Chapter 4 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING IN THE DESK
The mansion felt entirely different as Luca and I rushed back down the grand staircase. The heavy silence of the engagement dinner had been replaced by a chaotic, electric urgency.
Luca was holding the crayon drawing so tightly his knuckles were white.
“We can't just interrogate Vanessa,” Luca muttered, pacing the marble floor of the foyer. “She’s a Bellini. She was raised to lie. She’ll send us to the wrong address to buy herself time to warn the mother to run.”
“Then how do we find them?” I asked, my heart racing.
Luca stopped pacing. He looked toward the west wing of the house, where the staff quarters and administrative offices were located.
“Vanessa didn't handle her own finances,” Luca said, his eyes narrowing. “She thought she was above writing checks. She had her personal assistant do everything. Even the dirty work.”
I knew exactly who he meant.
Elena. A sharp, incredibly arrogant woman in her late thirties who acted more like a prison warden than a secretary. She had been the one carrying Teresa’s boxes of clothes.
“Marco,” Luca barked into his radio. “Where is Elena?”
“She’s in the staff kitchen, boss. Waiting for Miss Bellini to finish packing.”
“Bring her to my father’s study. Now.”
Luca turned and walked briskly down the hallway. I followed closely behind.
We entered the dark, wood-paneled study. Luca didn't bother turning on the main lights, only the green banker's lamp on the heavy oak desk. It cast long, intimidating shadows across the room.
A minute later, the heavy doors opened. Marco pushed Elena into the room. She was wearing a perfectly tailored grey suit, but her usual arrogant sneer faltered when she saw the look on Luca’s face.
“Mr. Moretti,” Elena said, straightening her jacket. “I was told to wait for Vanessa—”
“Vanessa isn't leaving yet,” Luca interrupted, sitting on the edge of the desk. He held up the child’s drawing. “Tell me about Mia.”
Elena’s eyes darted to the drawing, then to Marco standing blocking the door. She swallowed nervously.
“I... I don't know who that is, sir. Perhaps a charity case Vanessa sponsored?”
Luca didn't yell. He didn't threaten her. He simply pulled his cell phone from his pocket and placed it on the desk.
“Elena, you have worked in this house for two years,” Luca said quietly. “You know how I deal with people who steal from me. But you don't know how I deal with people who hide my family from me. If you lie to me right now, I won't just fire you. I will make sure the Bellini family finds out you betrayed Vanessa, and then I will leave you to them.”
Elena’s face went completely pale. The Bellini family was notorious in Chicago for their sheer ruthlessness.
“She... she made me do it,” Elena stammered, tears springing to her eyes. “I just wired the money, Mr. Moretti. I swear.”
“Wired money to who?”
“To the mother. Sophia.”
“Where are they?” Luca demanded, leaning forward.
Elena opened her purse with shaking hands. She pulled out a small, leather-bound ledger. “Vanessa had me set up a recurring payment through a shell corporation. Ten thousand dollars a month. The condition was that Sophia had to stay in the city limits so Vanessa could monitor her, but she was never allowed to contact the Moretti family.”
“Give me the address,” Luca said, holding out his hand.
Elena flipped through the ledger and read out a street name and apartment number.
I froze.
The address she read wasn't in some hidden, run-down part of the city.
“Wait,” I breathed, stepping forward. “Read that again.”
Elena looked at me in confusion and repeated the address.
412 West Elm Street. Apartment 3B.
My stomach dropped to the floor.
“Hannah?” Luca noticed my reaction immediately. “Do you know this address?”
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, staring at the ledger. “That’s my apartment building. I live in 4B. Right above them.”
The silence in the study was deafening.
Luca stared at me. “You live above my brother’s widow?”
“I... I didn't know!” I stammered, my mind racing. “The woman in 3B, she keeps to herself. She works night shifts. I’ve seen her in the hallway maybe twice. I’ve never seen a little girl!”
