Chapter 2 - THE THREAT BENEATH THE RED GOWN
The silence in the dining room was absolute.
Thirty-six of Chicago’s wealthiest elites sat completely frozen in their high-backed chairs. The only sound was the faint, nervous clinking of ice melting in crystal water glasses.
Luca Moretti didn't shout. He didn't slam his fist against the long mahogany table. For a man who ran one of the most powerful and feared syndicates in the city, his anger was terrifyingly quiet.
He looked down at the single sheet of paper in his hands. It was a letter written by Mr. Bell, the seventy-year-old man who had practically raised Luca after his own father died.
Luca’s dark eyes scanned the ink. Then, he looked up at the woman he was supposed to marry in two months.
“Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. “I’m going to read this sentence aloud. And then you are going to explain it to me.”
Vanessa’s perfectly applied makeup could not hide the sudden, chalky pallor of her skin. She gripped her champagne glass so tightly I thought the crystal would shatter in her hands.
“Luca, darling, please,” Vanessa tried, forcing a tight, artificial laugh that echoed painfully in the silent room. “Mr. Bell is an old man. His memory is clearly failing him. He’s confused.”
“He doesn’t look confused,” Luca replied softly.
He didn't take his eyes off his fiancée as he read the words Mr. Bell had written.
“‘Three weeks ago, Vanessa came to my private residence,’” Luca read, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. “‘She demanded the silver skeleton key to your late father’s private archives. When I told her that only you had the authority to request that key, she told me that if I did not hand it over, she would permanently cut off the Moretti estate’s funding for my wife’s dementia care facility.’”
A collective, horrified gasp rippled through the guests.
I felt my stomach drop into a bottomless pit. Mr. Bell’s wife, Clara, had been suffering from severe dementia for five years. The specialized care facility she lived in cost thousands of dollars a month—an expense Luca’s father had sworn the Moretti family would cover until the end of her days, to repay Mr. Bell for his decades of loyal service.
To use a dying woman’s medical care as a bargaining chip was a level of cruelty I couldn't even comprehend.
I looked at Mr. Bell. The old man stood tall by the empty chair, his hands clasped respectfully in front of him. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, but his dignity remained completely unbroken.
“Is this true, Vanessa?” Luca asked.
Vanessa’s chest heaved beneath the red silk of her gown. She looked around the table, desperately searching for a friendly face, but the guests were staring at her with blatant disgust.
“It was a misunderstanding!” Vanessa blurted out, her voice pitching an octave higher in panic. “I was doing an audit of the household expenses! As your future wife, it is my responsibility to make sure the family trusts aren't being drained by... by charity cases!”
“Charity?” Luca whispered.
He slowly placed the letter on the table.
“Mr. Bell is not a charity case,” Luca said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her. “He is the man who taught me how to tie my first suit. He is the man who stood by my mother’s grave when the rest of the city turned their backs on us. He is family.”
Vanessa backed away, her heels clicking frantically against the hardwood floor.
“Luca, I was protecting our future!” she cried, tears of pure desperation spilling over her mascara. “The old man is hoarding a key to archives that belong to us! I had every right to demand it!”
“You had no right,” Luca stated flatly. “You used a sick, defenseless woman to threaten a man of honor.”
He looked at her left hand.
“Take off the ring.”
Vanessa froze. The entire room seemed to stop breathing.
“What?” she choked out.
“The engagement is over,” Luca said coldly. “Take off the ring, Vanessa. And get out of my house.”
“You can’t do this to me!” Vanessa screamed, abandoning any pretense of elegance. “We have investors here! My father’s business partners are sitting at this table! You are humiliating my family!”
“You humiliated yourself,” Luca replied. “Nora.”
I jumped slightly as he said my name. “Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Have the guards escort Miss Bellini to the front gates. Have her belongings packed in garbage bags and left on the curb by morning.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, moving quickly toward the service doors to signal the security team.
But before I could even reach the handle, Vanessa let out a shrill, manic laugh that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“You think you’re so smart, Luca?” Vanessa sneered, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. Her sadness had vanished, replaced by a cornered, venomous rage.
She reached her hand down the plunging neckline of her red silk dress.
“You think you can just throw me out like trash?” Vanessa spat.
When she pulled her hand back out, she was holding a heavy, tarnished silver skeleton key on a long velvet ribbon.
Mr. Bell let out a sharp gasp, his hand instinctively flying to his empty jacket pocket.
“I didn't need his permission to take it,” Vanessa smiled, a dark, victorious glint in her eyes. “I bumped into the old man in the foyer ten minutes ago. He’s too slow to even notice when his pockets are being picked.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth would shatter.
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“Give me the key, Vanessa,” Luca ordered.
“Oh, I don't think so,” she taunted, backing toward the massive, roaring stone fireplace at the end of the dining room. “You see, Luca, I already paid a visit to your father’s precious archives this afternoon while you were out. And you have no idea what I found in there, do you?”
