Chapter 10 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE VELVET POUCH
I shoved the locket under my pillow, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“What is it?” I asked, standing up quickly. “Is my mother okay? Did her heart rate drop again?”
“Your mother is fine,” Luca said, though his voice lacked any reassurance. He stepped further into the small room, the space instantly feeling too small for his commanding presence.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, pacing to the window and looking out into the rain-soaked grounds.
“Enzo just called,” Luca said grimly. “He interrogated Marco before handing him over to the Commission.”
“Did Marco confess to hiring Rossi?”
“He confessed to a lot of things,” Luca said, turning to face me. His dark eyes locked onto mine, searching my face as if looking for a crack in a mask. “Hannah… how much do you really know about your father?”
My stomach dropped.
“My father?” I repeated, my voice shaking. “He… he died in a car accident when I was a baby. My mother raised me alone. Why?”
Luca stared at me for a long time.
“Marco told Enzo that he didn’t just hire Rossi to kill my father twenty years ago,” Luca said slowly. “Marco said he had a partner. Someone inside the hospital who fed him my father’s security schedule.”
The blood drained from my face. “No. No, my mother wouldn’t do that! You said she saved him!”
“She did,” Luca agreed quickly, stepping forward to catch my arms before my knees gave out. “Margaret saved him. She fought Rossi off. But Marco wasn’t talking about your mother.”
Luca gently guided me to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Marco said his partner was a doctor,” Luca continued softly. “A surgeon who owed a lot of money to the rival family. A man who was married to a beautiful nurse.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I reached under my pillow with a trembling hand and pulled out the silver locket.
I opened it and handed it to Luca without a word.
Luca took the locket. He looked at the baby in the photo. He looked at Marco holding me. And then he looked at the partially cropped face of the woman standing next to him.
“Where did you get this?” Luca whispered, his eyes widening.
“It fell out of Vanessa’s pocket on the pier tonight,” I choked out. “Luca… is Marco my father?”
Luca stared at the photo, tracing the jawline of the younger Marco with his thumb.
“No,” Luca said finally. “Marco isn’t your father.”
He looked up at me, his expression softening into profound pity.
“But Marco was your father’s best friend. Your father was Dr. Richard Collins. The surgeon who tried to help Marco kill my dad.”
The room started to spin.
My entire life was a lie. My mother hadn’t just been protecting me from the mob. She had been protecting me from the truth about my own blood.
“If my father betrayed your family,” I whispered, tears spilling over my cheeks, “why did your father set up a trust fund for us? Why did he spare my mother?”
“Because your mother found out what your father was planning,” Luca explained, sitting beside me on the bed. “She found the payoff money in your house. She went to the hospital that night knowing what was going to happen. She risked her life to stop her own husband’s plot.”
It all made terrifying sense. The scar on her shoulder. The secret money. The years of hiding in plain sight.
“And my father?” I asked, terrified of the answer. “The car accident…?”
Luca hesitated. He looked away, staring at the faded wallpaper of my maid’s quarters.
“It wasn’t an accident, Hannah,” Luca said quietly. “When the Commission found out Dr. Collins aided an assassination attempt against a Boss, they handled it. My father tried to stop them, for your mother’s sake, but the rules are the rules.”
I covered my face with my hands, sobbing.
My father was a traitor. And the family I had been serving—the family I had just risked my life for—were the ones who executed him.
Luca wrapped his strong arms around me, pulling me into his chest. I didn’t fight him. I buried my face in his shirt, letting the years of secrets and lies wash over me in a wave of grief.
He held me tight, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Luca whispered into my hair. “I am so damn sorry you got pulled into this.”
We sat there for a long time. His heartbeat was steady against my cheek, a grounding rhythm in a world that had just been turned upside down.
Suddenly, the silence was shattered.
Luca’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It wasn’t a text. It was the emergency ringtone—a blaring, high-pitched siren that meant only one thing.
The perimeter of the estate had been breached.
Luca pulled the phone out, hitting speaker.
“Boss!” Enzo’s voice barked over the sound of heavy gunfire. “We have a massive problem! The rival family—the Romanos! They found out Marco is out of the picture. They’re making a play for the territory tonight!”
“How many?” Luca demanded, standing up instantly, his protective embrace turning into a tactical shield.
“At least thirty men, Boss. They just breached the main gates. They’re coming up the driveway. And Boss… they know Margaret Collins is inside.”
May you like
My heart stopped.
“They want payback for twenty years ago,” Enzo yelled. “They’re coming to finish the job!”
