Chapter 2 – THE SATURDAY INVITATION

The chandeliers above us seemed to flicker.

Dead silence returned to the dining room, heavier and more suffocating than before.

Luca stared at me.

He looked from the photograph in my trembling hand to my face, searching for a resemblance.

“Your mother?” Luca repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes, sir,” I said, tears sliding down my cheeks. “Her name is Helen Collins.”

Vanessa let out a sharp, cruel laugh.

“This is a setup!” she announced to the room, gesturing wildly at me and June. “The diner owner and the little housemaid! They cooked up this pathetic extortion scheme together. They probably found the watch in the trash!”

Luca ignored her.

He gently took the photograph from my hands.

“Megan,” he said softly. “Your mother came to the estate three weeks ago?”

I shook my head, my mind racing.

“I didn’t know, sir. She’s been very sick. She rarely leaves her apartment.”

I wiped my eyes, a sudden, terrifying realization hitting me.

“Wait. Three weeks ago, she told me a social worker came to visit her while I was at work. She said the woman was wearing a red coat and smelled like expensive perfume.”

I looked slowly at Vanessa.

Vanessa’s face went rigid.

“She told me the social worker said we were going to lose our medical benefits if we didn’t relocate to a state facility in Ohio,” I whispered, my voice shaking with sudden anger.

Luca turned slowly toward his fiancée.

“You went to her home?”

Vanessa crossed her arms, lifting her chin in defiance.

“I did what was necessary, Luca! My father warned me about people like her. She’s a leech! She thought she could wave your dead father’s watch in my face and demand a payout.”

“My mother has never asked for a handout in her life!” I shouted.

It was the first time I had ever raised my voice in that house.

Several guests gasped.

Vanessa sneered at me.

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way, you little nobody. You’re fired. Pack your things.”

“She stays,” Luca said.

His voice wasn’t a request. It was an executioner’s verdict.

He stepped closer to Vanessa.

“You used my family’s name to threaten a sick woman in her own home.”

“She was threatening our future!” Vanessa fired back. “Did you read the card she left at the diner? SATURDAY. Do you know what tomorrow is, Luca?”

Luca frowned.

“It’s our wedding day.”

“Exactly!” Vanessa cried. “She was planning to crash the wedding! She was going to humiliate our families in front of the Commission!”

I looked down at the small white card resting on the table next to the chipped blue mug.

My heart stopped.

“No,” I whispered.

Luca looked at me.

“Megan?”

“She wasn’t going to crash the wedding,” I said, panic rising in my throat. “Saturday isn’t just your wedding day.”

I grabbed the edge of the table to steady myself.

“Tomorrow is the day my mother is scheduled for a high-risk bypass surgery.”

The room went entirely still.

“The doctors said she only has a twenty percent chance of surviving,” I choked out. “If she left that card… it means she didn’t think she was going to make it. She was saying goodbye.”

Luca’s expression shattered.

He realized what Vanessa had actually done.

She hadn’t just threatened a woman. She had robbed a dying woman of her final chance to make peace with the man she loved’s son.

Luca turned to Marco.

“Clear the room,” Luca ordered.

Marco blinked. “Boss?”

“Cancel the dinner! Get everyone out of my house!” Luca roared, his voice echoing off the marble walls.

Guests scrambled from their chairs, abandoning their expensive meals, hurrying toward the coat check.

Vanessa stood frozen in shock.

“Luca, you can’t do this. My father—”

“Your father can go to hell, and you can join him,” Luca snarled. “The engagement is over.”

Vanessa backed away, her face twisting with pure, unadulterated venom.

“You’re going to regret this, Luca,” she hissed. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the dining room.

Within three minutes, the massive hall was empty, save for me, Luca, and June Harper.

June gently touched Luca’s arm.

“Go to her, sweetheart,” June smiled sadly. “Your father would want you to.”

Luca nodded.

He turned to me.

“Where does your mother live, Megan?”

“The South Side,” I answered. “Near the old railyard.”

“Get your coat,” Luca said, pulling his car keys from his pocket. “We’re going right now.”

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Luca’s black SUV as it tore through the rainy streets of Chicago.

My hands were shaking. I had a six-year-old daughter, Lily, waiting at home with my mother.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said quietly. “Why did your father give her that watch?”

Luca kept his eyes on the road.

“My father was a ruthless man, Megan. But he had one rule. He always protected the innocent.”

He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“If he gave your mother the watch, it meant she saved his life. And he swore to protect hers.”

He looked at me, his dark eyes intense.

“And I honor my father’s debts.”

We pulled up to my crumbling apartment building. The streetlights were flickering, casting long shadows across the wet pavement.

We rushed up three flights of stairs.

I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“Mom?” I called out. “Lily?”

The apartment was dead silent.

The television was on, casting a blue glow across the living room.

But my mother wasn’t in her armchair.

And Lily wasn’t on the rug playing with her blocks.

Luca drew his gun immediately, stepping in front of me.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered.

He swept the small apartment.

The kitchen was empty. The bedrooms were empty.

But resting on the center of the kitchen table was a single object.

A heavy, tarnished silver pocket watch.

And tucked beneath it was a little drawing my daughter Lily had made that morning.

Except the drawing was ripped in half.

“They took them,” I screamed, my knees giving out.

Luca stared at the ripped drawing, his jaw clenched in absolute fury.

He picked up the silver watch and pressed a hidden latch on the side.

The back of the watch popped open.

Inside wasn’t a clock face.

It was a tightly folded, aged piece of paper.