Chapter 2 - THE SILVER LOCKET
“Tell me exactly who told you I never wanted to hear from you again.”
Luca’s voice didn’t echo in the dining room.
It didn’t need to.
The silence was so absolute that I could hear the sharp intake of breath from the man sitting two seats away—Luca’s younger brother, Dominic.
Vanessa stared at the shattered glass around her expensive red heels.
She didn’t move to pick it up.
She was trembling.
I stood completely still by the serving cart, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I shouldn’t be here.
I should walk back into the kitchen, clock out, and go home to my father.
But my feet felt cemented to the hardwood floor.
Luca listened to the phone.
His dark eyes never left Vanessa’s face.
“She brought it to you personally?” he asked into the receiver.
A pause.
“And the locket?”
Vanessa’s head snapped up.
The color drained from her cheeks so fast she looked ill.
“Stay where you are, Isabella,” Luca commanded softly. “I will handle this.”
He ended the call.
He placed the phone face-down on the table.
He didn’t yell.
He didn’t flip the table.
In my year of working for the Moretti family, I had learned that Luca’s anger wasn’t loud. It was a cold, creeping frost.
“Vanessa,” he said.
She flinched.
“Luca, let me explain—”
“My daughter,” he interrupted, his voice terrifyingly calm, “just told me that three years ago, you visited her apartment.”
Whispers broke out among the thirty guests.
Dominic set his napkin down.
“She said,” Luca continued, stepping closer to his fiancée, “that you handed her the silver locket that belonged to her late mother. The one I kept locked in my private safe.”
Vanessa shook her head rapidly.
“I didn’t steal it, Luca. I was only trying to—”
“She said you gave her the locket,” Luca’s voice dropped an octave, “and told her it was a goodbye gift. From me. Because I was starting a new family with you, and there was no room for a child who reminded me of my dead wife.”
The entire table gasped.
I felt physically sick.
Isabella had been twenty-one.
Grieving her mother.
Pushed out of her own family by a woman who hadn't even married into it yet.
“I was protecting her!” Vanessa suddenly cried out, her voice shrill.
Luca stopped.
“Protecting her from what?”
Vanessa looked frantically around the room.
Her eyes darted to the guests, then to the armed security standing by the doors, and finally—
To Dominic.
Dominic’s expression was completely blank.
But his right hand slipped off the table, resting near the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
Vanessa swallowed hard.
“From this life, Luca! From the business! You know what happened to her mother. I wanted Isabella to have a normal life away from Chicago.”
It sounded like a noble excuse.
It sounded like a lie.
“So you intercepted her mail for three years?” Luca asked. “You forwarded her letters to your mother’s empty apartment so I would think she abandoned me?”
“I knew if she reached out, you would pull her back in,” Vanessa pleaded, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I did it for you, Luca. So you could move on.”
Luca stared at her.
He didn’t look angry anymore.
He looked disgusted.
“Get out of my house.”
“Luca, please—”
“If you are still in this mansion in ten minutes, I will have security throw you onto the street in that dress.”
Vanessa let out a choked sob.
She turned and ran from the dining room, her heels clicking frantically against the marble hallway.
The guests were frozen.
Nobody knew what to do.
Luca turned to his brother.
“Dominic. Clear the room. The engagement is off.”
Dominic nodded slowly. “Of course, Luca.”
I turned to leave. I needed to get back to the kitchen.
But as I reached for the serving cart, I noticed something under Vanessa’s chair.
When she had dropped her wineglass, her small clutch purse had fallen too.
It had popped open.
I knelt to pick up the broken glass.
My fingers brushed the purse.
Inside, partially hidden by a lipstick tube, was a folded photograph.
I shouldn’t look.
Rule number one: You carry towels for a living. You do not involve yourself.
But I saw the face in the photo.
It was Isabella.
I knew her from the portraits in the hallway.
But she wasn’t alone.
She was standing in a playground, looking exhausted, holding a little boy who couldn’t be more than two years old.
Isabella had a child.
Luca had a grandson.
And Vanessa had a spy photographing them.
I quickly slid the photo into my apron pocket.
I stood up, holding the broken glass in a napkin.
But when I turned around, my blood ran cold.
Dominic was standing right behind me.
He wasn’t looking at his brother.
May you like
He was staring directly at my apron pocket.
“Emma,” Dominic smiled. A thin, terrifying smile. “What did you just pick up?”
