Chapter 8 - A Maid’s Loyalty in the Crosshairs
The ruined courtyard of St. Catherine’s Sanatorium fell into a petrified, absolute silence, broken only by the crackle of burning vehicles and the steady drumming of rain against the gravel.
Marco Bellini’s hands began to shake. The chrome revolver in his right hand wavered, his knuckles white as bone.
Beside him, Vanessa let out a sharp, hysterical shriek, pointing a trembling finger at me.
“It was her!” Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking with psychotic desperation. “Daddy, kill the maid! She has the portfolio! If she dies, the chain of custody is broken!”
Before Marco could swing his weapon toward my chest, Luca moved with blinding, terrifying speed.
He didn't fire his pistol.
He closed the twenty-foot distance between them in three massive strides, his left hand striking Marco’s wrist with concussive force, snapping the older man’s radius with an audible, sickening crack.
The chrome revolver went flying into the mud.
Luca caught Marco by the throat, hoisting the sixty-eight-year-old patriarch off his feet, slamming him backward onto the hood of a burning Suburban.
Steam hissed violently where Marco’s wet cashmere coat struck the hot metal.
Marco choked, clawing at Luca’s tattooed fingers, his eyes bulging in agony.
“You poisoned my father, Marco,” Luca whispered into his ear.
His voice was so quiet, so gentle, that it sent a shiver through every armed man in the courtyard.
“You forged my mother’s death certificate. You locked her in a concrete room for twenty-two years. And you thought you could give me your daughter as a collar to keep me on your leash.”
“Luca... please...” Marco wheezed, blood bubbling from his lip. “The commission... the commission will declare war... you can't execute a founding don...”
“The commission isn't declaring war, Marco,” Luca replied softly.
He leaned down, his obsidian eyes inches from Marco’s face.
“Because at dawn, the commission convenes at my estate on the Gold Coast. And your own daughter is going to testify against you.”
Luca released his throat, letting Marco collapse onto the gravel like a sack of wet rags.
Matteo stepped forward immediately, driving his combat boot into Marco’s ribs, securing heavy steel zip-ties around the broken don’s wrists.
Vanessa scrambled backward on her hands and knees, clawing through the mud toward the gate, her trench coat soaked and filthy.
“Luca! Don't do this!” she sobbed, looking back over her shoulder. “I loved you! In the beginning, it was my father’s orders, but I fell in love with you! That's why I wanted that sewing box burned! I wanted to protect our future!”
Luca walked toward her, stopping three paces away. He looked down at the woman he had almost married with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust.
“You didn't love me, Vanessa,” Luca said, each word falling like a tombstone. “You loved the power of the Moretti name. You loved wearing my mother’s cage around your neck. You are nothing more than a parasite wearing diamonds.”
He turned to Matteo.
“Throw her in the back of the transport van beside her father. Let them look at each other while we drive home.”
Luca turned back toward us.
His gaze swept over Marcus Vance, over the smoldering ruins of the sanatorium, and settled upon his mother.
Lucia walked forward, her hand resting gently on my arm.
“We are going home, Mama,” Luca said softly, his voice thick with raw emotion.
“Yes, my boy,” Lucia smiled, her hazel eyes shining with tears of quiet triumph. “We are going home.”
Luca looked at me.
In the flickering orange light of the burning vehicles, his dark eyes held a warmth so profound, so unshakeable, that it took the breath straight out of my lungs.
He walked over, reached out, and gently tucked a wet strand of dark hair behind my ear.
His calloused fingers lingered against my jawline, their warmth cutting through the freezing rain.
“You held the line, Emma,” Luca murmured, his voice rich and low. “You stood between my mother and death tonight.”
“I promised you I would, Luca,” I whispered back, my heart pounding wildly against my ribs.
Luca leaned down and pressed a tender, lingering kiss to my forehead.
May you like
“Let’s go back to Chicago, Emma. It’s time to claim our house.”
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