Chapter 5
746words
"Mr. Caruso, we aren't playing games."
"We found this ring at the crime scene."
That diamond ring, tucked inside a clear evidence bag, flickered with a haunting light under the harsh, cold lamps of the Caruso penthouse.
It was the stone Lorenzo had flown to South Africa for six months ago, hand-picking the most perfect diamond out of thousands. Inside the band, our initials were engraved: L & E.
Now, it was encrusted with dried, blackened blood.
The detective’s voice was flat, like he was reading off a grocery list.
"The victim’s face was unrecognizable. This was the only personal item found on her. Forensics confirmed it belongs to Miss Elena Falcone."
The words hit Lorenzo like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Lorenzo’s face went ghost-white. Even his lips lost their color.
"Impossible... this has to be a fake."
"Which crew sent you? Is this a joke? The Russians? Those damn Mexican cartels?"
He screamed, the veins in his neck bulging like thick ropes.
Just then, the front door was kicked open.
Luca and Dante stormed in. They smelled of gunpowder and street dust, fresh from patrolling family territory.
"Who gave you badges permission to bring heat in here? This is private—"
Luca’s roar died in his throat the second he saw the evidence bag. His eyes locked onto that blood-stained ring.
Dante, always the hothead, reached for the piece tucked into his waistband, but his hands were shaking so hard he couldn't even thumb the holster open.
Matteo, the Consigliere, walked in last. He was the calmest of the three—and the most lethal.
He looked at the ring, then at the shattered man Lorenzo had become. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to hold back Lorenzo, who looked ready to snap and claw at the cops.
"Enough," Matteo said.
His voice was raspy, but it carried the weight of a death sentence.
"Take us to the morgue. Now."
The detective nodded.
I drifted behind them, watching these men who used to run this city like they owned every brick.
Right now, their legs were as weak as a newborn’s. They had to lean on each other just to make it out the door.
The morgue was two floors underground at the precinct.
The air was thick with the clinical stench of formaldehyde and the faint, sweet smell of rot.
A metal tray was slid out, covered in a white sheet.
The moment the sheet was pulled back, the air in the room turned to ice.
The body was a mess.
Her face was a roadmap of bruises and cuts, the skin a dull, sickening grey.
Lorenzo gripped the edge of the metal table so hard his knuckles turned white.
He kept shaking his head, muttering, "It’s not her... that’s not Elena... Elena is beautiful, she wouldn't look like..."
He was lying to himself.
Then, the medical examiner pulled back the sheet covering the corpse’s ankle to show more trauma.
There it was. A tiny, slightly faded tattoo—a white daisy.
When I was eight, I’d been chasing my brothers through the garden and tripped into a thorn bush. It left a jagged, ugly scar on my ankle.
To hide it, I got that flower tattooed when I turned eighteen.
Lorenzo used to kiss that spot, telling me it was my own special mark.
In that heartbeat, the fantasy died.
The heir to the Caruso family, a man who wouldn't blink after taking three bullets in a street war, felt his knees buckle. He hit the concrete floor hard.
"Agh—!!!"
An animalistic howl ripped from his throat as the tears finally broke.
He reached out to hold me, then pulled back, his hands trembling in the air, too terrified to touch the broken thing I’d become.
"I’m sorry... Elena... I’m so sorry..."
Luca covered his mouth and turned away, his shoulders heaving.
Dante punched the wall, the sound of his knuckles cracking echoing through the room as blood smeared against the tiles.
Even Matteo, the ice-cold strategist, took off his glasses and let the tears hit the floor.
They finally believed it.
Their baby sister—the one who always followed them around, the one they always ignored, the one they always forced to step aside.
She really died in the rain that night.
She died while they were busy watching fireworks with the "real" sister.
