The Woman At The Dining Room Doors

The rain fell in sheets, but the chill that ran down my spine had nothing to do with the weather.

Luca stood motionless in the headlights, staring at the silver lighter in Vanessa’s hand.

“Who is in my study?” Luca demanded. His voice was terrifyingly calm, the eye of a hurricane.

Vanessa didn’t answer. She just smiled, her blonde hair matted to her face.

Before she could speak again, three of Luca’s guards rushed through the gates, weapons drawn. They grabbed Vanessa, slamming her against the iron bars and snapping handcuffs onto her wrists.

“Take her to the holding cells,” Luca ordered without looking at her. “If she speaks, gag her.”

He turned back to Isabella, who was sitting on the wet gravel, rubbing her bruised throat. I ran forward and helped her to her feet.

“Are you okay?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her waist.

Isabella nodded, shivering violently. “Who is she talking about, Luca?”

Luca didn’t answer. He turned and sprinted back into the house.

Isabella and I followed him, our wet shoes slipping on the marble floors of the foyer.

The massive double doors to Luca’s private study were closed.

Two of his security guards were lying unconscious outside the doors.

Luca didn’t pause. He kicked the heavy oak doors open with enough force to shatter the wood around the lock.

The study was dark, lit only by the crackling fire in the massive stone fireplace.

Sitting behind Luca’s mahogany desk, casually pouring a glass of amber scotch, was an older man with silver hair and a tailored suit.

He looked up and smiled warmly.

“Hello, Luca,” the man said.

Isabella gasped from behind me. “Uncle Victor.”

Victor Moretti. Luca’s uncle. His father’s younger brother, who had run the family’s legitimate holding companies in New York for the last decade.

“What are you doing here, Victor?” Luca asked, stepping into the room.

Victor took a sip of his scotch. “I came to celebrate your engagement, of course. But it seems the bride-to-be has caused quite a mess.”

“Vanessa works for you,” Luca stated. It wasn’t a question.

Victor sighed, setting the glass down. “Vanessa is a greedy, sloppy amateur. I hired her to appraise your mother’s house, yes. I told her to skim a little off the top for herself in exchange for finding the documents I needed. She got greedy, framed Isabella, and almost ruined the entire operation.”

He looked at Isabella with mild disgust. “Though I must say, seeing you run off like a frightened child was an added bonus.”

Luca stepped closer to the desk. “You ordered Daniel to kill Elena.”

Victor’s smile faded. His eyes turned cold.

“Elena was snooping,” Victor said flatly. “She found the true copy of your father’s will. The one that left the entire empire to you, and cut me out completely.”

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers.

“Your father was weak, Luca. He wanted to legitimize the family. He wanted to leave the life. I couldn’t allow that. I built this syndicate with him. It belonged to me just as much as it belonged to him.”

“So you killed him,” Luca said softly.

“I had his medication altered,” Victor admitted without a trace of remorse. “A simple heart attack. Tragic, but clean. Then I hired Vanessa to destroy the real will in your mother’s house. But Elena found a copy.”

Victor stood up.

“She tried to play the hero. She tried to get Daniel to help her. But Daniel always answered to me. He took her to the quarry, burned the will, and sent her into the water.”

The casual way he described murdering Luca’s wife made my blood run cold.

Luca didn’t yell. He didn’t draw a weapon.

He just walked around the desk until he was standing inches from his uncle.

“You destroyed my family,” Luca whispered. “You killed my father. You murdered my wife. You chased my sister away. And you sent a lunatic into my house to try and take my daughter.”

“It’s business, Luca,” Victor said calmly. “And right now, I have fifty men surrounding this estate. If you kill me, you all die. So, here is the new deal.”

Victor pulled a stack of legal documents from his briefcase and slid them across the desk.

“Sign over the New York and Chicago territories. Give me full control of the syndicate. You take your daughter, your sister, and the little maid, and you walk away. You get to live.”

Luca stared at the papers.

Then he looked at Victor.

A slow, dark smile spread across Luca’s face. It was the smile of a predator.

“You think you have fifty men outside, Victor?” Luca asked softly.

Victor frowned. “I know I do.”

Luca picked up the scotch glass from the desk.

“Did you notice that Daniel wasn’t the one who greeted you when you arrived?” Luca asked.

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Daniel was handling Vanessa.”

“Daniel is currently bleeding out in the trunk of Isabella’s car,” Luca corrected.

Victor went perfectly still.

“And those fifty men you brought from New York?” Luca continued, taking a sip of the scotch. “They work for the Moretti family. Not for you.”

Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He pressed a button and tossed it onto the desk.

A recorded audio file began to play.

It was Victor’s voice.

“Your father was weak, Luca... I had his medication altered... I built this syndicate... Daniel always answered to me... He took her to the quarry...”

The entire confession. Recorded crystal clear on the phone in Luca’s pocket.

Victor stared at the phone in horror.

“I broadcasted that conversation on the encrypted security frequency,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Every single one of your fifty men just heard you admit to murdering the head of the Moretti family.”

Victor scrambled backward, reaching for a gun inside his suit jacket.

He was too slow.

Luca didn’t shoot him. He grabbed Victor by the throat and slammed him backward into the stone mantle of the fireplace.

“In our family, we kill traitors,” Luca growled, pressing his forearm against his uncle’s windpipe.

The study doors opened behind us.

Marco, clutching his bandaged shoulder, walked in. Behind him stood half a dozen of the New York men Victor had brought.

They weren’t pointing their guns at Luca.

They were staring at Victor with pure, unadulterated hatred.

“Take him,” Luca ordered, stepping away from his gasping uncle.

The men grabbed Victor, dragging him out of the room without a single word of protest. Victor didn’t fight. He knew he was a dead man.

The study was suddenly quiet again.

Luca stood by the fireplace, staring into the flames. The war was over. The traitors were exposed. The ghosts were finally laid to rest.

Isabella walked slowly across the room and wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist.

For the first time in five years, Luca hugged his sister back. He buried his face in her wet hair, and his broad shoulders shook as the grief finally broke through the armor.

I backed out of the room quietly, closing the broken doors behind me to give them privacy.

I walked down the hall to the panic room.

Sophie was sitting on the floor, drawing a picture.

When she saw me, she jumped up and ran into my arms.

“Is the bad lady gone?” Sophie asked, burying her face in my neck.

“She’s gone, sweetie,” I whispered, tears spilling down my cheeks. “She’s never coming back.”

Everything was supposed to be over.

But as I carried Sophie upstairs to her freshly cleaned bed, I noticed something resting on the pillow.

A small, velvet jewelry box.

I set Sophie down and opened the box.

Inside was a delicate gold necklace with a single diamond pendant.

And tucked beneath the necklace was a small note, written in Luca’s handwriting.