Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE BLACK CAR
The silence in the dining room felt heavy enough to crush glass.
Thirty elite guests stopped breathing.
Matteo stood perfectly still, his dark eyes locked on the old photograph in his hand. The image was grainy, illuminated only by streetlamps and the fierce orange glow of his childhood home burning in the background.
But the face of the man standing beside the sleek black car was unmistakable.
“Marcus Sterling,” Matteo whispered.
Camille’s father.
I stood near the service doors, my heart hammering against my ribs. I clutched my serving tray so tightly my knuckles turned white.
Camille stepped forward, her champagne-colored gown rustling in the quiet room. Her face was ashen, the arrogant smirk she usually wore completely gone.
“Matteo, please,” she said, her voice shaking. “You don’t understand. This is a manipulation.”
Matteo didn’t look at her. He didn’t scream. He didn’t throw the photograph.
When a man like Matteo Ricci goes quiet, it’s far more dangerous than when he shouts.
“My father died of a heart attack two weeks before the fire,” Matteo said slowly, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm register. “That is what the police told me. That is what Marcus Sterling, my father’s supposed best friend, told me when he took over the family business.”
Eleanor stood her ground, though her small shoulders trembled.
“Your father didn’t die of a heart attack, sweetheart,” the old woman said softly. “He was murdered. And Marcus orchestrated the fire to erase the evidence your mother had hidden in the house.”
Camille lunged forward, grabbing Eleanor’s arm. “Shut up! You crazy old woman, you’re ruining everything—”
Before Camille could finish her sentence, Matteo’s hand shot out.
He didn’t strike her. He simply gripped Camille’s wrist, applying just enough pressure to make her gasp and release the old woman.
“Don’t you ever touch her again,” Matteo said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal whisper.
He let go of Camille as if she were toxic waste.
“You came to her house,” Matteo stated. It wasn’t a question. “You offered her fifty thousand dollars to destroy the only evidence of who murdered my mother.”
“I was protecting us!” Camille cried, tears spilling over her perfectly applied makeup. “My father is a dangerous man, Matteo! If he knew this picture existed, he would have killed her. I was trying to make it go away so we could have a future!”
“A future built on my mother’s ashes?”
Matteo turned his back on his fiancée and faced the room. The wealthiest, most powerful people in Chicago were staring at them in shock.
“The wedding is canceled,” Matteo announced. His tone was absolute. “Everyone, get out of my house.”
Within seconds, the guests began moving rapidly toward the foyer. Nobody wanted to be in the room when the Ricci temper finally snapped.
Camille stood frozen, her chest heaving.
“You’re making a mistake,” she hissed, dropping the frightened-fiancée act. Her eyes narrowed into cold, calculating slits. “My father controls half the syndicate now. If you break this alliance, you won’t survive the week.”
“Tell Marcus I’ll be seeing him soon,” Matteo replied, not even looking at her.
Camille turned her furious gaze to me.
“This is your fault,” she spat. “You just had to bring her in here.”
“Sophie was doing her job,” Matteo said. “Which is more than I can say for my security team, who let you near Eleanor.”
Camille grabbed her purse. As she brushed past me toward the exit, she leaned in, her perfume sickeningly sweet in my face.
“I know about your crippled little brother, Sophie,” she whispered so only I could hear. “You picked the wrong side tonight.”
My blood ran cold.
As the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind Camille, the massive dining room suddenly felt empty.
Eleanor swayed on her feet, the adrenaline finally leaving her frail body.
Matteo caught her before she hit the floor.
“Sophie!” he shouted, lifting the elderly woman easily into his arms. “Call Dr. Evans. Now. And lock down the estate.”
I sprinted toward the kitchen phone, my hands shaking violently.
But as I passed the table where Camille had been sitting, I saw something sitting on the white tablecloth.
Camille had left her clutch purse behind in her anger.
But it was what was spilling out of it that made me stop dead in my tracks.
It was a heavy, silver pocket watch.
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The exact same silver pocket watch I had polished for Matteo just yesterday. The one he said his father was wearing the day he died.
If Matteo’s father died with it, why did Camille have it in her purse tonight?
