Chapter 2
The question hung in the chilled air of the dining room like a blade.
Vanessa’s manicured hands gripped the edge of the mahogany table, her knuckles stark white against the dark wood. The confident, sneering woman who had humiliated an elderly seamstress just minutes ago was entirely gone. In her place stood someone cornered.
“Luca,” Vanessa started, her voice unnaturally high. “She’s senile. She’s making this up to ruin our evening. I didn’t even live in Chicago four years ago!”
Luca didn’t blink. He didn’t raise his voice. For a man who controlled half the city’s underground shipping ports, his stillness was far more terrifying than his anger.
“Were you engaged to Michael?” he repeated, the words slow and deliberate.
“No!” Vanessa cried, stepping toward him. She reached out, but Luca shifted just enough that her fingers grasped empty air. “I swear to you, I never met him. This old woman is confused.”
Margaret leaned heavily against my shoulder. “I may be old, Vanessa, but my mind is as sharp as my needles.” She looked up at Luca. “Michael brought her to my shop. It was a rainy Tuesday. They were holding hands. He paid me two hundred dollars in advance to rush the alterations on a dress she’d bought at a thrift store.”
Vanessa let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. “A thrift store? Do I look like a woman who shops at a thrift store?”
“You did then,” Margaret replied softly. “Before you learned how to spend Moretti money.”
Gasps rippled down the long table. The thirty-eight guests—mostly Luca’s business associates and distant relatives—were watching with rapt, horrifying fascination. Nobody dared to eat. Nobody dared to drink.
I stood frozen, feeling the immense weight of the room pressing down on me. I was just the housekeeper. I scrubbed the baseboards and polished the silver. I wasn’t supposed to be part of a mafia family’s unravelling. But Margaret’s fragile hand was anchored to my apron string, and I wasn’t going to abandon her.
Luca turned his dark eyes to me.
“Hannah,” he said softly. “Yesterday, when Vanessa ordered you to empty my late wife’s cedar chest… what exactly did she tell you to do with the contents?”
Vanessa snapped her head toward me. Her eyes were wide, venomous, promising absolute destruction. Your brother’s nursing career, her gaze screamed. I’ll ruin him.
My throat closed up. The hospital where my brother was completing his final clinicals was heavily funded by the Bellini family foundation. Vanessa had reminded me of that fact three times this month alone.
“Hannah,” Luca prompted gently. He saw my hesitation. He saw my fear. “No one will hurt you or your family. You have my word. Answer the question.”
I took a shaky breath, forcing myself to look away from Vanessa’s glare and up into Luca’s steady gaze.
“She… she gave me black trash bags, Mr. Moretti,” I said, my voice trembling. “She said everything in the chest was garbage. She told me to burn it in the incinerator behind the carriage house.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter.
“Did you burn it?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
Vanessa lunged forward. “You lying little—”
“Sit down, Vanessa,” Luca commanded. The authority in his voice hit the room like a physical shockwave. Vanessa froze, her mouth open, before slowly sinking into the nearest chair, the stolen red silk pooling around her legs.
Luca turned back to me, his expression softening just a fraction. “Where are my wife’s things, Hannah?”
“I hid them,” I whispered. “I put them in the spare linen closet in the east wing. I couldn’t bear to destroy them. Not when Miss Sophie still goes into that room to smell her mother’s perfume.”
A flicker of profound pain crossed Luca’s face. It was there and gone in an instant, buried beneath a fortress of cold fury.
“Margaret said Catherine was frightened,” Luca said, pacing slowly toward the head of the table. “She said Catherine found out who had been sneaking into her bedroom. If Vanessa was engaged to Michael, and Michael canceled the wedding…” He stopped pacing. He looked directly at Vanessa. “What did Catherine find out about you?”
“Nothing!” Vanessa sobbed, finally letting the tears fall. It was a brilliant performance. “She hated me, Luca! She was jealous of me because Michael loved me! She made up lies to keep us apart!”
It was a desperate, messy lie. And everyone knew it.
I felt a tug on my apron. Margaret was looking up at me, her cloudy eyes full of sudden urgency.
“Hannah,” she whispered. “The music box. The little wooden one from the chest.”
I blinked. “Yes, I remember it.”
“Did you keep it?”
“I kept everything.”
Margaret looked at Luca. “Catherine didn’t just leave clothes in that chest, Luca. She left evidence. She told me if anything ever happened to her, I should tell you to wind the wooden music box.”
Vanessa stopped crying. Her head snapped up, the color draining entirely from her face.
“A music box?” Luca asked. “I don’t remember Catherine having a music box.”
“Because it wasn’t hers,” Margaret said. “It belonged to Vanessa.”
Vanessa scrambled out of her chair. “Don’t listen to this! She’s crazy!”
But Luca was already looking at me. “Go get it, Hannah. Now.”
I nodded, turning to run toward the grand staircase. But before I could take three steps, a small voice echoed from the shadows of the arched doorway leading to the hall.
“Hannah doesn’t have to get it, Daddy.”
The entire room turned.
Standing in her pajamas, clutching a faded teddy bear to her chest, was nine-year-old Sophie Moretti. Her dark hair was messy, her bare feet small against the cold marble floor.
But it wasn’t the teddy bear that made my breath catch.
In her other hand, Sophie was holding a small, intricately carved wooden box.
And tucked under her arm, held tightly against her ribs, was a torn photograph.
“Sophie,” Luca said, his voice instantly dropping all its coldness. He walked quickly toward his daughter, kneeling on the hard floor to be at her eye level. “Sweetheart, you should be in bed.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Sophie whispered. Her big brown eyes darted toward Vanessa, and I saw the little girl physically shrink back. “She was yelling again.”
Vanessa forced a tight, sickeningly sweet smile. “Sophie, darling, go back to your room. The grown-ups are talking.”
Sophie ignored her. She held out the wooden box to her father.
“Hannah didn’t burn Mommy’s things,” Sophie said softly. “She let me look through them this afternoon. Mommy left this for you.”
Luca took the heavy wooden box. “Thank you, principessa.” He kissed her forehead. “Now, please, let Hannah take you upstairs.”
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But Sophie didn’t move. She slowly pulled the torn photograph from under her arm. Her little fingers trembled just as much as Margaret’s had.
“Daddy,” Sophie whispered, her voice cracking. “Why is Auntie Vanessa wearing Mommy’s necklace in this picture?”
