Chapter 4 - THE UNEXPECTED DEBT
I stood by Leo’s window seat, staring at the document in my hands until the print began to blur.
My mother, Evelyn Dawson, had worked as an administrative clerk at St. Jude’s Hospice Wing five years ago, before her stroke forced her into early retirement. I knew she had worked there. What I didn’t know—what made my breath seize in my throat—was why her signature sat alongside Sarah Moretti’s on a private legal affidavit.
“Claire?” Leo’s small voice pulled me back. “Is that bad paper?”
“No, sweetheart,” I said, forcing a warm smile as I folded the envelope and slid it securely into my cardigan pocket. “It’s just an old paper your mom saved. Let’s get your sneakers on.”
Downstairs, Luca was standing by the grand front doors, his dark overcoat already buttoned. The house was dead quiet. The catering staff had been sent home with full pay, and two private security guards stood posted outside the locked library doors where Vanessa was being held.
Luca looked tired. The harsh lines around his jaw seemed deeper, carved by betrayal and five years of carefully suppressed grief. When he saw Leo and me coming down the sweeping mahogany staircase, his posture shifted immediately, softening into that of a protective father.
“Marco brought the SUV to the front,” Luca said, taking Leo’s duffel bag from my hands. His fingers brushed mine, and he paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at my face. “You’re shaking, Claire. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, sir. Just worried about Leo.”
“I’m not scared, Dad,” Leo announced bravely, puffing out his chest even though his little sneakers were scuffing the marble. “Claire gave me Mom’s bear.”
Luca looked down at the bear, then looked back at me. A flicker of profound gratitude crossed his features. “Thank you. For earlier. Most people in this house look the other way when Vanessa starts barking orders. You didn’t.”
“Leo is an eight-year-old child, Mr. Moretti. Nobody should be made to feel ashamed of loving his mother.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “No. They shouldn't.”
He led us out to a heavy black SUV parked under the porte-cochère. Rain was still coming down in sheets. Luca opened the rear passenger door and buckled Leo into his booster seat with practiced, tender efficiency. Then he opened the front passenger door for me.
“Sir, I can ride in the back with Leo,” I said quickly.
“Get in the front, Claire. You’re not the maid tonight. You’re the only person who protected my son.”
I swallowed hard and climbed into the leather seat. Luca rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel, steering the heavy vehicle down the winding, gated driveway of the Lake Forest estate.
We drove south toward downtown Chicago in silence, the rhythm of the wipers keeping time against the windshield. Leo fell asleep within fifteen minutes, his head resting against the plush bear.
Once Leo’s soft breathing filled the car, Luca spoke.
“The detective is meeting us at the penthouse on Michigan Avenue,” he said, his eyes fixed on the rain-slicked highway. “Vanessa’s father called my office ten minutes ago. He threatened to pull forty million dollars from the port redevelopment project if I don't let her walk out of that library.”
“Will you?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Luca glanced at me, a dangerous glint in his dark eyes. “Arthur Bellini thinks his money makes him untouchable. He doesn’t understand that everything I built was for Sarah, and now it’s for Leo. If a man threatens my son’s peace, I will burn his empire to the ground and warm my hands over the ashes.”
The raw intensity in his voice made me shiver, but strangely, I didn't feel afraid. Leo was safe with this man. Anyone loved by Luca Moretti had an unbreakable fortress around them.
“There’s something else,” Luca continued, adjusting the rearview mirror. “The sewing box drawer had a false bottom. When Marco searched the rest of the desk, he found a ledger. Vanessa wasn’t just visiting Sarah at the hospice five years ago. She was working with someone on the hospice administration board to alter Sarah’s private end-of-life trust.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. My hand moved instinctively to the envelope inside my cardigan.
“Did they... find a name?” I managed to ask, my throat painfully dry.
“A clerk’s initials were on the preliminary intake,” Luca said grimly. “E.D. The detective is pulling the employment roster from that year right now.”
*E.D. Evelyn Dawson.*
My mother.
The road ahead seemed to stretch into total darkness. My mother wasn't a thief. She was a churchgoing woman who baked apple pies for the neighbors and cried over sad commercials. But she had been drowning in medical debt five years ago after my father’s heart surgery.
Had Vanessa used my mother? Or had my mother helped Vanessa steal from Luca’s dying wife?
“Claire?” Luca’s voice broke through my panic. “Your breathing just changed.”
May you like
Before I could answer, the SUV’s tire hit something metal on the interstate ramp—a loud, explosive *BANG* that jerked the heavy vehicle violently toward the concrete barrier.
***
