Chapter 2 – THE FORGED SEAL

“That’s impossible,” Teresa whispered, her voice trembling in the quiet room.

She let go of my arm and stepped toward her son, leaning heavily on the wooden cane with the brass bird.

Luca lowered the document so she could see it.

Teresa stared at the black ink. Her eyes filled with fresh tears.

“That’s his handwriting,” she choked out. “Giovanni always crossed his T’s like a sword.”

“He’s been dead for over a decade, Mom,” Luca said softly. He looked up, his gaze locking onto Vanessa with the intensity of a predator. “How did you get this signature?”

Vanessa backed away, hitting the edge of the dining table. A crystal wine glass wobbled and fell, shattering against the marble floor.

“I didn’t forge it!” she panicked. “I swear, Luca. I just submitted the paperwork!”

“Who gave it to you?”

“The agency handled it!”

“Lie to me again, Vanessa, and I will let Matteo escort you to the basement.”

Vanessa burst into tears, her hands shaking.

“It was Silvio!” she cried out.

The name sucked the air out of the room.

Silvio was the family Consigliere. He had been Giovanni Moretti’s right-hand man for thirty years. He had practically raised Luca after Giovanni died of a sudden heart attack in church.

“Silvio is in New York on family business,” Luca said, his voice dangerously calm.

“He’s not in New York,” the driver suddenly spoke up from the floor.

Luca’s eyes snapped to the man. “Explain.”

“Mr. Silvio hired me, sir,” the driver said, sweating profusely. “He gave Mrs. Bellini the papers this morning. He told her the old family stamp was used to authorize the transfer. He said as long as the paperwork had Giovanni’s seal, the facility wouldn’t question the date.”

Luca went completely still.

The family stamp. A heavy gold signet ring that belonged to his father. It had gone missing the day Giovanni died.

“Lock the gates,” Luca ordered Matteo. “Nobody leaves this property. Not the guests, not the staff.”

Panic erupted among the thirty-eight guests, but Matteo’s men immediately moved to block the doors.

“Luca, please!” Vanessa sobbed, reaching for him. “Silvio said it was the only way! He said your mother was a liability. He said if we didn’t remove her, the Romanos would use her against us!”

The Romanos. The rival family that had been trying to destroy the Morettis for two decades.

Luca slapped Vanessa’s hand away.

“Get her out of my sight,” Luca growled to Matteo. “Lock her in the guest suite. Strip her of her phone.”

As Matteo grabbed Vanessa’s arm, she thrashed against him.

“You’re making a mistake!” she screamed.

Her sudden movement caused a small object to slip from the bodice of her red gown.

It fluttered to the floor, landing face-up near Teresa’s orthopedic shoes.

It was a glossy photograph.

I knelt down to pick it up for Teresa, but as my fingers brushed the edge of the paper, I froze.

The picture showed Vanessa sitting at a café table in Italy.

She was smiling, leaning her head on the shoulder of an older man.

It wasn’t Silvio.

I handed the photograph to Teresa.

The old woman looked at it, and the blood instantly drained from her face.

She dropped her cane. It clattered loudly against the floor.

“Mom?” Luca caught her before she could fall, supporting her weight. “What is it?”

Teresa pointed a trembling finger at the man in the photograph.

“That’s not Silvio,” she whispered, her chest heaving. “Luca… that is Don Romano.”

Luca froze.

“The man who ordered the hit on your uncle,” Teresa choked out. “Vanessa is with the Romanos.”

Luca snatched the photograph from her hand. He stared at the image of his fiancée laughing with his family’s greatest enemy.

Then, he slowly turned the photograph over.

There was handwriting on the back.

Luca read it out loud, his voice hollow.

“‘To my beautiful daughter. Soon, Chicago will be ours.’”

Vanessa wasn’t just working with the enemy.

She was the enemy’s daughter.

And she had been sleeping in Luca’s bed for two years.

Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the mansion.

The crystal chandeliers violently swayed. The string quartet screamed as the front windows of the dining room shattered inward, showering the Persian rug with broken glass.

“They’re at the gates!” Matteo yelled over his radio. “Boss, it’s a siege! The Romanos are here!”

Luca pulled his gun from his shoulder holster, shoving his mother behind him.

But as he raised his weapon, the driver on the floor suddenly pulled a hidden blade from his boot.

And he lunged directly at me.