Chapter 3 - The Blood on the Chain
The question hung in the air, paralyzing every single person in the room.
Did you kill her to take this key?
Vanessa stumbled backward, her designer heels catching on the Persian rug. She grabbed the edge of the dining table to keep from falling.
"Luca, you’re insane!" Vanessa shrieked, her voice cracking in pure panic. "She was in hospice! She was already dying! I just... I just went to talk to her!"
"You went to a dying woman’s bedside while forcing her daughter to polish silverware across town," Luca said, his voice a low, terrifying growl. He stepped toward her, his towering frame casting a shadow over her trembling form. "How did you get the key, Vanessa?"
Vanessa looked at the forty elite guests, begging silently for someone to intervene. No one moved. In Luca Moretti’s dining room, you didn't interrupt an execution.
"She... she was asleep," Vanessa stammered, tears ruining her perfect makeup. "I slipped it off her neck. That’s all! I swear to God, Luca, I didn't hurt her! She just didn't wake up!"
"She was asleep?" I echoed, my voice shaking uncontrollably. I stepped forward, pushing past a terrified senator’s wife. "My mother slept lightly. She woke up if the floorboards creaked. If you took a chain off her neck, she would have fought you."
Vanessa wouldn't look at me. She kept her eyes fixed on Luca’s chest.
"I didn't touch her!" Vanessa cried.
Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed a number without breaking eye contact with his fiancée.
"Marco," Luca said into the phone.
A moment later, the heavy oak doors of the dining room swung open. Marco, the head of Luca’s security, stepped inside. He was a massive man with a jagged scar across his jaw, wearing a dark suit.
"Boss," Marco said, standing at attention.
"Call the medical examiner," Luca ordered. "Tell him I need an expedited toxicology report on Eleanor Mitchell. I want it done tonight. And tell him to look for signs of asphyxiation."
Vanessa let out a strangled sob, covering her mouth with her hands.
"Luca, please!" she begged, sinking to her knees on the hardwood floor. "If the documents get out, the feds will seize everything! They’ll dismantle the legitimate businesses! I did it for you! For our future!"
Luca didn't flinch. He looked down at the woman he was supposed to marry in two months with utter, absolute disgust.
"The engagement is over," Luca said coldly.
Vanessa gasped, looking up at him as if he had just struck her. "You can't do that. My family—"
"Your family will count themselves lucky I don't burn their houses to the ground for what you did under my roof," Luca interrupted. He looked at Marco. "Lock her in the guest wing. Put two men on the door. She doesn't leave this property until I see the medical examiner’s report."
"Yes, sir," Marco nodded. He stepped forward and grabbed Vanessa by the arm, hauling her roughly to her feet.
Vanessa screamed, thrashing against Marco’s grip. "You’re throwing everything away for a maid! She’s nothing, Luca! You’re ruining us!"
Marco dragged her out of the dining room. Her screams echoed down the marble hallway until the heavy doors slammed shut, plunging the room back into a heavy, terrified silence.
I stood frozen, my hands shaking so badly I had to clasp them together against my chest. My mother was dead. She had died alone, terrified, with a monster in her room, while I was washing dishes because I was too afraid to lose my job.
A sudden wave of nausea hit me. I swayed on my feet.
Luca was beside me in an instant. He didn't touch me, respecting the boundaries of an employee, but his massive presence anchored me.
"Grace," Luca said softly, the ruthless mafia boss vanishing completely. "Breathe."
I couldn't. I looked up at him, tears blinding me. "She died alone, Mr. Moretti. Because of me."
"She died because my father was a coward, and my fiancée was a monster," Luca corrected firmly. "Do not take their sins onto your shoulders."
He turned to the forty guests sitting in stunned silence.
"Dinner is over," Luca announced, his voice carrying the absolute authority of a king dismissing his court. "My staff will see you to your cars."
Nobody argued. The wealthiest, most powerful people in Chicago stood up silently, leaving their full plates and half-empty wineglasses behind. Within five minutes, the dining room was completely empty, save for me and Luca.
Luca walked over to the mahogany table and picked up the heavy brass key. He stared at it for a long time.
Then, he turned to me.
"You need to know what’s in the box, Grace," he said quietly.
"I don't care about the documents," I wept, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "I just want my mother back."
"I can't give you your mother," Luca said, his voice thick with a genuine, heavy sorrow. "But I can give you the truth. If my father murdered her friends, you deserve to know."
He held the key out to me.
"I’ll have Marco drive you to the bank in the morning," Luca said. "You open it. Whatever is inside... it’s yours to do with as you see fit."
I stared at the key in his hand. If I took those documents to the FBI, it would destroy the Moretti empire. It would destroy Luca. He was handing me the weapon to ruin his life.
I slowly reached out and took the key. It was cold against my palm.
"Why are you giving this to me?" I whispered.
Luca looked at me, a profound, tired sadness in his dark eyes.
"Because for four years, you’ve cleaned my house and smiled at my guests while my family’s poison was killing your mother," Luca said. "It’s time you had the power."
He turned and walked out of the dining room, leaving me alone under the hum of the crystal chandeliers.
I didn't sleep that night. I sat in my small room in the servant’s quarters, staring at the brass key.
The next morning, Marco was waiting for me by the back entrance. He drove me to the federal bank downtown in silence. He escorted me to the vault manager, showed his credentials to bypass the wait, and stood guard outside the private viewing room while the manager brought in the long, metal safety deposit box.
The manager left me alone.
I took a deep breath, my hands trembling as I inserted the brass key. I turned it. The lock clicked.
I opened the lid.
Inside was a thick manila envelope. I pulled it out and tore it open, expecting to find environmental reports, toxic waste logs, proof of Enzo Moretti’s crimes.
But there were no environmental reports.
Instead, I pulled out a stack of old, grainy photographs.
I stared at the first one, my heart stopping completely.
It was a picture of my mother, Eleanor, twenty-eight years ago. She was young, beautiful, and smiling.
But she wasn't standing in a laundry facility.
She was standing on the terrace of the Moretti mansion.
And standing right beside her, holding her hand with a look of pure, unadulterated love, was Enzo Moretti.
I scrambled to pull out the rest of the contents.
Beneath the photos was a birth certificate.
I read the names, the room spinning violently out of control.
Mother: Eleanor Mitchell.
Father: Enzo Moretti.
Child: Grace Mitchell.
The paper slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the table.
May you like
I wasn't a maid. And my mother hadn't been extorting the syndicate.
She had been trying to secure my inheritance. Because I was Luca Moretti’s sister.
