Chapter 3 – THE LINING
I dropped the phone on the kitchen table.
My hands were shaking violently as I turned back toward the sewing room.
The red silk gown hung on the dress form, immaculate and deeply cursed.
I grabbed a pair of heavy fabric shears from my mother’s desk. I didn’t care about the twenty thousand dollars. I didn’t care about the six weeks of labor.
I drove the tip of the shears into the heavy silk lining near the hem of the dress and ripped upward.
The sound of tearing silk filled the quiet room.
I pulled the expensive fabric apart.
Hidden between the layers of silk and tulle, stitched seamlessly into the bodice of the gown, was a flat, waterproof plastic pouch.
I pulled it out.
My breath caught in my throat.
Inside the clear pouch were dozens of tiny, loose diamonds.
But it wasn’t just diamonds. Tucked behind the gems was a small, black ledger notebook.
I opened the pouch and pulled the notebook out.
The pages were filled with names, dates, and bank account routing numbers. I didn’t understand the financial jargon, but I recognized the names at the top of the columns.
Moretti.Bellini.Romano.
The three largest crime families in Chicago.
I stared at the little black book, the terrifying realization washing over me like ice water.
Carmela Moretti hadn’t just ordered a dress. She was using my innocent, unsuspecting mother as a mule to smuggle stolen mafia diamonds and a blackmail ledger right under Luca’s nose.
Vanessa was in on it. She was the courier.
But tonight, Luca had demanded Vanessa take the dress off and leave it behind.
Carmela had lost the ledger.
And now, she had taken my mother as collateral to get it back.
Suddenly, the front door of my house splintered open with a deafening crash.
I screamed, dropping the ledger, gripping the heavy shears like a weapon.
“Rachel!” a deep voice roared.
It was Luca.
He burst into the kitchen, his gun drawn, flanked by Matteo and two other heavily armed guards.
When he saw me standing in the sewing room, clutching the scissors and trembling, he immediately lowered his weapon.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, crossing the kitchen in three long strides.
“I’m fine,” I choked out, dropping the shears. “But they took her, Luca. They took my mom.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “I know. We found signs of a struggle in the backyard. Someone pulled a vehicle up to the alley behind your fence.”
“It was your aunt,” I said, my voice shaking with rage and terror.
Luca froze. “Carmela?”
I pointed to the torn red dress, the plastic pouch of diamonds, and the black ledger lying on the sewing desk.
“Vanessa called me,” I sobbed. “Carmela forced her to order the dress so my mom would unwittingly sew that pouch into the lining. Carmela is stealing from you, Luca. She’s trying to sell you out to the Romanos.”
Luca stared at the ledger.
He didn’t look shocked. He looked like a man who had just had his worst fear confirmed.
He walked over and picked up the black notebook, flipping through the pages. His dark eyes hardened into pure, lethal obsidian.
“She’s been skimming from the family casinos for five years,” Luca said softly, his voice devoid of all emotion. “I suspected it, but I couldn’t prove it. This ledger is her death warrant.”
He looked up at me.
“And she knows you have it.”
“I don’t care about the book!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “I just want my mother back! Please, Luca, you have to help me!”
Luca looked down at my hand gripping his tailored sleeve.
The ruthless mafia boss softened for just a fraction of a second. He reached out and gently covered my trembling hand with his own.
“I swear to you on my father’s grave, Rachel,” Luca said, his voice a low, fierce vow. “I will bring your mother home.”
He turned to Matteo.
“Put the word out on the street. I want Carmela’s compound locked down. Nobody gets in or out.”
“Boss, if we hit Carmela’s compound, it’s a civil war within the family,” Matteo warned.
“I don’t care if it burns the city to the ground,” Luca said coldly.
He picked up the ledger and the diamonds.
“Rachel, you’re coming with us. It’s not safe for you here.”
“I’m not hiding,” I said fiercely, wiping my tears. “I want to be there when you find her.”
Luca gave me a look of profound respect. “You will be.”
We piled into the armored SUV. The drive through the dark Chicago streets was tense and silent.
Carmela’s compound was a massive, gated estate on the North Shore. When we arrived, the iron gates were locked, but Luca didn’t hesitate.
“Ram it,” Luca ordered his driver.
The heavy SUV accelerated, smashing through the wrought-iron gates with a deafening screech of metal. We tore up the long driveway, tires tearing through the manicured lawn.
Luca’s men poured out of the vehicles before they even came to a complete stop, weapons raised.
I stayed close behind Luca as he marched up the grand stone steps of the estate.
He didn’t knock. He kicked the front doors open.
The grand foyer of the mansion was brightly lit, but it was eerily quiet. There were no guards. No servants.
Only a single woman sitting in a high-backed leather chair at the top of the grand staircase.
Carmela Moretti.
She was smoking a long, thin cigarette, looking completely unfazed by the armed men flooding her home.
“You always were dramatic, Luca,” Carmela sighed, blowing a plume of smoke into the air.
Luca aimed his gun directly at his aunt’s chest.
“Where is Margaret?” Luca demanded, his voice echoing in the cavernous space.
Carmela smiled a thin, cruel smile.
“The seamstress?” Carmela asked dismissively. “Oh, she’s safe. For now. But I think you have something that belongs to me, nephew.”
“I have your death warrant,” Luca spat, holding up the black ledger. “You sold out your own blood to the Romanos.”
“I secured my future!” Carmela snapped, standing up, dropping the calm facade. “Your father left the empire to a sentimental fool! You care more about protecting maids and waitresses than expanding our territory!”
“Where is my mother?!” I screamed, stepping out from behind Luca.
Carmela looked down at me with utter disgust.
“She’s in the basement,” Carmela sneered. “But she’s not alone.”
A heavy, metallic thud echoed from the hallway beneath the stairs.
A heavy steel door swung open.
Standing in the doorway, holding a terrified, weeping Margaret Morgan by the hair, was a man I never expected to see again.
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit of terror.
Because the man holding a gun to my mother’s head wasn’t a mafia hitman.
It was my dead father.
