Chapter 10 - THE CALL FROM THE GRAVE
Luca stared at the phone in Daniel’s hand like it was a live grenade.
He slowly reached out and took it.
He didn’t put it on speaker, but the hallway was so quiet I could hear the tinny, distorted voice coming through the receiver.
“Did you really think it would be that easy, Luciano?”
Vanessa’s voice didn’t sound panicked anymore. It sounded cold. Calculating.
Luca’s jaw clenched. “You’re making a mistake, Vanessa. You have no muscle left in this city.”
“I don’t need muscle,” she laughed. “I have leverage.”
“You have nothing. Your father is dead.”
“My father was a dinosaur,” Vanessa sneered. “He wanted to shoot you in your dining room like it was 1980. I told him it was stupid. But he wouldn’t listen.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “You set him up.”
“I let him be the distraction,” she corrected. “While you were busy playing hero with your little maid and the old people, my real team was securing the only thing that actually matters.”
My stomach dropped.
I looked instinctively toward Leo’s bedroom door.
Luca saw my panic and shook his head slightly. Leo was safe inside.
“What do you want, Vanessa?” Luca asked, his voice dripping with venom.
“The South Side ports,” she said instantly. “Sign the shipping routes over to the Bellini shell corporation by midnight. If you don’t, the cargo ships sitting in the harbor won’t see tomorrow.”
Luca rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“You hit my convoy to threaten cargo? You’re starting a war over shipping containers?”
“It’s not just cargo, Luca,” Vanessa said softly. “Check container 404. I’ll text you the coordinates.”
The line went dead.
Luca handed the phone back to Daniel.
“Get a team to the harbor. Now.”
“Boss, what’s in container 404?” Daniel asked, already typing into his own phone.
Luca looked at me. His face was paler than I had ever seen it.
“It’s not what’s in it,” Luca whispered. “It’s who.”
Before I could ask what he meant, Teresa Romano came jogging up the stairs. She was wiping flour off her hands onto an apron.
“Luciano,” she panted, looking deeply confused. “I was just looking out the kitchen window. The delivery boy from the bakery was supposed to drop off extra sugar.”
Luca walked toward her. “Aunt Teresa, go back inside.”
“He’s not there,” Teresa said, her voice rising in panic. “His van is running in the driveway, but the boy is gone. And... and he left this on the seat.”
She held up a small, child-sized baseball cap.
I recognized it instantly.
It was Leo’s favorite hat. The one he always wore when he played in the gardens.
“Where did he get that?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“I don’t know!” Teresa cried. “The driver is just a teenager, Luca. His name is Mateo. Why would someone take him?”
Luca closed his eyes and swore violently in Italian.
He looked at Daniel.
“They don’t have cargo in container 404,” Luca said grimly. “They have Mateo.”
Vanessa didn’t know the boy. But she knew Teresa loved her bakery staff like family. And she knew Luca would never let innocent blood be spilled on his watch.
She was testing him.
“Emma,” Luca said, turning to me, his eyes blazing with a fierce, terrifying light. “Lock yourself in the guest suite with Leo. Do not open the door for anyone except me or Daniel.”
“Luca, you can’t go to the harbor. It’s a trap,” I pleaded, grabbing his arm.
“I know it is.”
He pulled me in and kissed me hard on the mouth.
“But nobody touches my family’s people. Not anymore.”
He turned and bolted down the stairs, Daniel right behind him.
I stood frozen in the hallway with Teresa.
Then I looked down at the velvet box still in my hand. The box with Elena’s watch.
I opened it.
The silver watch was ticking quietly.
But as I looked closer, I noticed something I hadn’t seen in the kitchen.
There was a tiny clasp on the side of the watch face.
It wasn’t just a watch. It was a locket.
I pressed the tiny button.
The silver face popped open.
Inside was a tiny, faded photograph.
It was Elena Moretti.
But she wasn’t holding Luca.
She was holding a baby girl.
And standing next to her in the photo was Carlo Morello.
I gasped, dropping the watch onto the floor.
Teresa looked down.
She saw the photograph.
Her face drained of all color.
“Aunt Teresa,” I whispered, looking up at her in horror. “Is that...?”
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Teresa covered her mouth with a trembling hand.
“Vanessa isn’t Carlo’s daughter,” Teresa choked out. “She’s Elena’s.”
