Chapter 6 - The Matriarch's Verdict
I stared through the rain-streaked windshield, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Eleanor Moretti.
She had supposedly retired to Sicily five years ago, leaving the empire to her sons. She was a ghost, a legend whispered about by the maids who had worked in the mansion before me.
And now she was standing in the Wisconsin woods, holding her own son’s gun.
“Hannah,” Daniel whispered, his voice trembling. “Is that Grandma?”
“Stay down, Daniel,” I ordered, pushing him gently beneath the dashboard. I kept the spare gun gripped tightly in my lap, my palms sweating.
Eleanor approached the driver’s side window. She tapped the barrel of the gun against the glass.
I didn't roll it down.
She smiled—a cold, terrifying expression that looked exactly like Victor’s—and pressed a button on a small remote in her other hand.
The SUV’s electronic locks clicked open. She had a master key fob.
Eleanor pulled the door open. The cold forest air rushed in.
“Put the gun down, little girl,” Eleanor said, her voice smooth and heavily accented. “Or I will blow a hole in the engine block and leave you both out here to freeze.”
I hesitated, looking at Daniel cowering on the floorboards. I couldn't risk a shootout with a child in the car. Slowly, I placed the handgun on the passenger seat.
“Where is Luca?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice steady.
“My son is resting,” Eleanor replied dismissively. “He always was too emotional. Just like his father.”
She looked down at Daniel. Her expression didn't soften. There was no grandmotherly warmth, only calculation.
“Hello, Daniel,” she said.
Daniel didn't answer. He clutched his blue scarf to his chest.
“Victor was a fool to let things get this messy,” Eleanor sighed, stepping back from the car. “He was supposed to handle Isabella quietly. But he let her escape, and he let you find out. Now I have to clean up my children’s mistakes.”
Answer one. Open two.
Victor hadn't acted alone. He wasn't the mastermind. The matriarch of the family had ordered the hit on her own daughter-in-law.
“Why?” I asked, stepping out of the car, keeping myself between Eleanor and Daniel. “Isabella loved him. She was a good mother. Why would you want her dead?”
Eleanor laughed dryly. “A good mother? She was a civilian. She was soft. She wanted to take Daniel away from the life. She wanted him to be a normal boy playing soccer in the suburbs.”
Eleanor’s eyes hardened, gleaming with terrifying conviction.
“Daniel is the heir to the Moretti throne. My husband left everything to him. I will not allow a weak-willed woman to turn my grandson into a coward. The empire requires strength.”
“So you ordered Victor to kill her,” I said, disgusted.
“I ordered Victor to remove her,” Eleanor corrected. “And I arranged for Vanessa to take her place. Vanessa understands the business. She understands obedience.”
My mother.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
“Dr. Bellini,” I breathed. “Vanessa’s father. That’s why he took my mother from the hospital.”
Eleanor smiled. “Insurance. You were getting too close to the boy. Isabella trusted you. I knew she would try to use you to get to him. Your mother is perfectly safe, Hannah. As long as you walk away tonight and never look back.”
She tossed a set of keys onto the dirt at my feet.
“There is a car parked two miles down the road,” Eleanor said. “Take it. Go to the private clinic in Evanston. Your mother is waiting there. Take her, and leave Chicago.”
I looked at the keys. Then I looked at Daniel, who was watching me with wide, terrified eyes.
If I left, Daniel would be handed over to Vanessa. He would be raised by the woman who abused him, and the grandmother who tried to murder his mother.
And Isabella? She was likely inside the cabin, bleeding or worse.
I thought about my mother. How hard she had fought to survive cancer. She wouldn't want me to trade a child’s life for hers.
I didn't pick up the keys.
“No,” I said.
Eleanor frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not leaving him,” I said, standing tall. “And I’m not leaving without Mr. Moretti.”
Eleanor’s patience vanished. She raised the gun, aiming it at my chest.
“You are a maid, Hannah. Do not play a game you do not understand.”
“She understands perfectly.”
A voice cut through the darkness behind Eleanor.
Eleanor spun around.
Standing on the porch of the cabin, clutching her bleeding ribs but holding a hunting rifle steady against her shoulder, was Isabella Moretti.
And standing right beside her, nursing a massive bruise on the side of his head, was Luca.
“Drop the gun, Mother,” Luca commanded, his voice lethal.
Eleanor stared at her son, genuine shock crossing her face. “Luca. She is poisoning you. I am protecting our legacy.”
“You are destroying my family,” Luca snarled. “Drop the gun. Now.”
Eleanor looked at Isabella, who had the rifle aimed directly at Eleanor’s heart.
Slowly, Eleanor lowered the handgun, letting it drop to the dirt.
“Mommy!”
Daniel scrambled out of the SUV and ran as fast as his little legs could carry him.
Isabella dropped the rifle and fell to her knees, catching her son in her arms. She buried her face in his neck, sobbing uncontrollably. “My baby. I’m so sorry. I’m here. Mommy’s here.”
I felt tears streaming down my own face. The reunion was beautiful, but the nightmare wasn't over.
Luca picked up Eleanor’s dropped gun and pointed it at his mother.
“Where is Hannah’s mother?” Luca demanded.
Eleanor stood perfectly straight, unbothered by her defeat. “She is at the Bellini clinic. But if you arrest me, Luca, Dr. Bellini has orders to stop her treatments. She will be dead in a week.”
I gasped, feeling my chest tighten.
Luca didn't blink. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box.
“I don't need to arrest you, Mother,” Luca said quietly. “Because you’re going to give Dr. Bellini a call right now, and tell him to release Margaret Collins to my medical team.”
Eleanor scoffed. “And why would I do that?”
Luca opened the velvet box. Inside was a heavy, ancient gold signet ring. The Moretti family crest.
Eleanor’s breath hitched.
“Victor had it in his safe,” Luca explained. “The ledger ring. It contains the microdot with every offshore account number you control. Every bribe. Every hit.”
Luca closed the box.
May you like
“Release Hannah’s mother, or I destroy the ring, and the empire goes bankrupt by morning.”
TITLE: The Ransom of a Matriarch
