Chương 8 - THE CONFESSION
Luca didn’t hesitate. The second the bracelet hit the floor, he kicked it across the room. He grabbed a pair of heavy zip-ties from the desk drawer—Vanessa had clearly intended to use them on us—and bound her wrists tightly behind her back.
I pulled Leo into my arms, hugging him so tightly I thought my heart might burst. He buried his face in my neck, sobbing quietly.
“You’re safe, Leo,” I whispered into his hair. “I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”
Luca stood up, towering over Vanessa, who was thrashing helplessly on the floor. The polished, elegant socialite was gone. Her hair was wild, her red dress stained with dust.
“It’s over, Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly calm. “Marcus is on his way with the syndicate council. You are going to tell them everything.”
“They won’t believe you!” she spat. “I am Daniel Bellini’s daughter! The council honors my father’s sacrifice! They will kill you for touching me!”
“Your father didn’t make a sacrifice,” I said, standing up while keeping Leo securely behind me. I held up the rusted key. “My father put the real evidence in a safe deposit box twelve years ago. He hid the truth until it was safe to bring it to light.”
I looked at Luca. “We need to get to the bank.”
An hour later, the sun was just beginning to rise over the Chicago skyline. We stood inside the secure vault of the First National Bank.
Luca inserted the rusted key into box number 402. He turned it.
Inside was a thick manila envelope.
Luca opened it and pulled out a stack of documents, along with an old micro-cassette recorder.
He pressed play.
The scratchy, undeniable voice of Daniel Bellini filled the vault.
“It was me. I ran Clara’s car off the bridge. Michael Moretti ordered me to do it. He didn’t want his son marrying a nobody. He wanted Luca focused on the family business.”
The recording stopped.
The silence in the vault was deafening.
Luca stumbled backward, hitting the metal wall of the safety boxes. The breath left his lungs in a ragged gasp.
“My father,” Luca whispered, his eyes wide with horrifying realization. “My father ordered the hit on Clara.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Michael Moretti—the man Luca had idolized, the man whose Army jacket I was currently wearing—had murdered my sister.
Vanessa hadn’t just been seeking revenge for her father going to prison. She had been holding the ultimate blackmail over Luca’s head.
“That’s why she wanted the jacket,” I realized aloud. “She didn’t need his DNA for Leo. She wanted the jacket to prove to the syndicate that Michael Moretti was a traitor to his own bloodline. She wanted to destroy your family’s legacy permanently.”
Luca slowly sank to the floor, putting his head in his hands. The man who controlled a criminal empire was completely broken by the sins of his father.
“Luca,” I said softly, kneeling beside him.
He shook his head, refusing to look at me. “He killed her, Emma. He killed Clara. Because of me.”
I reached out and gently placed my hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at me. His dark eyes were filled with tears.
“Your father did that,” I said fiercely. “Not you. You loved her. And you love this boy.”
I pointed to Leo, who was standing quietly by the door, wearing the oversized Army jacket to stay warm.
“You are not Michael Moretti,” I told him. “You get to choose who you are right now.”
Luca looked at Leo. Then he looked at me. The despair in his eyes slowly hardened into a diamond-sharp resolve.
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He stood up, taking the micro-cassette and the documents.
“Let’s go finish this.”
