Chapter 5 – THE ORPHAN BRIDE
The sirens were deafening now, flashing red and blue light through the shattered stained glass.
Luca stood up, his arm wrapped protectively around his mother.
He looked at me, then at the child’s drawing in my hand.
“What did you say, Olivia?”
I walked over and handed him the drawing and the birth certificate.
“Her name is Chloe Jenkins,” I said, staring at the woman bleeding on the floor. “Salvatore isn’t her father. He stole her.”
Vanessa’s face crumpled.
The cruel, arrogant façade she had worn for a year completely shattered.
She curled into a ball on the stone floor, sobbing violently, not from the pain in her shoulder, but from a lifetime of psychological torture.
“He bought me,” Vanessa wept, her voice raw and broken. “I was four years old. He bought me from a trafficker because his wife couldn’t have children. He told me if I ever tried to find my real family, he would send them back to me in pieces.”
The reversal hit the room like a shockwave.
The wicked fiancée who had framed Mrs. Carter and tortured Luca wasn’t a mastermind.
She was a victim.
A brainwashed, terrified hostage suffering from severe Stockholm syndrome, forced to play the role of the mob boss’s daughter.
“He made you get engaged to me,” Luca said, his voice softening with a sudden, horrifying understanding. “He didn’t just want my empire. He wanted to legitimize his stolen daughter by marrying her into the Moretti name.”
Vanessa nodded weakly.
“He said it was my only way to earn my life. If the wedding didn’t happen, he was going to kill me.”
Paramedics burst through the cathedral doors, flanked by Chicago police officers.
Luca immediately stepped in front of his mother, shielding her from view.
“Get Daniel,” Luca barked at the medics. “He took a bullet to the abdomen. And treat her shoulder.” He pointed to Vanessa.
As the paramedics rushed forward, Luca pulled out his phone.
He dialed his second-in-command, a ruthless older capo named Marcus.
“Marcus,” Luca said, his voice returning to the icy tone of a boss. “Salvatore Bellini is making a play for the throne tonight. Mobilize every man we have. Secure the ports, the warehouses, and the bank accounts. We are going to war.”
“Yes, Boss,” Marcus replied instantly. “What about Bellini himself?”
“Leave him to me.”
Luca hung up.
He turned to Mrs. Carter and me.
“Olivia, I need you to take my mother and Mrs. Carter to the safe house in Oak Park. It’s fully stocked, impenetrable, and off the books. Do not open the door for anyone except me.”
“I’ll keep them safe, sir,” I promised, my hands still shaking but my voice steady.
Luca reached into his pocket and handed me a heavy ring of keys.
Then he looked at his mother.
Eleanor placed a hand on his chest.
“Be careful, Luca. Salvatore has nothing to lose. He is a cornered animal.”
“So am I,” Luca whispered.
We left the cathedral through a side exit, slipping into the shadows while the police cordoned off the front.
I drove Luca’s backup security sedan, navigating the dark streets with extreme caution.
Mrs. Carter sat in the back with Eleanor, holding the frail woman’s hand.
For the first time in thirty-nine years, the two women who loved Luca the most were sitting side by side.
We reached the Oak Park safe house—a massive, brutalist concrete structure hidden behind high brick walls.
I unlocked the gates, drove into the underground garage, and ushered them inside.
The house was silent, secure, and warm.
I made tea for both of them, my mind racing.
Everything was finally making sense.
But as I handed Eleanor her mug, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was an unknown number.
I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Olivia Bennett,” a smooth, terrifying voice said through the speaker.
My blood ran cold.
It was Salvatore Bellini.
“How did you get this number?” I demanded, my voice trembling.
“I have men everywhere, my dear,” Salvatore chuckled. “I know exactly who you are. The little maid paying for her mother’s dialysis and her brother’s college tuition.”
“Leave my family alone,” I snarled.
“Oh, I haven’t touched your brother,” Salvatore said softly. “But your mother? She’s sitting right next to me in the back of my car. And if you don’t open the front door of that safe house in exactly sixty seconds, I am going to put a bullet through her skull.”
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