Chapter 2 – THE NAME ON THE TICKET
The yellow pawn ticket sat on the dark mahogany table like a lit stick of dynamite.
Luca didn’t touch it immediately. He just stared at the messy, looping signature at the bottom of the receipt. Vanessa Bellini. The ink was undeniable. The date was undeniable.
Vanessa let out a strangled, panicked noise. She lunged forward to snatch the paper off the table, but Luca’s hand shot out with terrifying speed. He caught her wrist in a vice grip, stopping her dead in her tracks.
“Don’t touch it,” Luca warned, his voice a low, guttural growl that made the hair on my arms stand up.
Vanessa tried to pull away, but Luca held her firmly. The thirty-four guests at the banquet table were perfectly still, realizing they were witnessing the implosion of the Moretti empire from the inside out.
“Luca, you don’t understand!” Vanessa cried, tears spilling over her mascara. “I can explain! I had to pawn it! I was desperate!”
“You stole my grandfather’s watch from my father’s room,” Luca said, his voice deadly calm. “You pawned it for fifty thousand dollars in cash yesterday. And then you bought it back this morning just to frame him in front of my entire family.”
“No!” Vanessa sobbed, shaking her head wildly. “I didn’t do it to frame him! I bought it back because I felt guilty! I needed the fifty thousand dollars to pay someone off, Luca! Someone was blackmailing me!”
Luca released her wrist. He took a step toward her, his towering frame casting a dark shadow over her.
“Who?” Luca demanded.
Vanessa rubbed her wrist, her eyes darting frantically around the room. She was backed into a corner, her lies unspooling faster than she could weave them. She looked at the guests. She looked at Frank. And then, her eyes landed on a man sitting four seats down from Luca.
Matteo.
Matteo was Luca’s cousin and his most trusted underboss. He was thirty-two, built like a heavyweight boxer, and notoriously ruthless.
Vanessa pointed a trembling finger directly at him.
“Him!” Vanessa shrieked. “Matteo was blackmailing me!”
The entire table gasped.
Matteo froze, his wine glass halfway to his mouth. He slowly lowered the glass to the table. His dark eyes locked onto Vanessa with absolute, murderous disbelief.
“Excuse me?” Matteo said, his voice dangerously quiet.
“He’s the one I was paying off!” Vanessa cried, turning back to Luca and grabbing the lapels of his suit. “Matteo found out I was pregnant before you came home from Italy! He knew the baby was yours, but he threatened to tell you I had slept with someone else unless I paid him fifty grand! He forced me to get the abortion, Luca! He killed our baby so I wouldn’t inherit your estate!”
The accusation hung in the air, toxic and devastating.
Luca turned his head slowly. He looked at his cousin.
In the mafia, betrayal by blood was the ultimate sin. The punishment was death, without question, without trial. The tension in the room spiked to a suffocating level. The armed guards standing by the doors subtly shifted their hands toward their holsters.
Matteo stood up. He pushed his chair back so hard it crashed to the marble floor.
“You lying, manipulative snake,” Matteo spat, taking a heavy step toward Vanessa.
Luca threw his arm out, blocking Matteo’s path. “Stop right there, Matteo.”
Matteo looked at his cousin, his eyes burning with outrage. “Luca, you can’t possibly believe this garbage. I would never betray you. And I would certainly never threaten your child.”
“She says you forced her to abort my baby,” Luca said, his voice eerily hollow. “Did you?”
Vanessa sobbed loudly into her hands, playing the devastated, traumatized mother to perfection. “He did! He took the money from me yesterday, Luca! Search his coat! The fifty thousand is probably still in his car!”
Matteo didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t try to run. Instead, he let out a dark, bitter laugh that echoed through the banquet hall.
He reached into the inner breast pocket of his tailored suit. The guards tensed, but Matteo slowly pulled out a folded piece of heavy white hospital stationery.
He tossed it onto the table, right next to the pawn ticket.
“I didn’t blackmail her about a pregnancy,” Matteo said, his voice dripping with pure disgust. “Because I knew she was lying about being pregnant the moment she announced it three months ago.”
Luca frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Matteo gestured to the paper. “That’s my medical record, Luca. From Johns Hopkins. I picked it up this morning. I’ve known since I was eighteen years old that I am completely, one hundred percent sterile due to complications from childhood mumps. I can never father a child.”
Vanessa stopped crying. Her hands slowly lowered from her face.
“So?” Vanessa stammered, her voice shaking. “What does that prove? The baby was Luca’s!”
Matteo sneered at her. “It proves you’re a terrible liar, Vanessa. Because two weeks before you announced your ‘miracle’ pregnancy to Luca… you came to my apartment in the middle of the night. You tried to sleep with me. You said you wanted to ensure the Moretti bloodline stayed strong in case Luca didn’t make it back from Italy.”
The room erupted in horrified whispers.
“You tried to get pregnant by my cousin while I was overseas?” Luca asked, the betrayal hitting him like a physical blow.
“He’s lying!” Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking. “He’s trying to ruin me!”
Before Vanessa could spin another lie, a quiet, tired voice cut through the chaos.
“He’s not lying.”
Everyone turned.
Frank Moretti was standing up. His hands were gripping the edge of the table for support, but his eyes were clear and steady. He looked at Vanessa with profound sadness.
“I told you I knew what you did, Vanessa,” Frank said softly. “I told you I knew you asked for two hundred thousand dollars to hide the true father.”
Frank turned to his son.
“It wasn’t Matteo, Luca,” Frank said, his voice breaking. “And it wasn’t you. I know exactly who she was sleeping with.”
Frank raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the back of the banquet hall.
“I know… because she left his security badge in my study the night she begged me for the money.”
All thirty-four heads turned at once, following Frank’s pointing finger.
He was pointing directly at Marcus, the Moretti family’s Head of Security.
