Chapter 6 - THE GHOST’S HEIR AND THE ORPHANAGE STAMP
Matteo.
I knew the name only from the whispered rumors among the older staff. Matteo Moretti was Luca’s older brother, the original heir to the family empire. He had died in a violent car crash six years ago, long before I started working here. His death had forced Luca to take the throne.
Luca stared at the photograph, his face devoid of all color. He reached out and touched the image of the little boy’s wrist.
“Matteo,” Luca breathed, the word cracking in his throat. “Matteo had that exact same birthmark.”
Audrey nodded, wiping her eyes. She signed quickly.
“She says Matteo told her a secret before he died,” I translated, my voice barely above a whisper in the humid greenhouse. “He told her he had fallen in love with a woman from a rival family. He said they were expecting a child. But he died before he could tell your father.”
Luca looked up, his eyes wide with a horrified realization. “A woman from a rival family. The Rossi family.”
He looked back down at Vanessa’s smiling face in the photograph.
“Vanessa wasn’t just a gambler’s daughter,” Luca said, the puzzle pieces finally snapping together in a terrifying picture. “She was Matteo’s secret lover. She had his child.”
My mind raced. “But Mr. Moretti… if the boy is Matteo’s son, that makes him the true heir to the Moretti family.”
“Yes,” Luca said, his voice hardening into steel. “And Vanessa knew it. She hid him. She poisoned my sister, infiltrated my house, and forced me into an engagement. She wasn’t trying to steal the estate for herself. She was trying to secure it for her son. And if I died in an ‘accident’ after the wedding, her son—my nephew—would inherit the entire empire, with her acting as regent.”
It was brilliant. It was flawless. And it was pure evil.
“Where is he?” Luca demanded, grabbing the steel lockbox and dumping the rest of the contents onto the potting bench. “Where is my nephew?”
More cash spilled out, but no other documents. No address.
I picked up the photograph. The boy looked happy, but his clothes were a bit worn, and the background didn’t look like a park in Chicago. It looked like an institution.
I turned the photograph over.
Stamped on the back in faded purple ink was a crest: St. Jude’s Home for Boys. Peoria, Illinois.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said, showing him the back of the photo. “He’s not living with her. She put him in an orphanage.”
Luca stared at the stamp. The rage that radiated from him was palpable. His flesh and blood, his brother’s only child, abandoned in a group home two hours away.
“She uses him,” Luca snarled. “She visits him to keep the bond, but keeps him hidden so he can’t be traced back to her until she’s ready to take the throne.”
Audrey pulled on my arm. She pointed to a detail I had missed in the lockbox.
Half-buried under the stacks of cash was a small, white plastic band.
I pulled it out. It was a child’s hospital wristband.
Printed on it was the boy’s name: Leo Bellini.
But it was the hospital name that made my blood run cold.
Whispering Pines Psychiatric Facility.
The exact same facility from the brochure Vanessa had dropped in the dining room.
“Mr. Moretti,” I gasped, holding up the band. “Whispering Pines isn’t for Audrey. It’s for Leo.”
Luca took the band, his eyes scanning the lettering.
“Why would she put a five-year-old boy in a locked-door psychiatric ward?” Luca asked, horrified.
Audrey signed frantically.
“She says… to hide him better,” I translated, my heart hammering in my chest. “An orphanage is open. People can adopt. People ask questions. But a private, locked-door ward? Nobody goes in, and nobody comes out. And she had the transfer papers ready today.”
Luca didn’t say another word. He turned and sprinted out of the greenhouse, back toward the mansion. Audrey and I ran after him.
We burst through the back doors just as Marco came up from the basement.
“Boss, she’s secured in the holding room,” Marco reported. “She’s refusing to speak.”
“Let her rot,” Luca barked. “Marco, get the cars. Call every man we have on the north side. We are driving to Peoria. Now.”
“Peoria? Boss, what’s in Peoria?”
“My brother’s son.”
Marco’s jaw dropped, but his training kicked in instantly. He reached for his radio.
Within ten minutes, a convoy of four black SUVs was roaring out of the estate gates, tearing down the highway into the dark night. I sat in the back of the lead car with Audrey, holding her hand tightly. Luca sat in the front passenger seat, cleaning the barrel of a sleek, black handgun with terrifying precision.
The drive was agonizingly tense. We were racing against the clock. If Vanessa’s transfer papers had already been processed, Leo might already be moving.
Two hours later, the SUVs screeched to a halt in front of a sprawling, gothic brick building surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence.
St. Jude’s Home for Boys.
Luca kicked his door open before the car even fully stopped. He marched up to the front doors, flanked by Marco and six armed men. He didn’t knock. He kicked the heavy wooden doors with the bottom of his boot, bursting the lock inward.
The front hall was dark and silent. A terrified elderly nun rushed out of a side office, clutching a rosary.
“What is the meaning of this?!” she cried.
“Leo Bellini,” Luca demanded, his voice echoing in the cavernous hall. “Where is he?”
The nun trembled. “You have no right—”
Luca pulled out the photograph and shoved it into her hands. “That is my nephew. You tell me what room he is in, or I will buy this building tomorrow and tear it down with you inside.”
The nun looked at the photo. Her eyes widened.
“He… he’s not here,” she stammered.
Luca grabbed her by the shoulders. “What do you mean he’s not here?”
“A woman came for him,” the nun cried, pointing toward the back of the building. “Twenty minutes ago. She had the legal transfer papers. She took him to Whispering Pines.”
Luca cursed violently in Italian. We were too late.
But Audrey broke away from my grip. She ran down the dark hallway toward the back exit doors.
“Audrey, stop!” I yelled, running after her.
She pushed open the back doors leading to the alley behind the orphanage.
She stopped, pointing to the ground.
I caught up to her, breathing hard. I looked down.
Lying in the dirt of the alleyway was a blue stuffed elephant. The exact same one Leo was holding in the photograph.
But that wasn’t what made my stomach drop.
Snagged on the chain-link fence above the toy was a torn piece of fabric.
It was a piece of red silk.
I knew that fabric. I had pressed it myself yesterday morning.
“Mr. Moretti!” I screamed back toward the building.
Luca came running out into the alley.
May you like
I pulled the torn red silk from the fence and held it up.
“Vanessa is locked in your basement,” I said, panic rising in my throat. “But someone else is wearing her sister’s red coat. Someone from inside your house helped take the boy.”
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