Chapter 3 - THE FADED POLISH PHOTOGRAPH
I stared at the silver pocket watch in Luca’s hands.
My mind went completely blank.
Anya Brooks.
The letters were etched sharply into the antique silver, right beneath the frozen hands that pointed to 3:15.
“That’s impossible,” I breathed, taking a step back. My wet shoes squeaked against the marble floor. “My mother never knew your father. She only knew he was my grandmother’s boss.”
Luca looked at the engraving again, his jaw clenching tight.
He stood up, shrugging off the heavy exhaustion of the evening. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, and his piercing brown eyes were locked onto mine.
“People don’t carve a woman’s name into a family heirloom for no reason, Natalie,” Luca said, his voice thick with emotion.
Isabella stood up from the table, her hands still shaking. She walked over to her brother and looked at the watch.
“Luca, what does this mean?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Vanessa’s father stole my shares. He thinks Dad was a thief. And now... now Dad has a maid’s mother’s name in his watch?”
“I don’t know, Bella,” Luca said, closing the watch with a sharp click. “But I am going to find out.”
He turned to me.
“Where does your mother live?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. “She lives in the South Side. In a small apartment. But she’s sick, Mr. Moretti. She had surgery two months ago. She can’t handle stress right now.”
“I’m not going to stress her, Natalie,” Luca said gently. His tone was so different from the fierce mafia boss the city feared. To me, right now, he was just a son trying to defend his dead father. “But I need answers. And she might be the only one who has them.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll take you to her.”
“I’m coming too,” Isabella said, wiping her face with a napkin. She looked stronger now, the tears replaced by a desperate need for the truth.
Twenty minutes later, I had changed out of my ruined uniform and into my street clothes—jeans and a simple sweater.
We climbed into Luca’s black armored SUV. He drove in silence, the rain beginning to fall against the windshield, blurring the Chicago city lights.
My hands gripped my purse tightly in my lap.
Why would the great Antonio Moretti, a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars, have my mother’s name in his watch?
When we arrived at the rundown brick apartment building, Luca insisted on walking ahead of us.
I unlocked the peeling wooden door of apartment 4B.
“Mom?” I called out softly into the dimly lit hallway.
“In the kitchen, Nattie,” my mother’s frail voice answered.
We walked into the small kitchen. My mother, Anya, was sitting at the worn formica table, drinking a cup of chamomile tea. She was wearing a thick robe, her face pale from her recent medical treatments.
She smiled when she saw me, but then her eyes shifted to the two towering figures standing behind me.
Her smile instantly vanished.
The teacup slipped from her fingers, shattering against the linoleum floor.
Hot tea splashed everywhere, but my mother didn't even flinch.
She just stared at Luca.
“You look exactly like him,” she whispered, her voice shaking with terror.
Luca stepped forward, his boots crunching on the broken porcelain.
“You knew my father,” Luca stated. It wasn't a question.
My mother closed her eyes, tears leaking from the corners. “I prayed this day would never come. I prayed Antonio took the secret to his grave.”
“He didn't,” Luca said. He reached into his pocket and placed the heavy silver watch on the table.
My mother let out a heartbreaking sob the moment she saw it.
“Mrs. Brooks,” Isabella pleaded, stepping forward. “Please. Vanessa Bellini’s father is trying to destroy our family. He’s blackmailing us, saying my father stole millions from the factory pension fund.”
My mother’s eyes snapped open. The terror in them was suddenly replaced by a fierce, blazing anger.
“Marcus Bellini is a monster,” my mother spat, her thick Polish accent coming through. “Your father didn't steal a single dime, Isabella. Your father was a hero.”
Luca’s shoulders dropped, a massive wave of relief washing over him. “Then where did the money go? Why did the accounts show millions missing the year before he died?”
My mother looked at me, her eyes filled with sorrow.
“Natalie, go into my bedroom,” she instructed softly. “Under the floorboard beneath my bed, there is a metal lockbox. Bring it to me.”
I didn't argue. I ran to her room, pushed the heavy mattress aside, and pried up the loose wooden plank I had never known existed.
I pulled out a heavy, rusted metal lockbox and rushed back to the kitchen.
My mother took a small key from a chain around her neck and opened the box.
Inside was a stack of faded banking receipts.
“Your father didn't steal the pension money,” my mother explained, sliding the receipts across the table toward Luca. “He hid it. He transferred every single dollar out of the corporate accounts and into private offshore trusts under the workers’ names.”
Luca frowned, reading the papers. “Why would he do that?”
“Because Marcus Bellini was planning a hostile takeover,” my mother revealed. “Marcus wanted to liquidate the factory, fire all the workers, and steal their pensions. Your father figured it out. He hid the money to protect us.”
Isabella gasped, covering her mouth. “Dad sacrificed his own reputation to save his employees.”
“Yes,” my mother said. “But Marcus found out. And he was furious.”
My mother reached into the lockbox one last time.
Her hand trembled as she pulled out a faded, crinkled photograph.
She handed it to Luca.
I leaned over his arm to look at it.
It was a picture of my mother, fifteen years younger. But she wasn't alone.
She was standing in front of a raging fire. The factory was burning to the ground in the background.
And in my mother’s arms, she was holding a tiny, crying baby wrapped in a bloody blanket.
“Marcus Bellini didn't just want the factory,” my mother whispered, looking directly into Isabella’s eyes. “When he realized your father hid the money, he burned the building down for the insurance.”
Luca stared at the photo, his breath hitching. “Whose baby is this?”
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My mother looked at Isabella, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“That’s your son, Isabella,” my mother said softly. “The baby you thought died in the fire fifteen years ago.”
