Chapter 4 - THE TICKET IN THE POCKET
The room began to spin.
I stared at the photograph, my mind rejecting what my eyes were seeing. My father. My sweet, quiet father who read me bedtime stories and worked late shifts at the auto shop.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the heir to the Moretti crime family.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head violently. “No, that’s impossible. My father was a mechanic.”
“He was the best getaway driver this family ever had,” Elena corrected, her voice devoid of emotion. “Until he decided he wanted out. Until he decided his conscience was heavier than his loyalty.”
Mia pulled at my arm frantically.
Nat, what is happening? Who is that in the picture?
I couldn’t bring myself to sign it. I couldn’t tell my sixteen-year-old sister that our entire life, our entire tragedy, was built on a lie.
Luca stepped between me and his mother, shielding me from her gaze.
“That’s enough, Mother,” he growled. “You’ve done enough damage for one night.”
“I kept them alive!” Elena fired back, her composure finally cracking. “Do you think Carlo Bellini would have let them live if I hadn’t hidden them in plain sight? I brought the girl here to work so I could keep an eye on them!”
I stared at the woman I had served tea to for two years. She hadn’t hired me because I interviewed well. She hired me to keep me under a microscope.
“You paid Vanessa to humiliate us tonight,” I said, my voice rising in disbelief. “You let her treat Mia like garbage.”
“Vanessa was a necessary idiot,” Elena sneered. “I needed the Bellini alliance to keep Carlo satisfied. But I knew Vanessa was getting greedy. I knew she was stealing from the foundation. The engagement was a trap to expose her.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “You used Natalie and Mia as bait.”
“I used them to protect this family!” Elena slammed her cane down again. “And if you had any sense, Luca, you’d let Vanessa leave, marry the Bellini girl her father actually chose, and bury this mess before Carlo finds out the driver’s daughters are still breathing.”
Luca didn’t yell. He didn’t threaten her.
He just looked at his mother with utter disgust.
“You have five minutes to leave my house,” Luca said quietly. “Or I will have security carry you out.”
Elena stiffened. For a second, I thought she would fight him. But she looked at the absolute finality in her son’s eyes, and she knew she had lost.
She turned and walked toward the door, her cane clicking rhythmically against the floor. Before she left, she looked back at me.
“You think he’s a savior, Natalie? Ask him who gave the order the night your father disappeared.”
The doors shut behind her.
The silence returned, heavier and darker than before.
I looked at Luca. My hands were shaking so hard I dropped the silver bracelet. It hit the floor with a hollow clink.
“Is it true?” I whispered. “Did you know my father?”
Luca closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. When he opened them, the hardened mafia boss was gone. He looked exhausted. He looked like a man carrying the weight of a hundred sins.
“I knew him, Natalie,” Luca said softly. “He was a good man. He tried to protect me when I was young and stupid.”
“Did you…” I choked on the words. “Did you give the order?”
“No,” Luca said, taking a step toward me. He didn’t break eye contact. “I swear on my life, Natalie. I spent the last fourteen years trying to find out who did. When I found out my mother had you working here, I nearly burned this house to the ground.”
I didn’t know what to believe. My entire reality had been shattered in the span of twenty minutes.
Suddenly, Mia tapped my shoulder.
I turned around.
Mia wasn’t looking at the photograph. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was holding a piece of heavy fabric.
It was Vanessa’s designer coat. In the chaos of her exit, Vanessa had left it draped over a chair.
Mia’s hands moved quickly, her brow furrowed in confusion.
I went to get my purse from the coatroom earlier, she signed. Vanessa’s coat fell. This fell out of it. I meant to give it back to her, but then the dinner started.
Mia held out her hand.
In her palm was a piece of stiff, glossy paper.
Luca and I both looked at it.
It was a train ticket. First class. One way.
But it wasn’t the destination that made Luca’s blood run cold. It was the date and time stamped across the top.
Tonight. 11:30 PM.
Luca checked his watch. It was 10:15 PM.
“She wasn’t running because of the engagement,” Luca realized, his voice tightening. “She already had her bags packed. She was planning to run away tonight, no matter what happened at this dinner.”
I looked at the ticket. “Why would she run on the night of her own engagement party?”
Luca reached for the ticket.
As he pulled it from Mia’s hand, a small, folded piece of lined notebook paper slipped out from underneath it and fluttered to the floor.
I bent down and picked it up.
I unfolded it.
My breath stopped completely.
It was a child’s drawing. Crayon on lined paper. It showed a small house with a blue roof, and two little stick-figure girls holding hands in the front yard.
At the bottom, in clumsy, childish handwriting, were the words: To Daddy, from Mia.
It was a drawing Mia had made thirteen years ago. The week before my father disappeared.
I looked up at Luca, absolute terror gripping my chest.
“Luca,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Vanessa didn’t find my father’s bracelet at a pawn shop.”
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Luca stared at the drawing, his eyes turning lethal.
“No,” he said softly. “She took it off his wrist.”
