Chapter 2 - GUNFIRE AND THE SEALED LOCKETBefore I could process his words, the front doors were kicked off their hinges with a deafening crash. Men in tactical gear bearing police insignias flooded the dining room, but they didn't present warrants—they raised silenced submachine guns.
"Get down!" Antonio barked, shoving me beneath the heavy mahogany table just as bright muzzle flashes illuminated the dim restaurant. Screams echoed around us as glass shattered and wood splintered. Antonio drew a sleek black pistol from his jacket, firing back with lethal precision while his bodyguards formed a human shield around Maria.
"They aren't cops!" Antonio yelled over the chaos, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the kitchen entrance. "Dante's men!"
We scrambled down a narrow, damp staircase into a subterranean storage corridor. Maria was breathless, her chest heaving heavily. I noticed a dark stain spreading across Antonio’s white dress shirt—a grazing gunshot wound to his side. Instinct overrode my terror; I grabbed a clean cloth towel from a linen bin, pressing it firmly against his bleeding side to slow the hemorrhage. Antonio caught my gaze, his eyes softening for a fraction of a second in genuine shock. As we reached an armored SUV waiting in the alleyway, Maria gripped my hand tightly. She unclasped a heavy silver necklace from her neck—a vintage locket featuring a brilliant blue sapphire—and pressed it into my palm.
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"Keep it safe, child," Maria rasped before collapsing into unconsciousness.
When I flipped the locket open under the dim streetlights, my heart stopped. Tucked inside was a faded photograph of my late mother, smiling warmly next to a legendary figure I recognized from old news clippings: Vito Russo, the founder of the Russo crime family.
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