Chapter 4 - The Bellini Family Threat and the Security Footage Vanessa Forgot Was Recording
I carefully slid my arm out from beneath Noah, making sure the folded apron stayed tucked securely against his chest so he wouldn't feel the loss of warmth.
Then I hurried across the thick rug to the window beside Luca.
Down at the bottom of the winding driveway, past the manicured hedges and stone fountains, the iron gates stood locked.
Four of Luca's armed guards stood on the inside perimeter, while six men in heavy dark overcoats stepped out of the three idling SUVs on the street side.
In the center of them stood Marco Bellini—sixty years old, silver-haired, with a heavy cashmere scarf wrapped around his neck, gesturing angrily toward the intercom camera.
And standing right beside him in a fur coat thrown over her red silk engagement dress was Vanessa.
"Stay here with Noah," Luca said, already buttoning his cuffs with sharp, practiced movements. "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone whose voice isn't mine."
"Wait," I said, grabbing his forearm before I could stop myself.
The muscles beneath his shirt sleeve were rock-solid.
Luca looked down at my hand on his arm, then up into my eyes.
"Mr. Moretti, before you go down there... there's something in the pantry you need to see."
He frowned slightly.
"The pantry?"
"The butler's pantry right off the main dining room," I said quickly, my heart racing. "Earlier tonight, about twenty minutes before the guests sat down, I went in there to polish the dessert forks. Vanessa was in there with the videographer and Diane Foster's assistant. At the time, I hid behind the wine racks because I was afraid she'd yell at me. I heard her tell them she had already moved Noah's cane—and she showed them a piece of paper she took out of your study."
Luca's eyes narrowed.
"What piece of paper?"
"I couldn't see it from behind the wine rack," I told him, "but remember last month when you had the security company upgrade the cameras near the wine cellar after that bottle of vintage Bordeaux went missing? There's a high-definition dome camera with audio right above the espresso machine in the butler's pantry. Miss Bellini never goes in the pantry, so she doesn't know it's there."
For a second, Luca stared at me with pure astonishment.
Then a slow, dangerous smile touched the corner of his mouth.
"You don't miss much, do you, Hannah?"
"Housekeepers see everything, sir. People forget we have eyes."
Luca pulled out his phone and dialed Dante.
"Dante, bring Marco and Vanessa into the downstairs library. Only the two of them—leave Marco's men outside the gates. Then pull the security feed from camera fourteen in the butler's pantry from six-thirty tonight and send it to the library monitor."
"On it, Boss."
Luca looked back at Noah sleeping peacefully on the bed, then at me.
"Come with me halfway down the back stairs," he said. "Wait in the hallway outside the library. If Vanessa tries to lie to her father about what happened tonight, I want you close enough to hear every word."
Two minutes later, I was standing in the shadowed corridor just outside the heavy mahogany doors of Luca's library, which had been left cracked open by two inches.
Through the gap, I watched Marco Bellini storm into the room, his face purple with rage, while Vanessa trailed behind him dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
"Have you lost your goddamn mind, Luca?!" Marco roared, slamming his gloved hand down onto Luca's antique partner's desk. "You throw my daughter out into the street at midnight? You pull your cargo ships from my docks and cancel a wedding forty-eight hours before the Archbishop of Chicago is scheduled to officiate?!"
Luca didn't even offer him a chair.
He stood in front of the unlit fireplace, hands in his pockets, looking completely unbothered.
"Did your daughter tell you why she was thrown out, Marco?"
"She told me you lost your temper over a misunderstanding with the boy!" Marco barked. "And that some twenty-five-year-old maid got in your ear and turned a family dinner into a circus!"
"Daddy, it was humiliating," Vanessa sobbed, sinking into a leather wingback chair. "I was trying to organize a charity tribute for Noah with the foundation! Luca twisted everything I did and humiliated me in front of twenty-eight of our closest friends!"
Marco pointed a thick finger at Luca's chest.
"Let me make something very clear to you, Luca. My family didn't spend six months preparing for this merger just to be embarrassed by you. Either the wedding goes ahead on Saturday morning as planned, and you fire that little maid tonight, or by nine o'clock tomorrow morning I'm filing a petition with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services."
My hand flew to my mouth behind the door.
Inside the library, Luca went completely still.
"Say that again, Marco."
Marco smirked, thinking he had finally found Luca's weak spot.
"Vanessa already told me how dangerous this house is for a blind child. Steep marble staircases, a father who works fourteen hours a day in businesses the feds are always sniffing around, and untrained maids carrying him up and down the halls. Vanessa took photos on her phone last week of a bruise on Noah's knee. With two phone calls to my judges downtown, I can have an emergency custody review opened before lunch tomorrow. How do you think a blind ten-year-old boy will do in a state foster facility while you spend six months in family court proving you're a fit single father?"
Vanessa looked up at Luca with cold, triumphant eyes.
"Or," she said softly, "we get married on Saturday, we put this ugly misunderstanding behind us, and Noah goes to that wonderful school in Switzerland where nobody will ever ask any questions."
I felt sick to my stomach.
That bruise on Noah's knee—he had gotten it last Thursday when Vanessa "accidentally" left her exercise weights in the middle of the upstairs hallway!
