Chapter 4 - The Blood DNA Test Result, An Ambush In The Servant Quarters, And Vanessa’s Desperate Attempt To Silence Me
"Mobilize team alpha," Luca ordered without a second of hesitation, striding toward the door. "Arm them. If Bellini’s men draw a weapon near that child, put them down."
"Wait! Mr. Moretti—Luca, please take me with you!" I pleaded, rushing after him into the hallway.
Luca stopped abruptly, turning around with a scowl. "Anna, you have seven stitches in your hand, and you are a civilian. This is a tactical operation. You stay behind these walls where it’s safe."
"Richard Whitmore doesn't know you!" I insisted, stepping closer, my voice desperate. "He has spent years hiding from the Moretti name because Vanessa told him you would kill him and the baby if you ever found out! If your armed men kick his door down, he might do something reckless or try to run! But he saw me protect his mother today. Mrs. Whitmore trusts me. Let me go with you so he knows you aren't there to hurt them!"
Luca stared down at me, his eyes calculating the risk in fractions of a second. He saw the stubborn fire in my eyes—the same fire that had made me take a flying glass shard to the palm without flinching.
"Marcus," Luca barked, grabbing a dark bulletproof vest from the tactical locker in the foyer. "Put a vest on her. She stays in the armored suburban between two operatives. If she steps out before I clear the scene, I will hold you personally responsible."
Twenty minutes later, three reinforced SUVs were tearing through the rain-drenched highways of North Chicago, tires hissing against the slick asphalt at ninety miles per hour. The blue and red strobe lights hidden behind the front grilles flashed against the dark, abandoned warehouses near O’Hare International Airport.
Inside the vehicle, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Next to me, Luca was checking the slide of a customized matte-black Sig Sauer pistol, clicking the magazine into place with a chillingly calm rhythm.
"When we arrive, stay down," Luca instructed, not looking at me. "Bellini’s men are arrogant, but they aren't stupid. They know that if that little girl enters my custody, Salvatore Bellini loses his forty-million-dollar cash cow, and his daughter faces felony fraud and kidnapping charges."
The convoy screeched to a halt outside the Sun-Rest Motel, a dilapidated two-story neon-lit motel sitting behind a desolate truck stop. Rain poured from the broken gutters in heavy sheets.
Through the tinted glass, I saw it: two black sedans parked haphazardly in front of Room 114. The room’s front window had already been shattered, glass glittering against the wet pavement.
"Go! Go!" Luca commanded over the encrypted radio.
Six heavily armed Moretti operatives burst from the lead vehicles, their suppressed rifles raised. Luca moved with terrifying, fluid speed, kicking the door of our SUV open and advancing toward the motel room like an avenging shadow.
Gunshots echoed through the stormy night—muffled, sharp thuds of suppressed gunfire, followed by the shattering of wood and a man's agonized scream.
"Luca!" I shouted, the panic overriding every ounce of self-preservation. I pushed past the guard trying to hold me in the back seat and scrambled out into the freezing rain, my boots splashing through puddles.
"Anna! Get back!" the guard yelled, but I was already running toward Room 114.
Inside, the scene was pure chaos. Two of Bellini’s enforcers were pinned face down against the grimy carpet, handcuffed and groaning with broken limbs. A third lay unconscious near the broken television.
In the corner of the small, moldy room, a man in a torn denim jacket was shielding a tiny figure huddled beneath a threadbare blanket. He held a rusted kitchen knife with both hands, his knuckles bleeding, his eyes wild with terror.
"Stay back! Don't you touch her!" the man screamed. It was Richard Whitmore. His face was gaunt, his cheeks hollow from years of poverty and stress, but the fierce, primal protectiveness in his eyes was unmistakable.
Luca stood three feet away, his weapon lowered, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. "Richard. Lower the knife. I'm Luca Moretti."
"I know who you are!" Richard sobbed, his voice cracking. "Vanessa told me! She said you’d hunt us down! She said you wanted Caroline's bloodline wiped out so there would be no claims on the estate!"
"Richard, look at me!" I called out, stepping into the doorway, drenched in rain, holding my bandaged left hand up where he could see it.
Richard’s wild gaze snapped to me, then to the white medical wrap around my palm.
"You... you're the girl from the dining room," Richard gasped, his breathing ragged. "My mother... my mother called me from a secure phone an hour ago. She said a housemaid took a wound for her."
"Yes, Richard," I said gently, taking one slow, non-threatening step into the room. "Your mother is safe. She is resting comfortably at the Moretti estate. Luca didn't come here to hurt you or that little girl. He brought a medical team. He threw Vanessa out of his life the moment he learned the truth. He came to bring Caroline's daughter home."
Richard’s hands began to shake violently. The rusted knife slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the linoleum floor. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders convulsing in silent, broken sobs.
From beneath the heavy wool blanket in the corner, a tiny face peeked out.
She couldn't have been more than fifty pounds, wearing an oversized faded pink sweater. She had huge, luminous hazel eyes framed by dark curls that clung to her pale cheeks. But it wasn't just her frail beauty that made the air vanish from the room.
It was her face.
She had Caroline’s delicate jawline, Caroline’s upturned nose, and the exact same small, crescent-shaped birthmark just below her left collarbone that Luca’s late wife had possessed.
Luca froze. For the first time since I had met him, the indomitable mafia boss looked completely vulnerable. His gun slipped into his holster as he slowly sank to his knees on the grimy motel carpet.
"Hello, little one," Luca whispered, his voice trembling so hard he could barely form the words.
The little girl looked at him with wary, intelligent eyes, clutching a worn teddy bear whose ear was missing. "Are you the man from the pictures?"
Luca swallowed hard, tears finally spilling over his dark lashes. "What pictures, sweetheart?"
"Mommy's pictures," she whispered in a tiny, hoarse voice. "Daddy Richard has a box under the bed. He told me that one day, when the bad people stopped chasing us, a tall man with kind eyes would come and take us to a house with a garden."
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Luca closed his eyes, let out a shuddering breath, and reached out a trembling hand. "I have a garden, little one. It has hundreds of white roses. And nobody will ever chase you again."
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