Chapter 10 - The Unopened Letter
The mansion was finally quiet, but the silence felt heavier than the chaos.
It had been a week since the night of the engagement dinner. Serena and Leo had been relocated to a highly secure, private estate in the Hamptons. Roman had dropped all charges against Serena, acknowledging that she had only acted to protect the child. He visited Leo every day, slowly building the foundation of a father-son relationship built on trust, rather than mafia legacy.
My father and I had been moved out of our small apartment and into the east wing of the DeLuca mansion. Sofia DeLuca spent her afternoons sitting in the garden with my father, the two blind survivors sharing stories of the past twenty-four years.
I was no longer Claire the maid. I was Claire DeLuca. But I still felt like an imposter wearing expensive silk clothes that didn’t belong to me.
I walked into Roman’s study, carrying a tray of coffee. Old habits died hard.
Roman was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, staring at the small, folded piece of black leather we had found hidden inside Leo’s stuffed bear a week ago.
“You’re still staring at it,” I said, setting the coffee down.
Roman looked up, rubbing his tired eyes. “It’s a ledger page, Claire. Marcus Vale hid it inside Leo’s toy before Dante ambushed him at the docks.”
I pulled up a leather chair and sat across from him. “What does it say?”
“That’s the problem,” Roman sighed. “It’s encrypted. It’s a list of offshore account numbers, but the routing codes are entirely scrambled. Marcus was using this page as his ultimate insurance policy. Whoever controls these accounts controls the Vale Syndicate’s hidden wealth.”
“Let the feds have it,” I said firmly. “Roman, you promised. You said you were going to walk away from the violence. We have our family back. We don’t need Marcus Vale’s blood money.”
Roman leaned back in his chair, looking at me with that intense, protective gaze. “I know. And I meant it. But the Syndicate won’t just let us walk away. Nature abhors a vacuum. With Dante dead and Marcus in prison, the Five Families are scrambling for power. They’re going to come looking for this ledger.”
As if on cue, a sharp knock echoed on the study door.
Roman’s new security chief—a loyal man named Thorne—stepped into the room. His face was grim.
“Boss,” Thorne said tightly. “We have a problem at the front gate.”
Roman stood up. “Who is it?”
“It’s Don Carmine,” Thorne said. “And he brought the heads of the other three families with him. They’re demanding an audience.”
A cold dread pooled in my stomach. The Five Families never gathered unless they were declaring war or crowning a new king.
Roman’s jaw tightened. He slipped the black leather page into his suit pocket. “Let them in. Show them to the drawing room.”
Thorne nodded and left.
“Roman, don’t do this,” I pleaded, standing up. “They know Dante is dead. They know you have the upper hand. They’re coming to force you to take his seat on the commission.”
“I won’t take it,” Roman said, walking around the desk and taking my hands. “I’m ending this tonight, Claire. I’m shutting down the illicit operations. We’re going entirely legitimate.”
“They’ll kill you,” I whispered, terrified of losing the brother I had just found.
“They won’t touch me in this house,” Roman promised. He kissed my forehead. “Stay here. Lock the door.”
He turned and walked out of the study.
I locked the heavy oak door behind him, pacing the floor, my heart hammering against my ribs. I looked at the desk, where Roman had left a stack of old files he had been reviewing.
One of the files was my father’s old police report from 1999.
I reached out and opened it, looking for anything that might distract me from the terrifying meeting happening downstairs.
Tucked inside the back cover of the file was an old, yellowed envelope. It was sealed with wax, bearing the DeLuca family crest.
Written on the front, in my father’s messy handwriting, were the words:
Recovered from Elena’s car crash. To be opened only if Dante falls.
I froze. Elena? Roman’s first fiancée? The woman who had supposedly died in a tragic car accident seven years ago?
I broke the wax seal and pulled out a single sheet of elegant stationery.
The letter wasn’t written by my father. It was written by Elena, dated the day before she died.
Roman,
If you are reading this, I am already dead. I found out the truth, my love. I found out that Serena wasn’t forced to keep Leo a secret. She orchestrated the entire thing.
Serena didn’t want to marry you to save our family. She wanted to marry you because she controls the black ledger. She has been manipulating Dante and my father from the shadows for years. She caused my crash.
Do not trust her. The boy is yours, but Serena is the devil.
I dropped the letter onto the desk, my hands shaking violently.
Serena wasn’t the victim.
Serena was the mastermind.
And Roman had just relocated her and Leo to an isolated estate with only a skeleton crew of guards.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Roman’s number, but it went straight to voicemail—he must have turned it off for the meeting with the Dons.
I ran to the study door and yanked it open, sprinting down the hallway toward the drawing room.
I threw open the double doors.
Roman was standing at the head of the table, facing the four most dangerous mafia bosses in New York.
May you like
But it wasn’t Roman who was speaking.
Sitting elegantly in a leather armchair by the fireplace, sipping a glass of wine and completely unguarded, was Serena.