I pushed the door open another inch, ready to storm in there and scream the truth myself, when Luca spoke.
"A bruise from last Thursday," Luca murmured calmly. "And an emergency petition."
"That's right," Marco said coldly. "You love that boy more than your own life, Luca. Everyone knows it. Don't let your pride cost you your son."
Luca picked up a small black remote control from the corner of his desk.
"Before you call your judges, Marco, let's watch a movie."
He pressed a button.
The large flat-screen monitor built into the bookshelves flickered to life.
Timestamp: 18:34:12 — Butler's Pantry.
On the screen, in crystal-clear high definition, stood Vanessa in her red silk dress, holding Noah's white cane with the little blue star near the handle.
Standing across from her was the videographer and a young woman holding a clipboard.
Marco frowned at the screen. "What is this?"
"Listen," Luca said.
Through the speakers, Vanessa's voice rang out clearly, sharp and annoyed:
"Listen to me carefully. I'm going to shove this cane all the way under the center of the dining table so the little brat can't reach it. I already had the staff move his chair back three feet and put the heavy silver flower stand right in his path. When I call him over, he's going to hit that stand and go down hard on the marble. Make sure you zoom in on his face when he starts crying—donors love pathetic kids."
In the library, Marco Bellini's jaw dropped open.
He turned slowly to stare at his daughter.
Vanessa had gone white as a sheet, her fingernails digging into the leather armrests of the chair. "Turn it off! Luca, that's illegal recording—"
"Wait," Luca said softly. "The best part is coming."
On the screen, the young assistant with the clipboard looked nervous.
"Miss Bellini, what if your father's people ask why we're sending the boy to Zurich instead of keeping the two-hundred-thousand-dollar endowment in Chicago?"
On the video, Vanessa laughed coldly, pulling a folded white document from her clutch.
"My father doesn't know about the two hundred grand, you idiot, and he's not going to. Once I forge Luca's signature on this Zurich transfer and ship the blind kid out of the country on Monday, I'm skimming half the foundation endowment to pay off my gambling debts in Monaco before my father audits my trust fund next month. And if Luca complains after the wedding, I'll tell my father's lawyers that Luca was the one who wanted the kid gone."
Luca pressed pause on the remote.
The silence in the library was so absolute I could hear the logs settling in the cold fireplace.
Marco Bellini stood staring at the frozen image of his daughter holding Noah's white cane.
Slowly, the sixty-year-old mob boss turned his head toward Vanessa.
"You stole from my trust fund for Monaco?" Marco whispered, his voice shaking with fury. "And you made me walk into Luca Moretti's house at midnight to threaten him over a setup you staged to cover your own gambling debts?!"
"Daddy, wait—I can explain!" Vanessa shrieked, scrambling out of her chair. "It was only a hundred thousand! I was going to pay it back after the wedding!"
Marco's face contorted.
"You made a fool out of me in front of the Moretti family! And you used a blind ten-year-old child to do it?!"
Luca set the remote down on the desk.
"Marco," Luca said, his voice like blocks of ice sliding over stone. "A copy of that video, along with the forged Zurich admission contract and twenty-eight witness statements from tonight's dinner, is currently sitting on a secure server in Boston. If I ever hear the words 'family court' or 'custody' come out of a Bellini mouth again—or if your daughter doesn't pay back every single dollar she solicited from that foundation by noon tomorrow—that video goes straight to the Chicago Tribune and the District Attorney."
Marco swallowed hard, all the bluster completely drained out of him.
He looked at Luca with genuine fear, then bowed his head in a stiff, formal nod of surrender.
"You have my word, Luca. You won't hear from us again. And as for her..."
Marco grabbed Vanessa roughly by the elbow of her fur coat.
"You're coming home with me tonight. Tomorrow morning, I'm cutting off every credit card you own, selling your condo on Lake Shore Drive, and putting you to work in the cannery warehouse in Cicero until you pay back every dime you owe my accounts."
"No! Daddy, please, you can't do that to me!" Vanessa screamed as her father dragged her toward the library doors.
As they threw the doors open, Vanessa spotted me standing in the hallway.
Her mascara-stained face twisted with venom.
"This is all your fault!" she spat, lunging half a step toward me before her father yanked her back by the collar.
Luca was already at the threshold, his hand resting calmly on the doorframe as he watched them go.
"Goodnight, Vanessa," Luca said softly. "Have fun in Cicero."
When the heavy front doors finally slammed shut behind the Bellinis and the three SUVs sped away from the gates, the mansion fell quiet again.
I let out a breath I felt like I had been holding for half an hour, leaning back against the wallpapered hallway wall as my knees went slightly weak.
Luca turned around and looked at me.
The coldness vanished from his eyes the moment they met mine.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the faint scent of cedarwood and espresso on his shirt.
"Are you all right, Hannah?"
"Yes, sir," I breathed, managing a small smile. "Just... glad you had that camera above the espresso machine."
Luca reached out and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
May you like
His fingers were warm against my cheek, sending a sudden, electric shiver straight down my spine.
"Come on," he murmured softly. "Let's go back upstairs before Noah wakes up and wonders where we went. Tomorrow, we're tearing those shipping boxes out of his room together."
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