Chapter 4 - THE CLOAKROOM AT THE DRAKE
The tiny kitchen felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of it.
I stared down at my frail, confused father, my mind struggling to process what he had just said. He was a retired bookkeeper who spent his days watching game shows and forgetting where he placed his reading glasses.
“Dad, you’re confused,” I said gently, wiping the blood from his brow. “You don’t know anything about a ledger.”
“I’m not confused, Emma,” he rasped, coughing violently. He turned his terrified eyes toward Luca. “Your father, Vincenzo Moretti. He trusted me. Twenty years ago, I was his private accountant. When the feds started closing in, he gave me the ledger to hide. I was supposed to keep it safe until you were old enough to take over.”
Luca stared at the old man, utter disbelief washing over his harsh features.
“You’re Thomas Carter,” Luca breathed, recognizing the name. “My father searched for you for years. He thought you ran off with the syndicate’s money.”
“I didn't steal a dime,” my father choked out. “But Vanessa’s family found out I had the book. They came after me. I hid the ledger and changed our names. I thought we were safe. Until Vanessa hired Emma.”
The room spun. Vanessa hadn't hired me because I was a good housekeeper. She hired me because she was hunting my father. The six months of cruelty, the extra shifts, the belittling—it was all a long game to figure out what I knew.
“Where is the ledger, Thomas?” Luca asked, his voice urgent but strangely gentle.
“The cloakroom,” my father whispered, his eyes rolling back as the concussion began to take over again. “At the hotel. I checked it in twenty years ago under a false name, and paid the storage fee in advance for three decades. The ticket in the boy’s coat… that’s the claim ticket.”
He slumped back into my arms, unconscious once again.
I looked at the crumpled gold-foil ticket in Luca’s hand.
“She doesn't have the ledger yet,” Luca realized, his eyes burning with a sudden, lethal clarity. “Vanessa found the claim ticket in your apartment tonight, but she can't get the item without the ticket in her hand. And we have it.”
“But she has Leo,” I sobbed, the reality of my son’s danger hitting me afresh.
“Then we have something she wants,” Luca said, standing up and pulling his gun. “And she has something I want. We’re going to the Drake.”
I called an ambulance for my father, staying by his side until the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher. The moment the ambulance doors closed, Luca grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the armored SUV.
The rain was coming down in sideways sheets as we sped toward downtown Chicago. The towering skyline loomed ahead, a jagged edge against the dark clouds.
“When we go in there,” Luca said, his eyes on the road, “you stay exactly one step behind me. The Drake is neutral ground, which means no weapons are allowed past the lobby. But Vanessa’s uncle, Marco, runs the East Side crew. He won't play by the rules.”
“Marco?” I asked, shivering in my damp clothes.
“Marco Bellini. He’s the man Vanessa is selling me out to,” Luca explained grimly.
We pulled up to the magnificent, gold-lit entrance of the Drake Hotel. Valets rushed out in the pouring rain, but Luca waved them off, parking the massive SUV directly on the curb.
He didn't bother checking his gun. He left it in the glove compartment. Neutral ground meant neutral ground, and a Mafia boss breaking the rules would start a war.
We walked through the revolving brass doors into a lobby dripping with old-world opulence. Crystal chandeliers cast a warm glow over marble floors. Jazz drifted from the Palm Court lounge.
It felt entirely wrong that my child’s life was hanging by a thread in a place so beautiful.
“The cloakroom is downstairs,” Luca muttered, guiding me toward a sweeping staircase.
We descended into the lower level. Tucked away in a quiet corridor was a long mahogany counter. An elderly attendant in a crisp uniform stood behind it.
Luca slapped the gold-foil ticket onto the counter.
“Claiming,” Luca said, his voice hard.
The attendant adjusted his glasses, examining the ticket. He didn't seem to care that Luca looked like a soaked, furious panther, or that I was trembling in a stained t-shirt.
“One moment, sir.”
The attendant disappeared into the sprawling back room. My heart hammered against my ribs. I kept waiting for Vanessa’s men to jump out from the shadows.
A minute later, the attendant returned. He wasn't holding a coat.
He placed a heavy, intricately carved wooden box on the counter. It was beautiful, polished mahogany with silver hinges.
“Thank you,” Luca said, grabbing the box.
We ducked into a private, velvet-lined alcove near the restrooms. Luca set the box down on a small side table and flipped the silver latch.
I held my breath. The ledger that controlled Chicago. The book that could save my son.
Luca threw open the lid.
My stomach dropped into my shoes.
The box was empty.
“No,” Luca breathed, his hands flying over the velvet lining, searching for a false bottom. “No, no, no.”
There was no book. There was no ledger.
But there was something else.
Resting in the center of the empty box was a piece of hotel stationery. And sitting on top of the paper was a heavy, silver bracelet.
I recognized the bracelet immediately. It was the Cartier diamond tennis bracelet Luca had given Vanessa for their engagement.
Luca snatched up the note. I leaned in, reading the jagged, angry handwriting over his shoulder.
Did you really think a senile old man could outsmart me, Luca? I found the ledger three hours ago. Bring the girl to the Presidential Suite. Come alone. Or the boy goes off the balcony.
I let out a strangled gasp, clutching my stomach. “She’s going to throw him off the roof, Luca.”
Luca stared at the diamond bracelet in his hand, his jaw ticking with a murderous rage.
But then, a slow, terrifying realization crept into his dark eyes. A reversal that made the hair on my arms stand up.
“Vanessa didn't write this,” Luca whispered.
“What?” I asked, frantic. “How do you know?”
Luca turned the Cartier bracelet over in his hand. “Because I never gave Vanessa this bracelet. She bought a fake one to wear to the parties.”
He looked at me, the truth settling between us like a heavy stone.
“This is my mother’s bracelet, Emma. The one she was wearing when we left her at the train station.”
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My blood ran completely cold.
“Vanessa didn't write the note,” Luca said, pulling his phone from his pocket, his thumb hovering over the screen. “My mother did. Rosa has the ledger. And she’s the one holding your son.”
