Chapter 3 - Blood on the Sub-Level TilesUpstairs on the third floor, my ankle was throbbing like a jagged tooth.
I was sitting on the edge of a daybed in the linen annex, my black maid’s apron balled up on the floor beside my shoe. Dr. Harris, a silver-haired physician who had tended to the Moretti household since Luca was a boy, was wrapping a cold compression bandage around my swollen joint.
“A severe sprain, Natalie,” Dr. Harris murmured, clipping the elastic fastener with a sharp metal snap. “Two torn ligaments along the lateral malleolus. A fall on wet linoleum doesn't produce contusions shaped like a cast-iron rung. You hit an edge.”
I stared at the wallpaper, my jaw clamped shut.
“Natalie.”
The voice came from the open doorway.
Dr. Harris stood up immediately, stepping aside with a low nod.
Luca walked into the small room. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket; his white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, his sleeves rolled twice around his forearms, revealing the faded ink of an old harbor crest on his wrist.
He didn't look at Dr. Harris. His eyes locked onto my ankle, taking in the dark, purplish-black swelling that stretched past the white gauze.
“Leave us, Arthur,” Luca told the physician.
Dr. Harris packed his leather bag, gave my shoulder a gentle pat, and slipped into the hallway, closing the heavy oak door behind him with a soft, definitive click.
Luca pulled a wooden ladder-back chair over from the linen press, turned it backward, and sat down three feet from the edge of my bed. He rested his forearms on the backrest, looking at me with that unreadable, terrifying stillness that usually preceded a massacre on the river.
“Her name is Martha Vance,” Luca said quietly.
My heart leaped into my throat. The breath caught in my windpipe.
“Mr. Moretti—”
“She’s seventy-two years old,” he continued, his tone smooth as polished glass. “She spent forty minutes in an insulated refrigerator set to thirty-four degrees. If Daniel hadn't picked that lock, she would have suffered cardiac arrest before midnight.”
I lowered my head, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the hem of my skirt.
“I tried to pull the door open, sir,” I whispered, tears burning the corners of my eyes. “I heard her shouting from inside the cold box. When I reached for the padlock, Miss Bellini grabbed the iron stepladder from the corner and shoved it across the tiles. The metal bar caught my foot. I went down hard against the doorframe.”
“And then?”
“Then she told me that if I opened my mouth to you, my brother's auto shop on 26th Street would burn to the foundation with him inside.”
Silence settled over the room like an iron slab.
Luca didn't curse. He didn't smash the chair.
He slowly leaned forward, reaching out with his right hand. His calloused, warm fingers gently took my uninjured right foot, lifting it onto the wooden footstool so my swollen leg could rest horizontally without pressure.
“Your brother runs Brooks Automotive?” Luca asked softly.
“Yes, sir.”
“The small garage behind the lumber yard.”
“Yes, sir.”
Luca reached into his pocket, pulled out his personal phone, and dialed a three-digit extension.
“Daniel. Send four men from the inner perimeter down to 26th Street. Brooks Automotive. They are to sit outside the gates in an armored vehicle until I give the counter-signal. If anyone bearing a Bellini badge approaches within a hundred yards of that shop, put them in the dirt.”
He clicked the phone off and laid it on the edge of the mattress.
“Nobody is burning your brother’s shop, Natalie,” Luca said, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that made the room feel small. “Nobody in this city touches anyone who works under my roof. Not while I draw breath.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and sudden. I had spent eight months in this mansion being treated like furniture by Vanessa, jumping at every raised voice, terrified that one misplaced teacup would leave my family on the street.
Luca reached out again. This time, his thumb brushed against my cheekbone, wiping away a wet streak with surprising gentleness.
“You stood in front of that cooler and took an iron ladder to the bone to save a strange woman,” he murmured. “Why didn't you run into the kitchen and scream for security?”
“Because she said you were going to marry her,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “She said the wedding was already ratified by the five families. She said if I caused a scandal, you would believe your fiancée before you ever believed a housemaid.”
Luca let out a low, dry chuckle that sounded like stones grinding together in a mill.
“My grandfather used to say that a man who listens to his bride’s lies while his staff bleeds in the cellar isn't a boss,” Luca whispered. “He’s a mark waiting to be clipped.”
He stood up smoothly, adjusting the cuffs of his white shirt.
“Can you stand, Natalie?”
“With a cane, sir.”
Luca walked over to the corner, picked up an antique blackthorn walking stick that had belonged to his late uncle, and held it out to me.
“Take it,” he commanded. “We are going back downstairs.”
May you like
“To the dining room?” I asked, panic flaring in my chest. “Sir, the guests—”
“The guests are drinking my vintage port,” Luca said, a cold, predatory shadow crossing his features. “And it’s time they saw what they came to celebrate.”
Related Stories
