Chapter 3 - THE RED INK
The crystal chandeliers suddenly felt entirely too bright.
The thirty-two guests sat completely paralyzed. Nobody moved to leave, and nobody spoke. They were trapped in the gravity of Luca Moretti’s realization.
"He's alive," Luca repeated, the words hanging in the air like a death sentence.
Vanessa looked at the photocopy, her face draining of the last bit of color.
"I don't have it, Luca," she pleaded, her voice cracking. "I told you, I threw out his things twenty years ago. If the ledger was in that suitcase, it went to a landfill in 2005!"
Luca stood up.
He didn't yell. He didn't overturn the table. The stillness of his anger was far more terrifying.
"If it went to a landfill, Vanessa, how did Leo get a photocopy of a page to send to Evelyn?"
Vanessa opened her mouth, but no words came out.
The logic was undeniable. If Leo had the photocopy, it meant he either had the ledger, or he had seen it recently. And if he had seen it recently, it hadn't been rotting in a dump for two decades.
Luca turned to Marco, his head of security, who was standing by the double doors.
"Lock the estate down," Luca ordered, his voice dropping into the authoritative tone of a man preparing for war. "No one leaves. No one makes a phone call."
Marco nodded sharply and reached for his earpiece.
"Luca, please," Vanessa begged, standing up and reaching for his arm. "You have to believe me. I haven't seen Leo since that night at the motel. I wouldn't keep something that could destroy your family!"
Luca looked down at her hand on his sleeve.
"Did you keep the suitcase?"
Vanessa hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second.
But in that fraction, I saw the truth. And so did Luca.
"Yes," Vanessa whispered. "It was the only thing I had from my mother. I kept the suitcase. But I emptied it!"
"Where is it now?"
"In the storage room, in the east wing."
Luca looked at me.
"Nora. Go to the east wing. Bring the suitcase here."
My heart hammered against my ribs. I was just a housekeeper. I shouldn't have been involved in this. But when Luca Moretti gives an order, you don't hesitate.
"Yes, sir," I said quickly.
I turned and practically ran out of the dining room, my low heels clicking frantically against the marble floors.
The mansion was eerily quiet as I hurried down the long corridor toward the east wing. The storage room was at the very end, past the guest suites. It was a large, windowless room filled with old furniture, seasonal decorations, and luggage.
I flipped the light switch. The fluorescent bulbs flickered to life, casting long, harsh shadows across the room.
I knew exactly which suitcase Vanessa meant. I had reorganized this room two months ago. It was an old, vintage leather trunk with brass clasps, sitting on the top shelf near the back.
I dragged over a small step stool and reached up, wrapping my hands around the worn leather handles.
It was heavier than I expected.
I pulled it down, resting it on a nearby armchair.
The brass clasps were tarnished but not locked. I hesitated for a moment, my hands trembling. What if Leo had left something else inside? What if the ledger was actually there?
I pushed the clasps up. They popped open with a dull click.
I lifted the heavy leather lid.
The suitcase was mostly empty, smelling of cedar and old dust. There were a few folded vintage dresses at the bottom, carefully wrapped in tissue paper.
I pushed the dresses aside, searching the lining.
Nothing.
I ran my hands along the edges, feeling for a hidden compartment.
My fingers brushed against something hard near the back corner. The lining had been sliced open, just a few inches, creating a small pocket between the leather and the fabric.
I reached inside.
My fingers closed around a small, heavy object. It wasn't a book. It wasn't a ledger.
I pulled it out and stared at it under the harsh fluorescent light.
It was a silver lighter.
But it wasn't just any lighter. Engraved deeply into the metal was the Moretti family crest—a roaring lion holding a dagger.
I frowned, turning it over in my hands. Why would Leo have a Moretti lighter hidden in his suitcase?
Suddenly, I heard a sound behind me.
A slow, deliberate footstep on the hardwood floor.
I froze, the lighter cold in my palm.
"Did you find it?" a voice asked.
I turned around slowly.
Standing in the doorway, blocking my only exit, was a man.
He wasn't one of Marco's security guards. He wasn't a guest from the dining room.
He wore a dark leather jacket, rain dripping from the shoulders. His hair was graying at the temples, but his face was unmistakable.
It was the man from the polaroid photograph.
Leo.
He was older, harder, and holding a suppressed pistol aimed directly at my chest.
"Put the lighter down, sweetheart," Leo said, his voice rough, like gravel crushed under a tire.
"How did you get in here?" I gasped, my voice shaking uncontrollably. "The estate is locked down."
Leo smiled, a cruel, humorless expression.
"I didn't break in tonight. I've been inside for three days. The service entrance has a blind spot. Your security is arrogant."
He stepped closer, the gun unwavering.
"Now, be a good girl and hand me the lighter."
"Why do you want this?" I asked, gripping it tighter, though my hands were sweating.