Elena cleared her throat nervously. “Sophia works nights as a waitress. The child goes to a 24-hour daycare facility while she works. Vanessa insisted on it. She said keeping the child out of the apartment minimized the risk of anyone noticing them.”
Luca’s jaw tightened. He snatched the ledger from Elena’s hands.
“Marco,” Luca ordered. “Keep Elena in this room. Call the police and have them escort Vanessa off the property. Tell them she’s trespassing. If she resists, let them arrest her.”
Marco nodded sharply.
Luca turned to me. “We are going to your apartment. Right now.”
We ran out to the front driveway. The rain had started to fall in freezing sheets. Luca’s black SUV was waiting. He jumped into the driver’s seat, and I scrambled into the passenger side.
The drive across the city felt like a blur. Luca drove with a terrifying, silent focus, the tires screeching around wet corners.
“If she lives in your building, Hannah, you have to talk to her first,” Luca said, his eyes glued to the road. “If a man in a suit knocks on her door at midnight, she’ll think Vanessa sent someone to kill her.”
“I’ll talk to her,” I promised.
We pulled up to the curb outside my brick apartment building. It was a modest, working-class building. Nothing like the Moretti mansion.
We rushed inside and took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor.
The hallway was dimly lit and smelled faintly of old carpeting and bleach.
We reached the door of 3B.
I raised my hand to knock, but before my knuckles even touched the wood, I stopped.
The door was already cracked open.
The deadbolt was splintered. The doorframe was cracked, as if it had been kicked in with immense force.
“Luca,” I whispered, backing away.
Luca drew a handgun from his shoulder holster in a fraction of a second. He pushed me behind him and gently pushed the door open with his foot.
The apartment was pitch black.
Luca reached in and flicked the light switch.
The living room had been completely ransacked. The cheap sofa was overturned, the cushions slashed. Books and clothes were thrown everywhere. A small, decorated Christmas tree in the corner had been smashed to the ground, ornaments shattered across the linoleum floor.
“Sophia?” Luca called out, his weapon raised as he swept the room.
Empty.
I walked in behind him, my hands covering my mouth in horror. This wasn't a robbery. This was a targeted attack.
“Vanessa didn't just pack my mother’s clothes tonight,” Luca said, his voice laced with pure venom. “She knew her time was running out. She sent someone to clean up her loose ends.”
I looked down at the floor near the overturned coffee table.
Lying amidst the broken glass and shredded mail was a heavy, silver object.
I knelt down and picked it up.
It was a thick, silver charm bracelet. The clasp was broken, as if it had been violently ripped from someone’s wrist during a struggle.
I showed it to Luca.
He took the bracelet, his eyes widening.
“This was Matteo’s,” Luca whispered. “He bought this in Italy six years ago. He told us he lost it.”
He looked around the destroyed apartment, the reality settling heavily on his shoulders.
“They took her, Hannah. Vanessa’s men took Sophia.”
Suddenly, a small, muffled sound came from the hallway outside the apartment.
It sounded like a child crying.
Luca and I spun around.
We rushed back out into the hallway. The sound was coming from the small, metal door of the janitor’s supply closet at the end of the corridor.
Luca slowly walked toward it. He holstered his weapon, not wanting to terrify whoever was inside.
He gently pulled the metal handle. The door creaked open.
Huddled in the corner, hiding behind a mop bucket in the pitch dark, was a little girl.
She was wearing pink dinosaur pajamas, clutching a dirty stuffed rabbit to her chest. She was trembling violently, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
And wrapped tightly around her small wrist was a gold watch. A man’s watch. Too big for her, sliding down to her elbow.
Luca fell to his knees on the dirty tile floor. He stared at the little girl, his eyes filling with tears.
She had his brother’s eyes.
“Mia?” Luca whispered gently.
May you like
The little girl sniffled, pressing herself further into the corner. She looked at Luca, then down at the gold watch on her arm.
“Are you the bad man?” she asked, her voice trembling. “The one the red dress lady said would come to take my daddy’s watch?”
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