Page 18 of Devil's Tulip

Then it hits me. The chain snapped during the scuffle with my attacker earlier. He had it in his grip.

I spin around, feet slapping the ground as I run towards the trunk of Michael’s car.

Please, please, let it be there. I can’t lose this too. I can’t.

6

MICHAEL

I glance over my shoulder as I place my palm on the biometric lock beside my front door, expecting to see Gianna right behind me. But she’s not there. Instead, she’s sprinting back down the driveway towards my car. What the hell? Frowning, I abandon the door and follow her.

She grabs the trunk and yanks on it like her life depends on it, but of course it doesn’t budge. It’s locked. Doesn’t stop her from trying though, her chest heaving with the effort. Or is it panic?

“Hey, what’s going on? What are you looking for?” I ask curiously.

She whirls to face me, and I’m floored by the raw desperation in her eyes. “Open it! Open it! Open it!” she screams at me, tears carving tracks through the grime on her flushed cheeks.

My chest constricts painfully, and I rub a hand over it unconsciously as I fish out my key fob and pop the trunk.

She sniffles and dives for it immediately. She pulls it up harder than necessary and starts going at the dead body inside, dragging him this way and that as she frantically searches through his clothes.

I approach her cautiously. “Gianna, talk to me. What is it? What did you lose?”

She doesn’t stop searching or even spare me a glance as she stammers through her heaving breaths and tears, “M-my necklace. I can’t find my necklace.” Her words end on a long, broken sob before she slaps the dead body in frustration and collapses to the floor, defeated.

Necklace?

My hand slips into my pocket and closes around the object I picked up earlier. I pull it out and study the gold chain, my eyes tracing the shield-shaped pendant with the words inscribed on the front.

At the top of the shield, bold letters read:Saint Michael.At the bottom:Protect us.

In the center, an image of a winged figure—presumably the archangel himself—is carefully engraved. Surrounding it are more words, likely in Latin, with small crosses interspersed between them.

On the back, there’s more religious gibberish—a prayer for protection from the angel.

“You mean this?”

Her head snaps up, and the moment she recognizes it, she launches herself at me and snatches it from my outstretched hand, cradling it to her chest like the precious thing it clearly is. “How…?” She hiccups, red-rimmed eyes searching mine. “Where did you…?”

“I saw it on the ground beside his body, and I remembered seeing it on your neck earlier. It’s broken, so I picked it up to fix it.”

She nods but doesn’t release her death grip on the pendant. I watch her curiously as she sniffles again and quickly wipes the tears from her face. What’s so important about that thing that has her almost breaking into pieces?

“S–sorry about that. It was my mom’s. The last thing I have of hers,” she says by way of explanation as she slams my trunk shut.

Well, fuck. No wonder she was losing her mind.

By all accounts, Agnes Cabello, her mother, was a religious fanatic. A way to cope with her criminal husband? I wonder how that affected her daughter.

I study Gianna as she walks towards the front door where she patiently waits for me. She’s only twenty-three, but she’s already endured more than most. And yet, she stands there, steady, unshaken. Strong as hell.

She lost her parents a decade ago, back when she was just thirteen. They were driving home from her school recital that rainy night when they got into an accident, which they might have survived—if they hadn’t been unlucky enough to be attacked by a group of thieves. The bastards killed them, left their bodies in the wreck, and vanished. The men were never found. That part I find odd.

According to the reports, Gianna was unconscious in the backseat, completely helpless. Maybe that’s the only reason they spared her—they thought she was already dead.

Her father was one of the more powerful dons in NYC at the time. How could a man like that just get taken out by some low-level street scum, and the perpetrators were never brought to justice?

Something about the whole thing stinks.

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