Chapter 3 - THE SILVER KEY
I couldn't breathe.
I stared at the silver key resting in the palm of Chicago’s most feared mafia boss.
The Collins family crest. A shield with two crossed olive branches.
My father had it custom-made for our front door twenty years ago, right before he died in a tragic hit-and-run. My mother, struggling with medical debt, had never changed the locks.
"That's..." I stammered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "That's the key to my apartment. Where my mother lives."
Luca stood up slowly.
He looked at Vanessa, who was now trembling in Marco's grip.
"Why do you have a key to my maid's apartment?" Luca demanded.
Vanessa pressed her lips together, refusing to speak.
Arthur Bennett stepped forward, placing the ruined cake box on a side table.
"Mr. Luca," the old man said, his voice shaking. "Miss Bellini has been leaving the estate every Tuesday afternoon for the last six months. She told me to drive her to the South Side. But she always made me park three blocks away from a brick apartment building."
My blood ran cold.
My mother lived on the South Side. In a brick apartment building.
"She wasn't going shopping," Arthur said.
Luca stepped closer to Vanessa, the terrifying, ruthless side of him fully emerging.
"What were you doing with Rebecca's mother?"
Vanessa laughed bitterly. "You think you're so smart, Luca. You think your father only ruined my life?"
"Answer the question."
"I was paying her!" Vanessa snapped. "Just like your father paid my mother!"
The dining room spun.
"Paying her for what?" I whispered.
Vanessa looked at me, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across her lips.
"To keep her mouth shut, Rebecca. Because your sweet, innocent, bedridden mother is the reason my father is dead."
"You're lying," I breathed, stepping back. "My mother is a retired schoolteacher. She doesn't know anything about the mafia."
"Oh, she knows everything," Vanessa sneered. "She was your father's secretary. Twenty-eight years ago, she was the one who gave the Moretti family the security codes to the Bellini docks."
I felt like the floor had vanished beneath me.
My mother? A secretary to a mob boss?
I had spent the last eighteen months scrubbing floors, serving drinks, and enduring Vanessa's abuse just to afford my mother's heart medication. She had always told me my father was a traveling salesman.
Luca looked at me. He could see the pure shock on my face.
"Marco," Luca ordered. "Take Vanessa to the wine cellar. Lock her in. Nobody goes in or out."
"Luca, you can't!" Vanessa screamed as Marco dragged her away. "My men will kill you!"
The heavy doors slammed shut, plunging the dining room back into a suffocating silence.
The guests were rapidly whispering, calling for their coats. The engagement dinner was effectively a funeral.
Luca turned to the crowd.
"This dinner is over. Go home."
Within five minutes, the mansion was empty, save for the security detail, Arthur, Luca, and me.
Luca walked over to Arthur.
"Go to the kitchen. Have the chef make you a hot meal. You are officially reinstated as my head of household staff."
Arthur wiped his eyes, nodding deeply. "Thank you, my boy. Happy birthday."
When Arthur left, Luca turned his dark, intense gaze back to me.
He held out the silver key.
"Get your coat, Rebecca."
"Sir?"
"We are going to the South Side. I want to meet your mother."
Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Luca’s armored black SUV. He was driving himself.
The rain lashed against the windshield as we navigated the dark Chicago streets.
My hands were shaking. I clutched my cheap wool coat tightly around myself.
"She has a bad heart," I whispered, breaking the silence. "Please, Mr. Moretti. Don't hurt her."
Luca didn't look away from the road.
"I don't hurt women, Rebecca. But I need the truth."
When we reached my apartment building, the stairwell was dark and smelled of damp brick.
I used the silver key to unlock the door to unit 4B.
"Mom?" I called out softly.
The apartment was dark.
I flipped the light switch.
My mother wasn't in her hospital bed in the living room.
The bed was empty. The blankets were thrown on the floor.
"Mom!" I panicked, rushing into the kitchen, then the small bathroom.
She was gone.
Luca walked into the living room, his eyes scanning the space with professional precision.
"Rebecca," he said quietly.
I walked back into the living room.
Luca was pointing at the bedside table.
My mother's heart medication was still there.
But next to it, resting on a folded piece of paper, was a heavy, gold pocket watch.
I gasped.
I recognized that watch. I had dusted it a hundred times in Luca’s study.
It was the pocket watch that belonged to Carlo Bellini.
May you like
And written on the paper beneath it was a single sentence:
We took back what you stole.
