Chapter 2 - THE MEDICAL BRACELET IN THE IVORY DRESS
The grand foyer of the Moretti mansion was so quiet I could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the hallway.
Luca Moretti didn't raise his voice.
He didn't move aggressively.
He simply stared at the woman in the twelve-thousand-dollar ivory dress, holding the photograph of his dead wife.
“Where is my other child, Vanessa?”
Vanessa Bellini’s perfect posture crumbled.
She looked at the thirty dinner guests lingering near the dining room, their eyes wide with shock.
Then she looked at the heavily armed guards standing by the front doors.
“Luca, please,” she stammered, her voice trembling. “Clara was unstable. You know she was sick after the birth. She gave the baby away.”
“Stop lying.”
Luca’s voice was like cracked ice.
He took a slow step toward her.
“Clara loved Sophie more than life itself. She never would have given away her child. Who took my baby?”
Vanessa backed away, her hands shaking.
“The boy was weak, Luca! He had a heart defect! My father arranged for private care to save you the heartbreak—”
“Your father?”
Luca’s dark eyes flared with a lethal, terrifying clarity.
“Marcus Bellini took my son?”
“He was protecting the family reputation!” Vanessa screamed, losing her aristocratic composure entirely. “A mafia king cannot have a weak, sickly heir! We hid him in a private facility. He’s been receiving the best care in the world!”
Sophie gripped my apron.
“Miss Hannah?” she whispered. “Do I have a brother?”
Tears spilled over my cheeks. I squeezed her little hand.
“I think you do, sweetheart.”
Luca didn't look at his daughter. He couldn't. The grief and rage radiating from him were absolute.
“Where is he?” Luca demanded.
Vanessa’s eyes darted toward the front door.
“If you break off this engagement, you will never see him. My father has his location heavily guarded.”
Luca didn't negotiate.
He turned to his head of security, a massive man named Daniel.
“Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves. Take Mrs. Bellini to the study until she gives us an address.”
Two guards moved forward.
Vanessa panicked.
She reached into the deep pocket of her designer coat resting on the banister.
For a terrifying second, I thought she had a gun.
Instead, she pulled out a heavy, silver object and hurled it at Luca’s chest.
“He’s dead, Luca!” Vanessa shrieked as the guards grabbed her arms. “His heart gave out yesterday! That’s why I was sending Sophie away! I needed an heir to present to the Commission!”
The heavy silver object hit the marble floor with a sharp clatter.
Luca froze.
All the air left his lungs.
He dropped to his knees, staring at the object on the floor.
It was a thick, silver medical alert bracelet.
The kind worn by children with severe health conditions.
I knelt beside Luca.
He couldn't bring himself to touch it. His hands were shaking too violently.
So I picked it up.
The silver was cold.
I turned it over to read the engraving on the back.
LEO BELLINI.
CONGENITAL HEART DEFECT.
DOB: MAY 14.
I stared at the metal.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
May 14th.
Sophie’s birthday.
But it wasn't the date that made my breath catch.
It was the name.
Because yesterday, on my day off, I had visited my mother at Chicago General Hospital.
She was in the cardiac recovery ward.
And in the bed next to hers, sitting completely alone, was a little boy with dark hair and familiar eyes.
A boy the nurses had called Leo.
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, my voice shaking so badly I could barely form the words.
Luca looked at me, his eyes filled with a devastating, hollow grief.
“He’s not dead,” I said.
Vanessa, struggling against the guards at the end of the hall, suddenly stopped moving.
May you like
I held the silver bracelet out to Luca.
“He’s not dead, Mr. Moretti. I saw him yesterday.”
