Chapter 1 – THE BUTTON IN THE GLOVEBOX

The heavy doors of the Moretti mansion closed behind us.

The Chicago air was freezing, biting through my thin uniform, but I barely felt it.

Luca Moretti didn’t wait for his driver.

He walked straight to the black SUV idling in the circular driveway, opened the rear door himself, and motioned for Rose to get in.

“Get in the front, Hannah,” he told me.

Vanessa stood on the marble steps, her red silk gown whipping in the wind.

“Luca!” she shouted, her voice echoing across the manicured lawn. “If you drive away right now, my father will consider it a public insult!”

Luca paused with his hand on the driver’s door.

He looked back at the woman he was supposed to marry.

“Tell your father I’m busy.”

He climbed in and started the engine.

As we sped down the private driveway, the silence in the car was heavy.

Rose sat in the back, clutching her worn brown coat, her breathing shallow and fast.

I turned around in the passenger seat.

“Rose, do you have the blue cardigan Megan asked for?”

She blinked, her eyes wide with panic.

“Oh, Lord. I left it. I left the shopping bag in the staff locker room.”

Her hands began to shake violently.

“She specifically asked for it. She wanted something from home, and I forgot it. What kind of mother forgets the one thing her daughter asks for?”

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “I can take a cab back and get it.”

Luca kept his eyes on the road.

“What cardigan?” he asked quietly.

“An old blue one,” Rose whispered, wiping her eyes. “It’s nothing special, sir. Just a wool sweater I used to wear when she was a little girl. It’s missing a silver button shaped like a star, but she always loved it.”

The SUV suddenly swerved.

Luca gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.

“A silver star?” he asked.

Rose looked up. “Yes, sir.”

Luca didn’t say another word until we pulled up to the emergency room entrance of Chicago Memorial.

He threw the SUV into park.

“Hannah, take Rose inside. Find the delivery ward. I need a minute.”

I nodded, helping Rose out of the car.

We rushed through the automatic doors, the bright fluorescent lights blinding after the dark drive.

But right before the elevator doors closed, I looked back through the glass lobby windows.

Luca was still in the car.

He had opened the center console.

And in the glow of the dashboard lights, I saw him holding a tiny object in his palm.

A silver button shaped like a star.

My heart pounded as the elevator began to rise.

Because I knew exactly where Luca kept that button.

He had shown it to me once while I was dusting his late father’s study.

He’d told me his father had died clutching it.

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