Chapter 2 - The Scent of Old PaperThe heavy electronic locks of the mansion’s outer perimeter clicked shut with a hollow, concussive thud that rattled the stained-glass transom above the foyer.
Forty of the most powerful syndicate bosses, shipping magnates, and corrupt municipal judges in the Midwest sat like stone statues along the long mahogany table. Men who had ordered warehouse bombings and run contraband across state lines sat with their hands flat on the white damask cloth, petrified that shifting an inch would draw the Don’s lethal attention.
Luca remained standing beside his uncle’s chair.
He held the tarnished gold locket in one hand, the folded paper in the other.
“A surrender paper,” Luca murmured, his voice sounding like dry stones grinding beneath an iron heel.
Frank Moretti lifted his head, his red-rimmed eyes hollow with twenty-four years of guilt.
“Salvatore Bellini wanted the shipping terminals along the Calumet River, Luca,” Frank confessed, each word tearing out of his throat like rusted wire. “Your father, Antonio, held the master charter. But your mother had died two years earlier, and Antonio had fallen in love with Margaret—a nurse from Saint Anthony’s who had cared for your mother during her final months.”
The room was so quiet you could hear the rain beginning to lash against the terrace windows.
“Margaret was pregnant,” Frank continued, his voice trembling. “Antonio knew that if the Bellini family discovered he had a newborn daughter with an outsider, they would use the infant as leverage to strip him of the river concessions. So he had this locket forged by an old jeweler on Taylor Street. He put his own photograph and Margaret’s portrait inside, with the child’s legal baptismal record tucked in the hidden chamber.”
Luca turned his head slowly, looking directly at me.
“And what happened at Pier 19, Frank?”
“Salvatore Bellini cornered your father in the warehouse,” Frank whispered. “He told Antonio that if he didn't sign over the deep-water berths, Margaret and the baby would drown in the slipway. Your father drew his weapon to give Margaret time to reach the interstate. He took three rounds to the chest. We found his body at dawn, but Margaret had already vanished into Wisconsin.”
Frank turned his tear-stained face toward Vanessa.
“And Salvatore Bellini spent the next twenty years telling the Commission that Antonio died of cardiac failure, using forged powers of attorney to absorb our family's shipping lines.”
Vanessa backed against the wall, her hands clawing at the silk of her gown.
“This is an unhinged conspiracy!” Vanessa shrieked, her voice climbing into shrill, frantic desperation. “My father is sixty-eight years old! He sits on the municipal port commission! Are you going to take the word of a senile old drunk and an uneducated maid who washes your floors?”
Luca crossed the dining room in five long, unhurried strides.
He stopped three inches from Vanessa.
He towered over her, his broad shoulders blotting out the light from the chandeliers, casting her entire body into cold shadow.
“You said my mother was supposed to destroy that necklace, Vanessa,” Luca said softly.
Vanessa’s chest heaved. “I... I was speaking about Donna Isabella! She had duplicate jewelry—”
“Donna Isabella died in 1998, Vanessa,” Luca whispered, each syllable dropping like liquid nitrogen. “Two years before my father met Margaret. The only person who could have ordered that necklace destroyed was the man who murdered my father to steal his docks.”
He reached out with his left hand.
He caught the diamond engagement ring on Vanessa’s finger—the eight-carat emerald-cut stone that had belonged to the Moretti family vault.
He didn't twist it violently. He closed his fingers around the band and pulled.
The ring came free with a sharp, dry scrape against her knuckle.
Luca didn't look at the diamond. He opened his palm and let it fall onto the marble floor, where it rolled to a stop beside my work shoes.
“Daniel,” Luca commanded.
“Yes, boss.”
“Take Miss Bellini down to the sub-basement wine cellar. Strip her phones, her jewelry, and her shoes. Lock the iron gate.”
“Luca, no! Please!” Vanessa screamed, thrashing as Daniel and two armed enforcers clamped onto her arms, hauling her backward through the service doors while her heels dragged across the floor. “My father will bury this city! You can't touch me! You can't touch a Bellini!”
Her cries echoed down the subterranean stairwell until the heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting off her voice forever.
Luca turned back to the room.
He walked over to where I was standing, holding my serving tray against my apron.
He took the heavy silver tray from my hands, setting it onto the table.
May you like
Then he reached down, took my cold, trembling right hand into his massive, scarred palm, and lifted me from the floor.
“Emily—Maria,” Luca said, his voice rich, deep, and thick with an emotion no mobster had ever seen in him. “You’re done carrying trays in this house.”
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