Chapter 4 - THE TORN PHOTOGRAPH
The brass doorknob rattled violently against the heavy oak.
I froze, the phone still pressed to my ear, my breath catching painfully in my throat.
“Emma?” Luca’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Emma, what’s happening?”
“Someone is at the door,” I whispered, backing slowly away from the wood.
“Is it locked?”
“Yes.”
“Do not open it. I am ten minutes away.”
The line went dead.
I shoved the phone into my apron and moved quickly to Oliver’s bed. The little boy was fast asleep, oblivious to the terrifying sound echoing through his room.
The rattling stopped.
For a terrible, agonizing moment, there was nothing but silence.
Then, a harsh, scraping sound sliced through the quiet.
Someone was sliding a thin metal lock-pick into the keyhole.
I didn’t think. I just moved.
I grabbed the heavy bronze lamp from the bedside table, ignoring the shooting pain in my bandaged right hand, and stood directly beside the doorframe.
With a soft click, the deadbolt disengaged.
The door swung inward.
A massive figure stepped into the dark room.
It wasn’t Vanessa.
It was Marcus, the head of the estate’s private security. A man who was supposed to be fiercely loyal to Luca Moretti.
He held a silenced pistol in his right hand.
Before he could fully step into the room, I swung the bronze lamp with every ounce of strength I had left.
The heavy base connected solidly with the side of Marcus’s head.
He grunted, stumbling sideways and dropping the weapon.
I scrambled to grab the gun, but Marcus recovered too fast. He lunged forward, grabbing my throat with his massive, calloused hand, and slammed me brutally against the wall.
The lamp crashed to the floor.
Oliver woke up with a terrified scream.
“Quiet!” Marcus hissed, pressing his forearm against my windpipe.
I clawed desperately at his arm, my lungs burning for air.
“You’ve been snooping where you don’t belong, little maid,” Marcus sneered, his breath hot and foul against my face. “Vanessa said you were becoming a problem.”
My vision began to blur around the edges.
Marcus was the traitor. Vanessa had bought the head of security.
Just as my knees began to buckle, the sound of screeching tires echoed from the driveway below the window.
Marcus hesitated, glancing toward the glass.
That split second was all I needed.
I brought my knee up as hard as I could, catching him directly in the groin.
Marcus gasped, his grip loosening just enough.
I shoved him backward, grabbed Oliver from the bed, and ran.
We burst out of the bedroom and sprinted down the long, carpeted hallway. Behind us, I could hear Marcus recovering, his heavy boots pounding against the floor.
“Stop!” he roared.
We reached the top of the grand staircase just as the massive front doors of the mansion were kicked open with explosive force.
Luca stood in the foyer.
He didn’t look like a grieving son anymore. He looked like the devil himself.
He took in the scene instantly—me, clutching a terrified Oliver, and Marcus charging down the hallway with a gun in his hand.
Luca didn’t shout a warning.
He drew his own weapon in a blur of motion and fired exactly once.
The bullet struck Marcus directly in the shoulder.
The massive security chief screamed, dropping his gun and collapsing onto the plush carpet just feet away from us.
Luca took the stairs three at a time.
He didn’t even look at Marcus as he stepped over him. He pulled Oliver and me into his chest, shielding us with his broad shoulders.
“Are you hurt?” Luca demanded, his hands frantically checking my face and neck, where Marcus’s fingerprints were already turning into ugly purple bruises.
“We’re okay,” I gasped, clutching his suit jacket. “He… he works for Vanessa.”
Luca turned slowly toward the bleeding man on the floor.
Two other loyal guards rushed up the stairs, immediately pinning Marcus down.
“Search him,” Luca ordered, his voice echoing like thunder in the cavernous hallway.
One of the guards roughly pulled Marcus’s heavy tactical coat open.
He reached into the interior pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper.
He handed it to Luca.
Luca unfolded it.
It was a torn photograph. Half of a picture.
I leaned over his arm to look.
The photo showed Vanessa sitting at a café table, smiling intimately at a ruggedly handsome man with a deep scar across his jaw.
It wasn’t a romantic smile. It was the smile of a co-conspirator.
“Do you know who this is?” I whispered, recognizing the dangerous look in the man’s eyes.
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter.
“Yes,” Luca said, his voice dripping with absolute venom. “It’s Julian Rossi. The son of the man who runs the New York syndicate.”
He looked down at Marcus.
“Vanessa isn’t just a gold digger,” Luca realized, the pieces finally falling into place. “She didn’t kill my mother just for the inheritance. She’s working for the Rossi family. They’re trying to take over Chicago from the inside.”
Marcus spat blood onto the carpet.
“You’re too late, boss,” he laughed weakly. “Vanessa already moved her final chess piece.”
My phone buzzed again in my pocket.
It wasn’t a phone call this time. It was a text message.
From my mother’s hospital.
I pulled it out with shaking hands.
The message read: Ms. Reed, this is an automated alert. Your mother, Claire Reed, has been discharged from St. Jude’s Medical Center against medical advice per the instructions of her new financial sponsor, Ms. Vanessa Bellini.
The blood completely drained from my face.
“Emma?” Luca asked, seeing my terror.
“She took my mother,” I choked out, dropping the phone.
Vanessa hadn’t just tried to have me killed. She had taken the only person in the world I loved more than my own life.
And from the bottom of the grand staircase, a cold, musical voice drifted up.
“I didn’t take her, Emma. I simply relocated her to a facility that requires my signature to release her.”
We all turned.
Vanessa stood in the foyer, wearing a stunning silk dressing gown, looking completely unbothered by the blood on her carpet.
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She looked up at Luca with a wicked, triumphant smile.
“Put the gun away, darling,” Vanessa purred. “Because if I don’t make a phone call in exactly one hour, Emma’s mother’s life support machines will be turned off.”
