Chapter 2 - THE SILVER ROSARY
Luca Moretti did not breathe for five full seconds.
He stared at the dark screen of his computer, the silence of the study pressing against his chest like a physical weight. The faint, muffled sounds of his engagement party drifted through the heavy oak doors—laughter, the clinking of crystal, the soft hum of string instruments. It felt like a completely different world. A world of lies.
“Send it to my secure terminal,” Luca finally said. His voice was dangerously calm. The kind of calm that made his men check their weapons.
“Already sent, Boss,” the security chief replied, his tone tight with anxiety.
Luca ended the call. He didn’t sit down. He leaned over his mahogany desk, his knuckles turning white as he pressed them into the leather blotter. He tapped the spacebar on his laptop. The screen flared to life, casting a harsh, pale glow over the sharp angles of his face.
An encrypted email sat in his inbox.
He opened it.
The photograph was grainy, captured from the high angle of a hidden corner in the prep kitchen. But it was clear enough.
It was Vanessa. She was standing near the industrial refrigerators, her posture rigid, her face devoid of the warm, practiced smile she wore for the guests upstairs.
And standing directly across from her was Vittorio Moretti.
Luca’s father.
At first glance, it looked like a private, illicit meeting. Two people standing too close, speaking in shadows. But Luca didn’t look at their faces. He had survived thirty-two years in the Chicago syndicate by looking at hands.
He zoomed in on the image.
His father’s hand was extended. Vanessa’s palm was open, waiting to receive something.
Between their fingers, caught in the harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen, was a sliver of silver.
Luca felt the air leave his lungs.
It wasn’t a romantic embrace. It was a transaction.
He recognized the silver chain instantly. The intricate, hand-carved beads. The heavy, oxidized crucifix. It was his mother’s rosary. The one that was supposed to have been locked inside the family vault the day she died of cancer five years ago.
Why was his father giving it to Vanessa?
Luca closed the laptop. He didn’t have time to process the betrayal of his own blood. Right now, there was only one thing that mattered.
Nora.
If Vanessa knew Nora had seen this—if Vanessa had burned her to keep her quiet, and then ordered her phone confiscated—Nora was in immediate, fatal danger.
Luca unlocked his study door and stepped into the hallway. He bypassed the grand staircase leading down to the dining room and took the narrow servant’s stairs two at a time. He didn’t care who saw him leave. He didn’t care about the twenty-four guests waiting for him.
He reached the staff quarters on the ground floor. The hallway was narrow, lined with identical white doors.
He stopped at room number four.
He didn’t knock. He turned the handle. It was locked.
“Nora,” he said, keeping his voice low but urgent. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. “Open the door.”
Silence.
“Nora, I know you’re in there. If you don’t open this door in three seconds, I am taking it off the hinges.”
He heard the scrape of a lock. The door opened a crack.
Nora stood in the dim light of her small room. She had stripped off her uniform apron. She was wearing a plain gray sweater and jeans. Her dark hair was falling out of its neat bun.
But it was her eyes that stopped him. They were wide, frantic, and entirely terrified.
She wasn’t alone.
Sitting on the edge of the narrow twin bed was a little girl, no older than five, clutching a stuffed rabbit.
Luca stepped inside and closed the door behind him, locking it. He looked at the child, then back at Nora.
“Who is this?” he asked softly.
Nora swallowed hard, her uninjured left hand instinctively reaching out to shield the girl. “My daughter. Maya.”
Luca had read Nora’s employment file nine months ago. There had been no mention of a child.
“You’ve been hiding her here?”
“She stays quiet,” Nora pleaded, her voice trembling. “She doesn’t make a sound. I couldn’t afford childcare, Mr. Moretti. I swear, she’s never been upstairs. Please, don’t fire me. Just let us leave.”
Luca looked down. On the floor by the bed was a worn canvas duffel bag, half-packed with cheap clothes.
“You’re running,” he said.
“I have to.” Nora stepped forward, her bandaged right hand clutched against her chest. “I resigned to Mrs. Carter five minutes ago. We’re leaving.”
“You’re not leaving,” Luca said, his voice dropping an octave. “If you walk out those gates tonight, Vanessa’s men will pick you up before you reach the bus stop.”
Nora let out a choked breath. A tear spilled over her eyelashes, cutting a track through the exhaustion on her face. “She knows I saw them, Mr. Moretti. She burned me to teach me a lesson. She said if I spoke a word of it to you, Maya would be the one getting burned next.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. He looked at the little girl on the bed. Maya was watching him with large, solemn brown eyes.
A cold, vicious anger bloomed in Luca’s chest. He had tolerated Vanessa because it was a strategic alliance his father had arranged. But threatening a child? Threatening the woman standing in front of him?
“I saw the photo, Nora,” Luca said gently. “My men retrieved it. I know it wasn’t an affair. I saw the silver rosary.”
Nora shook her head frantically. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand my father is dealing with my fiancée behind my back.”
“No!” Nora’s voice broke. She took a step closer to him, desperate. “You don’t understand, Luca.”
It was the first time she had ever used his first name.
“The photo,” she whispered, looking toward the window as if expecting a bullet to shatter the glass. “I didn’t take it to blackmail them. I took it because I realized what the rosary was.”
Luca frowned. “It belonged to my mother.”
“It’s not just jewelry,” Nora said, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “When Vanessa opened her hand to take it, the crucifix fell open. It’s a locket, Luca. There’s something inside it.”
Luca stared at her, his mind racing. “What was inside it?”
Nora didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to the little girl on the bed.
“Maya, honey,” Nora said softly. “Show Mr. Moretti what you drew yesterday. When you were playing in the garden.”
The little girl slid off the bed. She walked over to a small plastic folder on the dresser. She pulled out a piece of white construction paper, colored with cheap wax crayons.
She walked up to Luca and held it up.
Luca took the drawing.
It was a picture of the estate’s rose garden. There was a drawing of a woman in a red dress. Vanessa. And a drawing of a man. Vittorio.
But at the bottom of the page, drawn in heavy, dark black crayon, was an object.
“Maya saw them drop something in the dirt,” Nora whispered.
Luca stared at the drawing, his blood running cold.
May you like
It wasn’t a rosary.
It was a heavy, antique iron key.
