OPEN THAT PURSE, YOU GREEDY OLD WOMAN! YOU DON'T NEED TO STEAL FOOD FROM MY ENGAGEMENT DINNER!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 76-YEAR-OLD MOTHER WHEN HIS 26-YEAR-OLD MAID TRIED TO HIDE TWO DINNER ROLLS INSIDE HER HANDBAG—BUT WHEN ELENA MORETTI WHISPERED, “THEY'RE FOR YOUR LITTLE BOY -

Chapter 5 – The Blue Velvet Box

The words hung in the air, thick and suffocating.

The true Moretti bloodline.

Luca stared at Robert, his fists clenching so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“What lies are you spinning now, Robert?” Luca demanded.

Robert smirked as the federal agents yanked him to his feet.

“It’s not a lie, Luca,” Robert said smoothly. “Ask your mother. Ask Elena about the baby girl who disappeared from the hospital twenty-six years ago. The daughter your father allegedly had with his mistress.”

Elena staggered backward as if she had been physically struck.

“No,” Elena whispered, her hands shaking violently. “That baby died. The doctors told us she died of a fever.”

Robert chuckled.

“She didn’t die, Elena. The Bellini family paid the doctors to hand her over to me. I put her in the foster system in New York. I wanted a backup plan in case Anna failed to control you.”

Robert looked directly at me.

“Open the blue velvet box, Rachel,” Robert taunted. “Look at the birth certificate hidden under the lining. Your name isn’t Rachel Evans. Your name is Isabella Moretti. You’re Luca’s half-sister.”

The room spun.

I gripped the wooden railing of the balcony to keep from collapsing.

Isabella Moretti.

“No,” I whispered. “No, that’s impossible. I’m nobody. I’m just a housekeeper.”

Luca looked up at me, his dark eyes wide with shock.

He looked at my face. At my green eyes. At the shape of my jaw.

Features I had always thought were just generic. Features that, now, staring at him, mirrored his own.

“Rachel,” Luca said, his voice thick with emotion.

“He’s lying!” Vanessa suddenly screamed from the floor, struggling against her handcuffs. “Robert is lying! He just wants to distract you!”

Robert looked down at his former pawn with absolute disgust.

“Take this trash out of my sight,” Robert told the agents.

The agents dragged Vanessa and Robert out the front doors.

The heavy oak doors closed behind them, leaving the ruined dining room in stunned silence.

Anna stood up, holding Noah’s hand tightly. She looked at Luca, then up at me.

“Luca,” Anna whispered. “If she’s your sister…”

Luca didn’t wait.

He ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

He reached the landing and stood in front of me. He didn’t look like a terrifying mafia boss right now. He looked like a man who had just found a ghost.

“Show me the box,” Luca said quietly.

I couldn’t speak. I simply nodded.

I led him down the back hallway to the small, cramped servant’s quarters I had lived in for fourteen months.

Luca had never been in this room.

He looked at the narrow cot, the cheap dresser, the faded curtains. His jaw clenched tight.

I walked to my small closet and pulled out a battered canvas suitcase.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely work the zipper.

I reached beneath the clothes and pulled out a small, faded blue velvet box.

I had carried it with me through six different foster homes. It was the only thing I owned that belonged to my mother.

I handed it to Luca.

He took it gently, his large hands dwarfing the fragile box.

He opened it.

Inside sat a cheap, tarnished silver ring.

But Luca wasn’t looking at the ring.

Following Robert’s taunt, Luca pulled a pocket knife from his suit and carefully pried up the velvet lining at the bottom of the box.

A folded piece of yellowed paper sat beneath it.

Luca unfolded it.

I watched his eyes scan the document.

I saw the exact moment his heart broke.

He looked up at me, tears brimming in his dark eyes.

“Certificate of Live Birth,” Luca read aloud, his voice shaking. “Mother: Sophia Rossi. Father: Antonio Moretti.”

My breath hitched.

“I’m your sister,” I whispered.

Luca didn’t say another word.

He dropped the paper, stepped forward, and wrapped his massive arms around me.

He pulled me against his chest, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.

I had spent my entire life feeling unwanted, unloved, and completely alone in the world.

And suddenly, the most powerful man in Chicago was crying into my shoulder, holding me like I was the most precious thing in the world.

“I’m so sorry,” Luca whispered fiercely. “I’m so sorry you were alone for so long. You’re never going to clean another floor in this house. You’re a Moretti.”

When we walked back downstairs, Elena was waiting at the bottom of the steps.

She looked at the yellowed paper in Luca’s hand.

The old woman let out a sob and reached out for me.

I fell into her arms, and for the first time in twenty-six years, I knew what it felt like to be held by a mother.

But as the tears flowed and the family reunited, Noah suddenly tugged on Anna’s coat.

“Mommy?” the little boy whispered.

Anna knelt down, wiping her eyes. “Yes, my sweet boy?”

Noah looked toward the front door, where Robert had been taken away.

“Grandpa Robert said he left a present for me,” Noah said softly.

Luca froze. “A present? Where, buddy?”

Noah pointed toward the enormous grandfather clock in the foyer.

“He said he put a little black box inside the clock before dinner.”