Chapter 10 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE ITALIAN VILLA
(Six Months Later)
The Tuscan sun was warm, casting a golden glow over the sprawling vineyards that surrounded the historic Moretti villa.
I stood on the stone terrace, wearing a light summer dress, sipping a glass of iced tea.
It had been six months since we left Chicago.
Six months of peace.
Luca had officially handed the day-to-day operations of the syndicate over to a trusted council of lieutenants. We lived in Italy now, hidden away in a paradise where Leo could run through the olive groves without a security detail breathing down his neck.
“Tag, you’re it!” Leo shrieked, sprinting past me on the terrace, giggling wildly.
Luca chased after him, laughing, a smudge of dirt on his expensive linen shirt. He caught his son, scooping him up and tossing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
I watched them, my heart swelling with a happiness that still felt like a dream.
“You look at peace, Emma.”
I turned.
Standing in the doorway of the villa was an older woman with silver hair, wearing an elegant silk scarf.
It was Maria, the estate manager who had run the villa for the Moretti family for forty years.
“I am, Maria,” I smiled. “It’s beautiful here.”
“It is,” she agreed, walking over to join me at the stone railing. She looked out at Luca and Leo playing in the grass. “He is a different man since you came into his life. His father would be proud.”
I smiled at the compliment, though the mention of Luca’s father always brought a faint chill. The secrets buried in Chicago were supposed to stay there.
“I have something for you, Emma,” Maria said quietly.
She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small, sealed envelope.
I frowned, taking it from her. “What is this?”
“It arrived in the mail this morning,” Maria explained. “Addressed to you. No return address. Sent from Chicago.”
The peace of the Tuscan afternoon shattered instantly.
Nobody in Chicago was supposed to know I was here. Luca had ensured our location was completely scrubbed from all records.
“Thank you, Maria,” I said, my voice tight.
She nodded and slipped back inside the villa.
I stared at the envelope. My hands were shaking as I tore it open.
I pulled out a single, glossy 8x10 photograph.
It wasn't a picture of me.
It was a picture of my mother.
She was walking out of her favorite grocery store in Chicago, carrying a bag of apples. The photo had been taken from across the street, clearly by someone hiding in a car.
Written across the bottom of the photograph in red ink were four words.
The blood debt remains.
My stomach violently rejected my breakfast. I gripped the stone railing to keep from collapsing.
Someone was watching my mother.
Someone who knew about the blood debt my father owed the syndicate.
“Emma?”
Luca walked up the terrace steps, setting a panting, smiling Leo down on his feet.
“Go wash your hands for lunch, buddy,” Luca told him.
As Leo ran inside, Luca looked at me. His smile vanished instantly when he saw the color of my face.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, closing the distance between us.
I couldn't speak. I just handed him the photograph.
Luca stared at the picture of my mother. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. The relaxed father disappeared, replaced entirely by the lethal mafia boss I hadn't seen in six months.
“Who sent this?” Luca’s voice was dangerously low.
“I don't know. It came in the mail today.”
Answer one: The peace we had built in Italy was an illusion. The sins of the past had followed us across the ocean.
Open two: Isabella was locked away, Matteo was dead, and Victor was exiled. Who was left in Chicago that cared about a thirty-year-old blood debt?
Luca pulled out his encrypted cell phone.
“Daniel,” Luca barked into the receiver. “I need a twenty-four-hour detail on Emma’s mother immediately. Move her to a safehouse.”
He listened for a moment, his eyes darkening.
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