Chapter 5 - THE SINS OF THE UNCLE
The temperature in the dining room plummeted.
Every eye shifted from Vanessa’s ruined dress to Uncle Michael.
Michael stood at the head of the table. His worn suit suddenly looked too big for him.
He gripped the edge of the mahogany table, his knuckles turning white.
“Michael?” Luca asked. The betrayal in his voice was raw.
Michael shook his head slowly. “Luciano... listen to me.”
“Did you give her the account numbers?”
“He didn’t just give them to me,” Vanessa sneered, stepping away from the wall, her confidence returning like a venomous snake uncoiling. “He sold them to me.”
Teresa Romano slammed her hand on the table. “Liar! Michael would never steal from this family!”
“Wouldn’t he?” Vanessa laughed. “Check his pockets. Check his bank statements. How do you think he paid off his gambling debts last month, Teresa? With his pension from the shoe store?”
Teresa froze. She looked at her brother.
“Michael?” she whispered. “What is she talking about?”
Michael couldn’t look at her. He stared at his cheap leather shoes.
Luca closed the distance between him and his uncle.
He didn’t yell this time.
The quietness was back. The terrifying, mob-boss quietness.
“Look at me,” Luca commanded.
Michael slowly raised his head. His eyes were completely bloodshot.
“Did you sell my mother’s trust information to this woman?” Luca asked.
“I didn’t know what she was going to do with it!” Michael pleaded, tears spilling onto his wrinkled cheeks. “She came to me, Luca. She knew about my debts to the Morello family. They were going to break my legs. They threatened Teresa’s bakery.”
He pointed a shaking finger at Vanessa.
“She said she just needed to prove to her father that she was marrying into secure money. She said if I gave her the routing numbers, she would pay off my debt. She promised she wouldn’t touch a dime!”
Luca looked at him with utter disgust.
“You trusted a woman you barely knew over your own blood.”
“I was trying to protect the family!” Michael cried.
“You sold us out for thirty thousand dollars!”
“It wasn’t just the money!”
The shout tore from Michael’s throat.
The whole room jolted.
Michael reached into his jacket pocket.
His hand was shaking so violently he could barely pull the object out.
He tossed it onto the dining table.
It landed next to Elena’s silver rosary.
It was a faded, polaroid photograph.
Luca stared at it.
I stepped closer, pulling Leo behind my apron so he couldn’t see the tension escalating.
But I could see the photograph.
It was a picture of a crushed car at the bottom of a ravine.
Elena’s car.
“They sent that to me a month ago,” Michael wept. “The Morellos. They told me that if I didn’t help Vanessa, they would do to Teresa what they did to Elena.”
Luca’s breath hitched.
He picked up the photograph.
“The Morellos?” Luca whispered. “The Morellos are in prison. I put them there myself ten years ago.”
“Not all of them,” Vanessa said smoothly.
Luca turned to her.
She wasn’t scared anymore. She was smiling.
“Did you really think my last name was Bellini, Luca?” she asked.
She reached up and unclasped the diamond necklace around her throat. She dropped it carelessly onto the floor.
“Bellini is my mother’s maiden name.”
Luca stared at her, the pieces clicking together in real-time.
“Your father...” Luca breathed.
“Is Carlo Morello,” Vanessa said proudly.
A collective gasp swept through the room. The made men in Luca’s crew instinctively reached for their jackets, hands resting on concealed weapons.
Daniel, the head of security, drew his gun and aimed it directly at Vanessa.
“Don’t move,” Daniel barked.
Vanessa didn’t flinch.
“Go ahead, shoot me,” she challenged, staring Daniel down before looking back at Luca. “If I don’t check in with my father’s people in Milan by midnight, the bombs under Teresa’s bakery and Michael’s apartment go off.”
Teresa stumbled backward into a chair.
“You’re a monster,” Teresa whispered.
“I’m a daughter,” Vanessa corrected coldly. “Just like you’re a sister. My father rotted in a federal penitentiary for ten years because of you, Luca. You took his empire. You took his freedom.”
“He murdered my mother!” Luca roared, flipping the heavy dining table over.
Silverware, crystal, and food crashed to the floor in a deafening explosion of noise.
Guests screamed and scrambled backward.
I grabbed Leo and pulled him into the corner, wrapping my body around his.
Luca stood amidst the wreckage, breathing heavily, staring at the woman he had almost married.
“Your mother was collateral damage,” Vanessa spat. “It was supposed to be you in that car.”
Luca stepped over the broken glass.
He walked right up to the barrel of Daniel’s gun, ignoring it, and grabbed Vanessa by the throat.
He slammed her against the wall.
“Where is he?” Luca demanded, his voice a demonic growl. “Where is Carlo?”
Vanessa gasped for air, but she smiled through bloody teeth.
“He’s closer than you think, Luciano.”
Before Luca could squeeze tighter, the dining room doors blew open.
Three of Luca’s guards were thrown roughly into the room. They landed in a heap on the floor, unconscious.
Stepping over their bodies was a man in a sharp grey suit.
He had silver hair and a scar running down his jawline.
Carlo Morello.
He walked into the dining room, surrounded by six heavily armed men.
He looked at Luca holding his daughter against the wall.
May you like
“Let her go, boy,” Carlo said calmly. “Or I’ll have my men shoot that pretty little maid in the corner.”
Carlo pointed a heavy revolver directly at my head.
