Chapter 5 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE GARDEN
The dining room was dead silent, save for the sound of my own ragged breathing.
I stared at the photograph on the table.
I was seven. Wearing a yellow sundress.
Elena Moretti was kneeling beside me in a rose garden, smiling at the camera.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“My mother raised me. I never met Elena Moretti.”
Carlo Bellini laughed, a dry, cruel sound.
“Your mother didn’t raise you, Emma. Your mother was a waitress who took a massive payout to hide you.”
I looked at Luca.
He wasn’t looking at the photograph. He was looking at me.
His dark eyes were filled with a complex, heavy sorrow.
“Luca?” I asked, my voice trembling. “What is he talking about?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Luca said softly.
“Tell her, Luca,” Carlo taunted, waving the gun slightly. “Tell her why you always overpay her. Why you make sure her mother’s rent is covered. Why you moved her into the estate.”
Margaret Bennett suddenly let out a strangled sob.
“She’s the girl,” the nurse cried. “Oh my god. She’s the girl from the hospital.”
My head spun.
Hospital?
Carlo smiled wickedly.
“Elena didn’t just hide the money, Emma. She hid her husband’s illegitimate daughter.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
Illegitimate daughter.
“My father had an affair,” Luca said quietly, his gaze locked on me. “Before he died. The woman passed away in childbirth.”
He took a slow step toward me.
“My mother found out. She didn’t hate you, Emma. She loved you. She paid a family to raise you far away from this life. Far away from the mob.”
My knees felt weak.
The mother who had raised me... the struggled rent, the late-night shifts.
It was all a cover to keep me off the Bellini family’s radar.
“And now,” Carlo interrupted, stepping forward. “She’s the only other living heir to the Moretti empire.”
He aimed the gun directly at my chest.
“Which means, if Luca dies without signing the merger, she gets everything.”
Vanessa covered her ears, weeping openly now.
“Uncle Carlo, stop! We were supposed to merge the families! You said no one would get hurt!”
“I lied,” Carlo said bluntly.
He looked at me.
“Give me the silver key, Luca. Or I shoot your little half-sister.”
I backed up against the wall, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Luca didn’t hesitate.
He held up the silver key.
“Let her go. And it’s yours.”
Carlo smiled.
“Toss it.”
Luca threw the heavy key.
It clattered onto the mahogany table, sliding right over the photograph of me and Elena.
Carlo reached for it.
But as his fingers brushed the metal, the heavy dining room doors slammed shut.
And the lights went completely black.
A woman’s voice whispered in the dark.
“You always were greedy, Carlo.”
May you like
I recognized the voice immediately.
It was my mother.
