Chapter 3 - Blood and Vows
The third-floor master suite was a world entirely separate from the rest of the cold, imposing mansion.
Thick, cream-colored carpets swallowed our footsteps. A massive king-sized bed with silk duvets sat beneath a vaulted ceiling, and a fireplace crackled merrily in the hearth, casting warm, dancing shadows across the room.
Lily sat in the center of the enormous bed, bundled in a plush robe that swallowed her small frame. A silver bowl of fresh strawberries sat on her lap, and she was eating them one by one, her hazel eyes heavy with exhaustion.
I sat beside her, brushing out her tangled curls with a silver-backed brush that Marco had fetched from the guest vanity. Every time I ran the bristles through her hair, a fresh wave of emotion washed over me. She was really here. She was flesh and bone. She wasn't a phantom of my grief.
“Mommy?” Lily murmured, her eyelids drooping. “Will you sing the song?”
A lump formed in my throat. She remembered. Through three years of Charles’s brainwashing and Vanessa’s lies, she still remembered.
I leaned down, pressing my lips against the crown of her head, and began to sing softly:
*“Sleep, little robin, the summer has fled,*
*Sweet little strawberries, painted in red.*
*Close your sweet eyes now, let shadows depart,*
*Mommy is keeping you safe in her heart…”*
Before I reached the second verse, Lily’s small hand uncurled from the plush rabbit. The half-eaten strawberry rolled onto the silver platter. Her breathing deepened into the rhythmic, peaceful cadence of deep slumber.
I carefully removed the tray, set it on the nightstand, and pulled the down comforter up to her chin. I sat there in the silence for what felt like hours, simply watching her chest rise and fall.
A soft knock at the open double doors broke the trance.
Luca stood in the doorway. He had shed his suit jacket, wearing only his charcoal waistcoat and white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. In his hands, he held a thick manila folder and a steaming mug of chamomile tea.
“She’s asleep?” he asked in a low whisper.
I nodded, standing up quietly and smoothing down my wrinkled maid’s skirt. “She was exhausted.”
Luca stepped into the room, his heavy tread making no sound on the plush carpet. He offered me the mug. “Drink this. You’re shaking.”
My hands were indeed trembling. I took the warm ceramic mug, the scent of honey and chamomile rising to soothe my frayed nerves. “Thank you, Mr. Moretti.”
“Luca,” he corrected softly, his dark eyes studying my face in the firelight. “After tonight, you do not call me Mr. Moretti.”
I swallowed a sip of the hot tea, feeling the warmth spread through my chest, but the tension didn't leave my muscles. “What’s in the folder?”
Luca walked over to the mahogany sitting area near the fireplace and laid the file on the table. “Charles Whitmore’s life. Or what remains of it.”
I walked over, peering at the thick stack of documents. Paternity tests, bank statements with seven-figure transfers, court orders stamped with official seals from Cook County Family Court.
“How did you get all this in two hours?” I whispered.
Luca gave a cold, humorless smirk. “Fear is a remarkable motivator. Vincenzo had a very productive conversation with Charles’s senior partner. It turns out Charles didn't just take Vanessa’s money. He used his connections with Judge Miller to forge your signature on a voluntary relinquishment of parental rights three years ago.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes again, but this time they were born of white-hot rage. “I knew it. I begged the clerk at the records office to let me see the original file, and she told me it was sealed under a judicial gag order. They locked me out of the system.”
“Miller received a two-hundred-thousand-dollar campaign contribution from a shell company registered to the Bellini syndicate the very week the order was signed,” Luca said, his voice flat, emotionless, and utterly terrifying. “By tomorrow morning, Miller will be arrested by federal marshals. Charles will be charged with fraud, kidnapping, and conspiracy.”
I stared at him, stunned. “Federal marshals? You’re… you’re giving them to the authorities?”
Luca looked at me, a flicker of dark amusement in his eyes. “Did you think I would simply bury them in the woods, Hannah?”
“I… I know what family you come from,” I murmured honestly, glancing toward the door. “Everyone in Chicago knows what the Moretti name means.”
Luca stepped closer. The casual, almost domestic setting of the bedroom did nothing to diminish the lethal aura around him. If anything, it magnified it.
“I am a violent man, Hannah,” he admitted quietly, holding my gaze. “I will not insult your intelligence by pretending I am a saint. I run an empire built on blood, control, and fear. But there are lines even monsters do not cross. Children. Mothers.” He reached out, his thumb gently grazing the dried tear track on my cheek. The touch was so unexpectedly tender that my breath caught. “I spent eleven months watching you clean this house. I watched you carry yourself with the grace of a queen while my staff treated you like dirt. I saw the sadness in your eyes every time you looked at the photos of my deceased nieces in the gallery.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “You… you noticed that?”
“I notice everything that matters to me,” Luca whispered.
Before I could process the gravity of his words, the sharp ping of a burner phone on the table shattered the moment.
Luca picked up the encrypted device, his expression turning instantly to granite. He swiped the screen and brought it to his ear. “Speak.”
I watched as his jaw tightened. His knuckles turned white around the glass of the phone.
“When?” Luca demanded. A second of silence passed. “How many men?”
He listened for three more seconds, then hung up without saying goodbye.
“What is it?” I asked, panic spiking in my chest. “Is it Charles?”
“Charles is in a holding cell,” Luca said, his voice dropping into the cold, calculated register of a general preparing for war. “It’s Vanessa. She didn't run home to her father to beg for forgiveness.”
“Where did she go?”
Luca looked toward the heavily curtained window overlooking the dark estate grounds.
May you like
“She went to Marco Donati. My family’s blood rival on the South Side. And she offered him every access code to my private security grid in exchange for Charles’s release and your daughter’s custody.”
***