Chapter 5 - A Sister's Life Bought in Gold
Luca nodded once.
He looked down at the weeping socialite with eyes that held no more warmth than the frozen mud beneath the pier.
“You fired Emma tonight, Vanessa,” Luca whispered. “You told her she wasn't suited for a sophisticated household because she refused to let a predator touch her waist.”
He reached into his breast pocket and produced the three-carat diamond engagement ring that had belonged to his family vault.
He didn't hand it to her.
He dropped the platinum band onto the mahogany table, where it rolled to a stop beside the steel dispatch box.
“You are stripped of the Moretti name,” Luca declared, his baritone booming through the vaulted room with the authority of an emperor. “You are stripped of your penthouses on Michigan Avenue, your private banking accounts, and your family’s deep-water leases.”
He looked at Daniel.
“Take Vanessa Bellini down to the holding cells beneath Pier 14. Place her in the adjoining cell beside Richard and Thomas Vale. When Assistant United States Attorney Marcus Vance arrives at midnight, hand them over with the unredacted ledgers.”
Vanessa shrieked, clawing at the carpet, her tears soaking into the wool as two armed guards hauled her backward out of the library, her frantic, ugly screams echoing through the corridors until the heavy oak doors clicked shut forever.
Silence returned to the grand library.
Pure, clean, and vast.
Luca stood up from the head of the table.
He walked over to where my sister and I were sitting.
He knelt down on one knee before Katie’s chair, his massive, scarred frame bringing his eyes level with hers.
His large hand reached out, infinite gentleness softening his knuckles as he touched the soft wool of her blanket.
“You are safe now, Katherine,” Luca murmured softly, his baritone rough with an emotion no mobster had ever seen in him. “No man will ever lay a hand on you again. No man will ever make you feel afraid under this sky.”
Katie looked at him through her tears, her lip trembling. “Thank you, Mr. Moretti... thank you for stopping them.”
Luca reached into his pocket and produced an antique leather portfolio stamped with the golden seal of the State of Illinois.
He laid it gently on my lap.
“What is this, Mr. Moretti?” I whispered, looking down at the heavy parchment.
“Open it, Emma,” he smiled gently.
I opened the folder.
Inside lay an official decree from the Cook County Chancery Court:
THE SULLIVAN FAMILY MARITIME AND EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENT.
Attached to the decree was the canceled deed to my mother’s home in Bridgeport, paid in full in perpetuity, alongside a four-year full academic scholarship for Katie at the University of Chicago, and a five-million-dollar medical trust for my mother.
Tears of pure, overwhelming gratitude blurred my vision, spilling hot and fast down my cheeks.
“Mr. Moretti... Luca... five million dollars? The house deed? Katie’s college?” I wept, pressing my hand against my mouth. “I could work five lifetimes and never earn a fraction of this—”
“You don't repay family, Emma,” Luca whispered, reaching out with his warm, calloused hand, gently wiping away a tear from my cheekbone with his thumb.
The touch was so tender, so completely at odds with the man who had just broken Richard Vale’s jaw, that my heart hammered violently against my ribs.
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“You stood before forty armed men and spoke the truth when everyone else looked away,” he murmured, his dark gray eyes searching mine with fierce, unyielding devotion. “You protected the dignity of this house with your own life. In my world, that kind of courage is answered with an empire.”
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