"Because that lighter is the only reason I'm still breathing," Leo sneered. "Twenty-one years ago, Antonio Moretti didn't let me go out of the goodness of his heart. He let me go because I made a trade."
"A trade?"
"He wanted the ledger," Leo said, stepping closer. "But I didn't hide the ledger in Vanessa's suitcase. I hid the lighter."
I stared at him, confused. "Why a lighter?"
"Because the ledger is useless without the cipher key," Leo explained, his eyes burning with a manic intensity. "The names are coded. Antonio's personal cipher was etched into the casing of his favorite silver lighter. I stole it off his desk the night before the shootout."
He held out his free hand.
"Without that lighter, the ledger is just a book of random numbers. With it, I can destroy the entire Chicago underworld."
He cocked the pistol. The metallic click echoed loudly in the storage room.
"Hand it over. Or you die right here."
I looked at the gun. I looked at the lighter in my hand.
If I gave it to him, he would leave. I would survive. But Luca would lose everything. Vanessa's past would destroy the family that employed me.
I thought about Evelyn. I thought about how she had stood up to Vanessa, knowing the consequences.
I wasn't going to die cowering in a storage room.
"No," I said softly.
Leo's eyes narrowed.
"What did you say?"
"I said no."
Before he could react, I threw the heavy silver lighter as hard as I could, not at him, but directly at the large, glass-fronted display cabinet standing against the wall to my left.
The silver struck the glass with a deafening crash, shattering the pane into a thousand jagged pieces that rained down onto the hardwood floor.
The noise was like a bomb going off in the silent mansion.
Leo flinched, instinctively raising his arm to shield his face from the flying glass.
"You stupid—!" he roared, swinging the gun back toward me.
But the crash had already done its job.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway.
"Nora!"
Marco burst through the doorway, his weapon drawn, assessing the situation in a fraction of a second.
Leo didn't hesitate. He fired a single shot at Marco, the suppressed weapon making a sharp phut sound.
The bullet grazed Marco's shoulder, sending him staggering backward into the doorframe.
Leo used the distraction to lunge toward the shattered cabinet. He desperately grabbed the silver lighter from the debris, cutting his hand on the broken glass.
He didn't try to shoot me. He turned and sprinted toward the secondary exit at the back of the storage room, throwing his shoulder against the heavy wooden door and disappearing into the service corridor.
I rushed over to Marco, who was clutching his bleeding shoulder.
"Are you okay?" I panicked, dropping to my knees beside him.
"I'm fine," Marco grunted, his teeth gritted in pain. "Who the hell was that?"
"It was Leo," I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs. "He took the cipher key."
Before Marco could respond, Luca appeared in the doorway, his face a mask of absolute fury.
He looked at Marco's bleeding shoulder, the shattered glass, and then at me.
"Where did he go?" Luca demanded.
"The service corridor," I said, pointing to the back door.
Luca didn't wait. He drew his own weapon and sprinted after Leo, disappearing into the dark hallway.
I helped Marco to his feet.
"We have to go after him," Marco said, leaning heavily against the wall.
"He's bleeding," I said, noticing the trail of crimson drops on the floor where Leo had grabbed the lighter.
We followed the blood trail out of the storage room, down the service corridor, and toward the kitchen.
When we pushed through the swinging kitchen doors, we stopped dead in our tracks.
Leo wasn't running anymore.
He was standing in the center of the massive stainless-steel kitchen, breathing heavily, blood dripping from his cut hand.
And he wasn't alone.
Standing in front of him, holding a long, wicked-looking chef's knife, was Vanessa.
She had followed me from the dining room.
She stood between Leo and the exit, her red silk gown stark against the sterile metal of the kitchen.
Leo stared at her, a twisted smile spreading across his face.
"Hello, Vanessa," he said, his voice dripping with mock affection. "You look beautiful."
Vanessa didn't flinch. Her hands were perfectly steady around the handle of the knife.
"Give me the lighter, Leo," Vanessa said, her voice completely devoid of the panic she had shown in the dining room.
Leo chuckled, aiming the suppressed pistol at her.
"Or what? You'll stab me? We both know you don't have the stomach for it, sweetheart."
Vanessa tilted her head slightly.
"You never did know me, Leo," she said softly.
She didn't lunge at him. She didn't try to stab him.
Instead, she reached behind her back with her free hand, pulled a small, black object from the waistband of her gown, and tossed it onto the metal prep table between them.
It landed with a heavy thud.
It was the ledger.
The real, original leather-bound ledger.
Leo's eyes widened in absolute shock.
"You..." Leo breathed. "You had it the whole time?"
May you like
Vanessa smiled, a cold, terrifying expression that I had never seen on her face before.
"Of course I had it, Leo," Vanessa said. "Why do you think I stayed with you at that motel? I didn't love you. I was waiting for you to steal it, so I could take it from you."
