued, my mind completely breaking apart.
“Because Daniel’s employers found out about him,” Michael said bitterly.
“They thought Toby was the Bellini heir. They broke into Clara’s apartment when Toby was three months old. I got there just in time to get him out, but Clara was injured in the fight.”
The stroke.
My mother didn’t have a stroke from working too hard.
She had a brain injury from protecting a baby.
“I had to put Toby in foster care across the state to hide him,” Michael confessed. “I couldn’t risk them taking both of you.”
I looked at Daniel, the man pointing the gun at us.
He had my little brother in his car. A brother I had never even met.
Luca moved slowly, keeping his hands visible.
“Daniel. Name your price. I’ll double whatever they’re paying you.”
Daniel chuckled.
“Not about money anymore, Luca. It’s about tying up loose ends. Hand over the transfer documents, and maybe I leave the kid at a fire station. Don’t, and the car goes into the river.”
I looked down at the envelope in my hands.
The keys to a billion-dollar empire.
And the only thing keeping my brother alive.
“Give it to him,” Michael whispered. “Emma, give it to him.”
I stepped out from behind the serving cart.
I held the envelope out.
“Take it,” I said.
Daniel smirked. He walked forward, keeping the gun aimed at Luca’s chest.
He reached out with his left hand to take the envelope.
But as his fingers brushed the paper—
A heavy, dull thud echoed through the room.
Daniel’s eyes went wide.
He looked down.
Sticking out of his shoulder was a jagged piece of thick glass.
June Whitaker stood three feet away.
The blue Pyrex casserole dish was shattered on the floor at her feet.
She had just smashed the heavy glass lid directly over Daniel’s collarbone.
“I told you,” the eighty-three-year-old woman said calmly.
“I protect my neighbors.”
Daniel screamed, dropping the gun.
Luca didn’t hesitate.
He lunged forward, driving his fist into Daniel’s jaw with a sickening crack.
The security chief crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
Luca grabbed the dropped gun and pointed it at the door.
“Emma. Get my father out of here. Take the service elevator.”
I ran to Michael, pulling his arm over my shoulder.
“Come on!”
But Michael didn’t move.
He was staring down at the shattered remains of the blue Pyrex dish on the floor.
Hidden inside the thick glass handle, which was now broken in two, was a small brass key.
Michael’s face went completely white.
He looked at June.
“June,” Michael whispered, terror bleeding into his voice.
“Why is the key to the vault inside that dish?”
June didn’t smile.
She reached down, picked up the brass key, and looked at Luca’s father.
“Because, Michael,” the sweet old lady said coldly.
“You aren’t the only one who learned how to play dead.”
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TITLE: The Key In The Glass
