Chapter 2 - THE SPEECH ON THE FOLDED PAPER
The silence in the dining room was suffocating.
Vanessa’s confidence finally broke. She looked around at the thirty-six guests, searching for a sympathetic face, but found only cold stares.
“Luca, be reasonable,” Vanessa stammered, her voice shrill. “Your father is a wonderful man, but he is a mechanic. My family is flying in from Milan. The governor is attending. I just wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted your family to look perfect.”
Luca didn't shout. The terrifying stillness of his posture was far worse.
“Perfect,” Luca repeated, the word tasting like venom in his mouth.
He looked down at his father. Frank was staring at the table, clutching the crumpled, unevenly written speech I had helped him write in the kitchen three weeks ago.
“Dad,” Luca said softly, his voice trembling with a profound, aching regret. “I have never, for a single second of my life, wished you were someone else.”
Frank looked up, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Really, son?”
“Really, Pop.”
Luca turned back to Vanessa. His expression was completely devoid of the warmth he usually reserved for her.
“The wedding is off,” Luca stated.
Vanessa gasped, stumbling back against a chair. “What? Luca, you can’t! The merger between our families—the contracts are already signed!”
“I will buy your family out of the contracts,” Luca said, his voice dropping into the icy, ruthless register of a mafia boss. “I would rather burn half my empire to the ground than marry a woman who thinks my father is something to be hidden in the back row.”
“Luca, please!” Vanessa cried, tears streaking her flawless makeup. “I was doing it for us!”
“Marco,” Luca called out quietly.
His head of security stepped out of the shadows immediately.
“Have Vanessa’s things packed,” Luca ordered. “Have a car take her anywhere she wants to go. But she doesn't sleep in this house tonight.”
Vanessa let out a wretched sob, but Marco was already moving toward her, offering no room for negotiation. She looked at Luca one last time, but he had already turned his back on her.
As Marco escorted a weeping Vanessa out of the dining room, the guests murmured politely and began to excuse themselves. They understood the dinner was over. The engagement was dead.
Within minutes, the grand room was empty, save for Luca, Frank, and me.
I stood frozen near the serving cart, unsure if I should leave.
“Hannah,” Luca said.
I jumped slightly. “Yes, sir?”
“Thank you,” he said, his dark eyes meeting mine with absolute sincerity. “For helping him read the menu. For helping him write his speech. Thank you for treating him like a human being.”
“He is a wonderful man, Mr. Moretti,” I said softly, looking at Frank.
Frank offered me a shaky, grateful smile. “You’re a good girl, Hannah.”
Luca pulled out a chair and sat heavily next to his father, running a hand through his dark hair. The adrenaline of the confrontation was fading, leaving behind a heavy, exhausted sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Luca,” Frank murmured, carefully smoothing out the folded piece of paper on the table. “I ruined your engagement.”
“You didn't ruin anything, Dad,” Luca promised, placing his hand over his father’s rough, calloused fingers. “She ruined it. You saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life.”
Frank looked down at the speech. He stared at the uneven letters for a long time.
Then, he sighed, a deep, rattling sound in his chest.
“I suppose I don't need this anymore,” Frank said quietly.
He began to fold the paper back up, but his hands were shaking so badly he dropped it. The paper fluttered under the table.
“I’ll get it,” I said quickly, dropping to my knees.
I crawled under the heavy mahogany table. I found the paper near the leg of Frank’s chair.
But as I reached for it, I noticed something tucked into the cuff of Frank’s trousers.
It was a small, heavy silver object. It had slipped out of his sock.
I picked it up.
It was a beautiful, intricately carved silver lighter. But it was ancient, tarnished black with age and heavy use.
Engraved on the side was a crest: a lion holding a shield.
It was the crest of the Rossi family.
I froze, kneeling under the table. I had only worked here for eleven months, but even I knew the name Rossi. They were the rival syndicate. The family that had waged a bloody war against the Morettis thirty years ago, ending only when the Rossi patriarch was assassinated.
Why did Frank Moretti, a retired mechanic, have a silver lighter belonging to a dead mafia boss tucked into his sock?
I crawled out from under the table, holding the speech in one hand and the silver lighter in the other.
I stood up.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly, holding out the speech to Frank. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Frank smiled, taking the paper.
Then, I held out the lighter.
“I think this fell out of your pocket, sir.”
Frank’s smile vanished instantly.
All the color drained from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost. He stared at the silver lighter in my hand as if it were a live grenade.
Luca frowned, noticing his father’s sudden terror.
Luca reached over and took the lighter from my hand. He turned it over, his thumb brushing over the engraved lion crest.
The atmosphere in the room shifted from exhausted relief to a sudden, chilling dread.
“Dad,” Luca said, his voice dropping an octave, losing all the warmth it had held moments ago. “Where did you get this?”
Frank couldn't speak. He was trembling violently.
“This is Lorenzo Rossi’s lighter,” Luca whispered, staring at the silver object. “The man who ordered the hit on my mother thirty years ago.”
Luca looked up at his father, his eyes widening with a horrifying realization.
“The police said Lorenzo Rossi’s lighter was stolen off his body the night he was murdered,” Luca said, his voice deadly quiet.
May you like
He leaned across the table.
“Dad. Why do you have the lighter of the man who murdered my mother?”
