Chapter 4 - THE PEARL NECKLACE
The phone clicked dead.
I couldn’t breathe. The walls of the small servant’s bedroom felt like they were collapsing inward, crushing my ribs.
“She has him,” I gasped, dropping the phone onto the bed. “She has Leo.”
Luca didn’t panic.
He didn’t freeze.
He moved with the terrifying precision of a man who had survived a violent world for twenty years.
He grabbed my shoulders, his grip firm but careful to avoid my bruised left arm.
“Look at me, Nora.”
I couldn’t. My vision was swimming.
“Look at me.”
His voice was a physical force. I forced my eyes up to his.
“She is not going to hurt him,” Luca said, his dark eyes boring into mine. “She needs him alive. He’s her only leverage now.”
“She killed Marco!” I sobbed. “She killed him for nothing!”
“And she’s going to die for it,” Luca said flatly. “But right now, you need to be a mother. You need to walk down those stairs, and you need to look her in the eye, and you need to show no fear. Can you do that?”
I thought of Leo.
My sweet, quiet boy who loved dinosaurs and drew pictures of a father he had never met.
The fear in my chest crystallized into something entirely different.
Rage.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Good.”
Luca reached into his waistband, under his untucked shirt. He pulled out a compact, matte-black handgun.
He checked the chamber. One smooth, metallic click.
He slid it back into its holster at the small of his back.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
We left the room.
We walked down the silent, dimly lit corridors of the Moretti estate. The engagement party guests had all gone home. The catering staff had cleared out. The massive house was completely still, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer.
We reached the heavy oak doors of the main study.
Luca didn’t knock.
He pushed them open.
The study was bathed in the warm, orange glow of the fireplace.
Sitting in Luca’s leather wingback chair, sipping a glass of amber bourbon, was Vanessa.
She was still wearing her red engagement gown. The diamonds around her neck sparkled in the firelight.
She looked entirely relaxed.
But she wasn’t alone.
Standing behind her were two massive men in dark suits.
Luca’s men.
My stomach twisted.
“Rocco. Dante,” Luca said, his voice dangerously low as he looked at the two guards. “What are you doing?”
The older guard, Rocco, wouldn’t look Luca in the eye.
“Sorry, Boss,” Rocco muttered. “She made us a better offer.”
“A much better offer,” Vanessa smiled, taking a slow sip of her bourbon. “It turns out, loyalty in this family is just a matter of price. And since I’m about to inherit the entire Moretti enterprise, I can afford to pay very well.”
I scanned the room frantically.
“Where is my son?” I demanded, stepping out from behind Luca.
Vanessa waved a dismissive hand.
“Oh, he’s perfectly safe, Nora. He’s asleep in the back of Rocco’s SUV. He thinks he’s going on a late-night camping trip.”
She set her glass on the desk.
“Assuming, of course, that you both cooperate.”
Luca stood perfectly still.
“You’re out of your mind, Vanessa,” Luca said. “You think you can take this family from me? With two rented guards?”
“I don’t need to take it,” Vanessa smiled, standing up. “You’re going to give it to me.”
She walked slowly around the desk.
She reached up to her neck and unclasped the heavy, multi-layered pearl necklace she had worn all evening.
She let it drop onto the mahogany desk with a heavy clatter.
“Do you know where I got these pearls, Luca?” she asked softly.
Luca stared at the necklace.
His jaw tightened.
“They belonged to my mother.”
“Exactly,” Vanessa purred. “She gave them to me the night Marco died. A little ‘thank you’ gift for handling a very messy problem.”
My breath caught.
“You said my mother didn’t cut the brakes,” Luca said, his voice a low growl. “You said she wasn’t involved.”
“I lied,” Vanessa laughed lightly. “Your mother was terrified of Maya. A cocktail waitress ruining the bloodline? Threatening the family’s legitimate business connections? She couldn’t allow it.”
Vanessa picked up the photograph from the desk—the one of her and Marco.
“Your mother ordered the hit, Luca. I just executed it.”
She looked at me, her eyes flashing with pure malice.
“And your mother gave me one final instruction before she died last year,” Vanessa continued. “If the bastard child ever surfaced… I was to eliminate him, too.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“You touch one hair on his head,” I hissed, stepping forward, “and I will kill you myself.”
Vanessa just smiled.
She looked at Luca.
“Here are my terms, darling,” she said smoothly. “We get married on Saturday, as planned. You transfer fifty percent of the family’s legal assets into a trust in my name. And in exchange, I let the maid and her little bastard get on a plane to Europe, never to be seen again.”
She leaned across the desk.
“If you refuse… Rocco makes a phone call, and the SUV with the boy goes into the river. Just like his father.”
Luca didn’t blink.
He didn’t shout.
He just looked at the pearl necklace on the desk.
Then, he did something that made Vanessa’s smile falter.
He laughed.
A dark, humorless, terrifying sound that echoed off the library walls.
“You’re very thorough, Vanessa,” Luca said, shaking his head. “You bought my guards. You found the boy. You wore my mother’s pearls to gloat.”
He took a slow step toward her.
“But you made one massive mistake.”
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “And what is that?”
Luca pointed at the pearls on the desk.
“My mother was buried in her pearls, Vanessa. I placed them around her neck myself in the casket.”
Vanessa froze.
“Those aren’t my mother’s,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Those belong to the wife of the man you bought the brake fluid from. The mechanic who testified to the police that Marco’s car was fine.”
Vanessa’s face went completely white.
“And unlike you,” Luca continued, pulling a small silver audio recorder from his pocket, “I don’t leave loose ends.”
He pressed a button.
A man’s voice filled the room. Panicked. Begging.
“She bought the pearls from me! Vanessa Bellini! She gave me a hundred grand to swear the brakes were fine! She did it! She killed him!”
Luca clicked the recorder off.
He looked at Rocco and Dante.
“She doesn’t have the money to pay you,” Luca said to the guards. “Because five minutes ago, I froze every account under her name. You are backing a dead woman.”
The two massive guards looked at each other.
Then, slowly, they lowered their weapons.
Vanessa realized she had lost.
May you like
But she wasn’t going down alone.
With lightning speed, Vanessa snatched a silver letter opener from the desk and lunged straight at me.
