Chapter 6 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
The taxi screeched to a halt outside the towering iron gates of the Moretti estate.
I didn't wait for the driver to unlock the doors. I shoved a fifty-dollar bill through the partition, kicked the door open, and sprinted toward the guardhouse.
The gate was wide open.
The two loyal guards who usually manned the entrance were lying motionless on the pavement, their radios buzzing with frantic static.
Vanessa’s men had completely taken over.
I ran up the long, sweeping driveway, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. The mansion was ablaze with light, but it was entirely silent. An eerie, terrifying silence.
I burst through the front doors.
The foyer was empty. The blood from where Marcus had been shot was still staining the carpet, but Marcus was gone.
"Luca!" I screamed, my voice tearing through the cavernous house.
Silence.
I ran toward the main living room, ignoring the throbbing pain in my bandaged right hand.
I found him.
Luca was sitting on the edge of the heavy leather sofa. His suit jacket was discarded on the floor. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, and his hands were buried in his dark hair.
He looked up when I ran into the room.
The most powerful man in Chicago looked completely, utterly broken.
"They took him," Luca whispered, his voice cracking with a devastation so deep it made my own chest ache. "I was on the phone trying to locate your mother's hospital. Julian Rossi’s men breached the back terrace. They had Vanessa’s security codes. They took Oliver right out of his bed."
I ran over and dropped to my knees in front of him.
I reached out, taking his trembling hands in mine.
"I know," I said fiercely. "She sent me a picture. But Luca, she didn't just take him tonight. She planned this."
I reached into my apron and pulled out the train ticket.
I pressed it into his palm.
Luca stared at the small piece of paper. He read the passenger name.
Oliver Moretti.
"She bought this three days ago," I explained, the pieces rapidly locking together in my mind. "She was going to put him on that train to Los Angeles to get him out of the state. She wants you to marry her tomorrow, and once you do, with Oliver gone, she becomes the sole legal beneficiary of the entire estate."
Luca’s eyes slowly rose from the ticket to my face.
The grief in his expression was instantly incinerated by a rage so profound, the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
"She used the wedding to distract me," Luca growled, standing up so violently the heavy coffee table shifted. "She used my grief for my mother to blind me. And now she has my nephew."
"And my mother," I added quietly, standing up beside him.
Luca looked at me. The fierce protectiveness returned to his eyes.
"I will get them back, Emma. I swear to you on my life."
Before I could answer, a small, crumpled piece of paper caught my eye.
It was lying on the floor near the fireplace, half-hidden beneath the edge of an expensive Persian rug.
I walked over and picked it up.
It was a piece of construction paper. Oliver’s drawing paper.
He must have dropped it when Rossi’s men dragged him out of the room.
I flattened it out.
It was a child's crayon drawing, messy and uneven. But the subject matter was unmistakably clear.
It showed a tall woman with blonde hair—Vanessa.
She was standing in a room with a bed.
In her hand, she held a small, dark bottle with an 'X' drawn on it. She was pouring something from the bottle into a glass of water sitting on a bedside table.
Underneath the drawing, written in Oliver's wobbly, six-year-old handwriting, were the words:
Aunt Vanessa made Grandma’s water taste bad.
I stopped breathing.
"Luca," I whispered, holding the drawing out to him.
He took it.
He stared at the crayon lines.
He didn't just see a child’s drawing. He saw the exact, horrific truth of how his mother had died. Vanessa hadn't just paid the doctor to lie about the cause of death.
She had actively poisoned Isabella Moretti’s drinking water.
Oliver had seen it happen. He hadn't just seen her break the watch; he had seen the murder itself. That was why Vanessa was so desperate to get rid of the boy.
Suddenly, the massive television screens built into the living room wall flickered to life.
The security feed had been hijacked.
Instead of showing the empty driveway, the screen displayed a live video feed of a dark, abandoned warehouse.
Julian Rossi sat in the center of the frame, smoking a cigar. Beside him stood Vanessa, looking completely smug, wearing the emerald necklace she had tried to frame me for stealing.
Behind them, tied to a metal chair, was a terrified, crying Oliver.
"Good evening, Luca," Julian said smoothly, leaning toward the camera. "I hope you like what we’ve done with the place."
Luca stepped toward the screen, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were bone-white.
"If you hurt that boy, Julian, there isn’t a hole deep enough for you to hide in."
"Oh, I’m not going to hurt him," Julian laughed. "He’s a very valuable hostage. You see, Luca, my father wants Chicago. He’s wanted it for a decade. And Vanessa here," he patted her shoulder, "has been very helpful in clearing the board."
Vanessa stepped forward, looking directly into the camera.
"Here are your options, darling," she said, her voice dripping with poison. "You will meet us at the old shipping docks in one hour. You will bring the deed to the estate, the digital access keys to your offshore accounts, and you will sign over total control of the syndicate to Julian."
"And if I don't?" Luca demanded.
Vanessa smiled. It was the most evil thing I had ever seen.
"Then the boy goes into the river. And the machines keeping Emma’s mother alive get unplugged."
She leaned closer to the lens.
May you like
"Oh, and Luca? Come alone. If we see a single one of your men, we start with the boy."
The screen went black.
