Chương 4 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
The hospital room felt like it was shrinking. The sterile smell of bleach suddenly made me incredibly nauseous.
“My sister,” I whispered, staring at the paper. “Clara.”
Luca stood completely still. The color drained from his face as he stared at the name on the document. Leo Moretti.
“Clara,” Luca repeated, his voice barely a breath. “Clara Reed.”
I looked up at him. “You knew her?”
Luca closed his eyes, a look of profound agony crossing his features. “I didn’t just know her, Emma. I was going to marry her.”
The room went dead silent. The only sound was the rhythmic beeping of my father’s heart monitor.
“Twelve years ago,” Luca continued, his voice tight. “Before I took over the family. I was trying to leave the syndicate. Clara and I were running away. But there was a car crash on the interstate. The police told me Clara died on impact. They told me our unborn baby didn’t survive.”
He opened his eyes, looking at the navy blue coat in my hands.
“They lied to me.”
I felt dizzy. Clara was pregnant when she died. I was only fifteen at the time, and my father had sheltered me from the details of the crash. He had always refused to talk about it. He just locked Clara’s room and never opened it again.
I looked down at my father in the hospital bed.
“Dad,” I said softly, my voice breaking. “Did the baby survive? Did Clara’s baby survive?”
My father closed his eyes and let out a broken sob. He nodded once.
Luca grabbed the edge of the bed rail. His knuckles turned white. “Where is my son, Arthur? Where is Leo?”
My father frantically pointed at the child’s coat again.
I turned the coat over. Stitched into the inside lining was a private school logo. St. Jude’s Academy.
But that wasn’t all. Tucked deep into the sleeve was another piece of paper. I pulled it out.
It was a child’s drawing. Done in crayon.
It showed a little boy with dark hair holding hands with a woman in a red dress. Above the woman, the boy had written the word Mommy.
The woman in the drawing had a very distinct necklace. A silver star medal hanging from a blue-and-red ribbon. The exact same medal from Michael Moretti’s Army jacket.
“Vanessa,” I gasped.
Luca took the drawing from my hand. He stared at the word Mommy.
“She’s had him,” Luca whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. “Vanessa has had my son this entire time. She raised him in secret.”
“Why?” I asked, my heart pounding. “If she wanted to marry you, why hide your child?”
“Leverage,” a new voice said.
We turned around. Marcus, the security guard, was standing in the doorway.
“If she marries you, Luca, she becomes the boy’s legal stepmother,” Marcus said gravely. “If you die, the syndicate doesn’t pass to your lieutenants. It passes to your heir. And until he’s eighteen, Vanessa controls the boy. Which means she controls the entire Moretti empire.”
Luca’s eyes darkened into something lethal. The grieving father vanished, replaced entirely by the head of the Chicago mafia.
“She pawned my father’s watch today,” I said, trying to connect the pieces. “Why? Why leave the pawn ticket for us to find? Why leave the coat?”
“She didn’t leave the ticket by accident,” Luca said coldly. “She wanted us to find this. She’s accelerating her timeline.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a text message from an unknown number.
If you want to see the boy breathing, Luca signs the syndicate transfer papers tomorrow. Bring the Army jacket to the old Bellini estate at midnight. Come alone.
May you like
Beneath the text was a photo.
It was a little boy, maybe eleven years old. He had Luca’s dark eyes. And around his neck, he was wearing my father’s engraved silver pocket watch.
