Chapter 3 – The Blood On The Gold Bracelet
“You’re hysterical,” Vanessa spat, though she took a step backward toward the dining room doors. “Luca, are you really going to listen to a maid with a criminal family over me?”
Luca held the gold bracelet up to the light of the chandelier.
His face was an unreadable mask of lethal calm.
“Noah’s biological mother was a woman named Elena,” Luca said softly. “Before I adopted him, my lawyers spent months trying to find any living relatives. They found nothing.”
He lowered the bracelet and locked his dark eyes onto Vanessa.
“But they did find out Elena worked as a waitress at a private club downtown. The Bellini family’s club.”
Vanessa swallowed hard. Her confident posture was completely gone.
“She was just a waitress,” Vanessa said tightly. “I barely knew her.”
“Then why was she holding your custom bracelet when she died in the street?” Luca asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“She must have stolen it!”
“Daddy?”
Noah’s small voice cut through the tension.
Luca immediately softened, turning to his son. “Yes, buddy?”
Noah pointed a shaking finger at the heavy gold bracelet in Luca’s hand.
“The lady in the red dress wore that,” Noah whispered.
Luca frowned. “Vanessa?”
“No,” Noah said, shaking his head. He looked at me, then at Luca. “In my dreams. I have bad dreams sometimes about the rainy night. I remember a lady in a red dress yelling at my mommy. She pulled my mommy’s arm. The gold thing scratched my cheek.”
I gasped.
I looked at Noah’s cheek. Just below his left eye was a tiny, faded white scar he’d had since he was a baby. The orphanage had always assumed it was from shattered glass during the car accident.
Luca’s expression turned into something terrifying.
It wasn’t anger. It was pure, controlled violence.
“Marco,” Luca commanded.
Every guard in the room instantly drew their weapons.
The dinner guests screamed, diving under the heavy oak table. Silverware crashed to the floor. Champagne glasses shattered.
“Lock the doors,” Luca ordered. “No one leaves this room.”
Vanessa panicked. She lunged for the servants’ entrance, but Marco grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around and throwing her roughly into a chair.
“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “My father is a Don! He will slaughter everyone in this house!”
“Your father is an old man who signs peace treaties he can’t enforce,” Luca said, walking slowly toward her.
He placed his hands on the arms of her chair, leaning in so close she couldn’t look away.
“Tell me what happened to Elena.”
Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut, trembling violently.
“Luca, please—”
“Tell me,” Luca roared, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “Or I swear to God, the Commission won’t even find your teeth.”
Vanessa broke.
Sobs tore from her throat as she shrank back into the chair.
“She was sleeping with my brother!” Vanessa cried out. “Elena. The little tramp waitress. She got pregnant. My brother, Carlo, was supposed to marry the daughter of the Romano family to secure an alliance.”
I covered my mouth in horror.
“If the Romanos found out Carlo had a bastard child with a waitress, the alliance would be destroyed. Our family would be ruined.”
Luca stared at her, his disgust radiating in the cold room.
“So you went to silence her.”
“I went to pay her off!” Vanessa screamed. “I took fifty thousand dollars to her apartment. I told her to take the baby and leave Chicago.”
“But she wouldn’t,” I whispered, remembering the fierce, protective look on the dying woman’s face in the rain.
Vanessa glared at me.
“No. She got noble. She said the boy deserved to know his father. She grabbed my arm to push past me. I shoved her back. My bracelet caught her sleeve. It broke off.”
Vanessa looked back at Luca, desperation in her eyes.
“She ran out into the street. It was raining. It was dark. I didn’t push her in front of the car, Luca! I swear! She just ran right into traffic!”
I felt sick.
My brother was drunk. He was guilty of manslaughter. But he had been the weapon Vanessa Bellini inadvertently fired.
“And when I adopted the boy?” Luca asked coldly. “When you realized the street orphan I brought into my home was your own flesh and blood nephew?”
“I panicked,” Vanessa whispered. “If you found out… if Carlo found out… it would destroy everything. I had to get him out of this house before anyone saw the resemblance.”
Luca stood up straight.
He looked at the woman he was supposed to marry.
“You are a monster.”
Before Vanessa could respond, a heavy, booming knock echoed from the massive mahogany front doors of the dining room.
Marco kept his gun aimed at Vanessa, but glanced at Luca.
“Boss, the perimeter is locked down. Nobody should be at that door.”
The knock came again. Louder this time. Rhythmic. Demanding.
“Open the doors, Marco,” Luca said quietly.
Marco hesitated, then signaled two guards. They unbolted the heavy doors and pulled them open.
Standing in the grand foyer was an old man leaning heavily on a silver-tipped cane. He wore a dark pinstripe suit, his face lined with decades of ruthless authority.
Behind him stood twenty heavily armed men.
It was Don Carmine.
The head of the Chicago Commission.
And standing right beside him was Carlo Bellini—Vanessa’s brother.
Carlo looked past Luca, past the terrified guests under the tables.
His eyes locked directly onto nine-year-old Noah.
