"When the ruthless Mafia boss unboxed his birthday gifts, he never expected to find his own starving, barefoot grandson freezing in the snow—and the bloody revenge that followed." / Chapter 16 / 60

Chapter 16 - The silver locket

The silence that followed was deafening. The only sound left on the mountain pass was the hiss of steam escaping a punctured radiator and the distant howling of the wind.

Viktor walked out from the trees, reloading his rifle with mechanical efficiency, stepping over four corpses without a second glance. He walked up to Russo's twitching body, leaned down, and fired one insurance shot into the man's temple. He reached down, ripped the silver spade chain from the dead man's neck, and tossed it into the snow.

Sal stepped out of the driver's seat, clutching a bleeding graze on his left shoulder. "We need to move, Boss. State troopers will have heard the blasts from ten miles away."

"Get the spare truck from the rear guard," Richard ordered, breathing heavily, the freezing air burning his lungs. He turned back to the Suburban and reached inside, lifting Noah back into his arms. The boy was shaking, but when he saw Richard was unharmed, he threw his arms around the old man's neck, burying his face in his collar.

"I counted to fifty, Grandpa," Noah sobbed quietly. "I counted all the way to fifty."

"You did, my brave boy," Richard whispered, kissing the top of Noah’s head. "You did perfectly."

As Richard carried him toward the undamaged rear SUV, Noah reached into his pocket. His small, bruised hand pulled out a tiny object attached to a dirty shoestring that had been tucked deep inside the lining of his pants.

"Uncle Mark dropped this when he put me in the box," Noah said, offering it to Richard. "He told Claudia it was worth millions, but it’s just ugly metal. I hid it in my sock so he couldn't hit me with it."

Richard stopped in his tracks, looking down at the child’s hand.

It was an antique silver locket, tarnished and scratched, engraved with the initials *S.B.* It was the locket Richard had given Sarah on her eighteenth birthday.

Richard's hands shook as he unclasped the tiny silver latch. Inside was not a photograph of Sarah or Noah. Inside was a micro-SD chip, protected in waterproof resin, along with a handwritten note folded into a square no larger than a postage stamp.