THE MAFIA BOSS DISCOVERS HIS FIANCÉE'S SICK SECRET

I backed away until my spine hit the edge of the mahogany desk.

The bloody cashmere coat felt like lead in my arms.

“How long have you known?” I whispered, my voice barely audible.

Luca looked down at me, his face an unreadable mask. “Since the moment my security team ran your background check eleven months ago. You’re Hannah Collins. Your mother is Margaret Collins. The woman who was driving the other car.”

I closed my eyes, a wave of sickening guilt washing over me.

Four years ago, on a slick, rain-soaked road, Elena Moretti’s brakes had failed. Her car had swerved into oncoming traffic. It collided head-on with my mother’s rusted sedan.

Elena died instantly.

My mother survived, but her body was shattered. Multiple surgeries, years of physical therapy, and crushing medical debt had drowned us. The police ruled it a tragic accident. No charges were filed.

But I had always felt a desperate, agonizing need to make amends. I had applied for the maid position at the Moretti estate using my middle name on the application, hoping to quietly serve the family we had inadvertently broken.

“If you knew,” I stammered, opening my eyes. “Why did you hire me? Why didn’t you turn me away?”

Luca slipped his pistol into his shoulder holster.

“Because,” he said quietly, “I knew my wife was an excellent driver. I knew she never drove recklessly. When the police told me it was a simple accident, I didn’t believe them. I spent years trying to prove someone tampered with her car. But I hit a dead end.”

He looked at the drawing still trembling in my right hand.

“Then, a year ago, Vanessa came into my life. And suddenly, she was desperate to marry me. Desperate to control my mother. Desperate to silence my daughter.”

He reached out and gently took Sophie’s crayon drawing from my fingers.

He stared at the scribbled red lines beneath the black car. The angry man by the tire.

Dominic made Mommy’s car sick.

Luca’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. “My father suspected Dominic,” Luca whispered. “He had his private investigators track him on the night of the crash. Dominic was following Elena. When the crash happened, Dominic pulled over. But he didn’t call an ambulance.”

Luca looked down at the blood-stained coat in my arms.

“He went down to the wreckage,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying deadpan. “He reached into my dying wife’s car to steal her purse, ensuring there was no evidence of where she had been heading that night. She bled on his sleeve.”

“Why didn't your father go to the police?” I asked, horrified.

“Because he didn’t have the proof of the brake tampering. Only the coat. If he showed his hand too early, the Bellini family would have covered it up.”

Luca slowly looked up at me.

“I kept you here, Hannah, because you were the only person in this house who didn’t belong to Vanessa. You were the only one who actually cared about my mother and my daughter.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Vanessa told me I would be fired if I kept helping your mother walk.”

“Vanessa doesn’t run this house,” Luca said fiercely. “I do.”

He took the bloody coat from me and laid it carefully on the desk next to the drawing.

“But I need your help,” he said.

“My help?”

Luca nodded. “I have enough to destroy Dominic now. But Vanessa is the architect of all this. She knew what her brother did. She’s been drugging my mother to find this key.”

Before he could finish, the heavy oak door of the study flew open.

I jumped. Luca spun around, his hand instinctively flying to his holster.

Standing in the doorway, breathing heavily, was Luca’s head of security, Marco.

“Boss,” Marco said, his voice tight with urgency. “You need to come downstairs right now.”

Luca frowned. “I told you to lock down the perimeter.”

“I did,” Marco said. “But we have a problem.”

“What is it?”

Marco stepped aside.

Standing in the hallway, flanked by two of Marco’s massive guards, was Vanessa.

She wasn’t wearing her red silk gown anymore. She was wearing a crisp, white tailored suit. Her hair was perfectly styled.

She looked entirely unbothered by the fact that her brother had just been choked over a dining table.

“Luca, darling,” Vanessa purred, stepping into the study. She glanced at me with pure venom before looking back at her fiancé. “I told you I’d be back.”

Luca’s expression turned to stone. “You have three seconds to leave before I have you physically thrown onto the street.”

Vanessa smiled thinly. She didn’t look scared at all.

She reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she said smoothly. “Not unless you want the State of Illinois to take your daughter away.”

Luca froze. “What are you talking about?”

Vanessa unfolded the paper and laid it on the edge of the mahogany desk.

“Child Protective Services,” she said, her smile widening into something truly evil. “I filed an emergency report this morning. Anonymous, of course. Detailing severe negligence and emotional abuse in this home.”

My stomach bottomed out.

“You’re out of your mind,” Luca snarled.

“Am I?” Vanessa tilted her head. “Your mother is severely unmedicated and senile. You run a criminal syndicate. And your daughter showed up to dinner tonight with a bruised, swollen wrist.”

She stepped closer to him.

“The state will be here at 9:00 AM to perform an emergency welfare check. They are going to take Sophie from you, Luca. Unless…”

She smoothed a crease in the paperwork.