Chapter 2 – THE NECKLACE BENEATH MY COLLAR
My hand flew to my throat.
Beneath the scratchy collar of my black uniform, the cold silver of my pendant pressed against my collarbone. I had worn it every day of my life. My mother told me it was the only thing my father had left behind before he walked out on us.
“That’s impossible,” I breathed, staring at the photograph in Luca’s hand.
In the picture, my mother looked radiant. Luca’s father, Marcus Moretti, was looking down at her with an expression of pure, unadulterated devotion. He was touching the pendant on her chest—the very pendant I wore now.
Vanessa shoved her chair back, the wood scraping harshly against the marble. “This is a fabrication! Arthur is trying to frame my family because my father refused to make him a partner!”
Luca ignored his fiancée entirely. He stood up, towering over the table. He didn’t yell. He didn’t threaten. He just walked slowly around the long banquet table toward me.
The forty-six guests sat in stunned, terrified silence. Margaret Ellis gave me an encouraging nod, but her eyes were full of fear.
Luca stopped two feet away from me. Up close, the intensity in his eyes was overwhelming.
“Show it to me,” he said quietly.
I swallowed hard. My fingers trembled as I reached up, unfastening the top button of my uniform. I pulled the silver pendant out from beneath the fabric. It was a small, intricately carved locket, heavy and antique.
Luca didn’t touch me. He just leaned in, looking at the silver casing.
“There’s a crest on the back,” he murmured. “A lion holding a shield.”
My eyes widened. “How do you know that? I’ve never shown this to anyone.”
“Because it’s the Moretti family crest,” Luca said, his voice dropping an octave. “That locket belonged to my grandmother.”
The room erupted in hushed, scandalous whispers.
“Emily,” Luca said, his eyes locking onto mine. “Where is your mother right now?”
“At home,” I panicked. “In her apartment on 4th Street. If Vanessa’s family knows about this… if they forced me to work here to keep her quiet…”
Luca didn’t wait for me to finish. He turned sharply to his head of security, a massive man named Dante standing by the double doors.
“Lock down the estate,” Luca ordered. “No one leaves this dining room. Not Arthur. Not the guests.” He pointed a lethal finger at Vanessa. “Especially not her.”
Vanessa shrieked, “You can’t hold us here! This is illegal!”
“I am Luca Moretti,” he said coldly. “Watch me.”
He turned back to me and gently grasped my elbow. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Before I could process what was happening, the mafia boss was pulling his housekeeper out of her own humiliation. We rushed through the massive hallways of the estate, leaving the lavish engagement dinner behind.
We climbed into the back of a black SUV idling in the driveway. Dante took the wheel, peeling out of the gates before the doors were even fully shut.
“Luca,” I stammered as the city lights blurred past the tinted windows. “My mother told me my father was a factory worker. She told me he left before I was born.”
“She lied to protect you,” Luca said, pulling his phone from his pocket and dialing rapidly. “If my father loved your mother, it made her a target. The Bellinis didn’t just want to take over our territory—they wanted to erase anyone my father cared about.”
He pressed the phone to his ear. “Marco. I need a team at the 4th Street apartments. Now. Breach the door if you have to.”
My chest tightened with a suffocating fear. My mother. Frail, struggling with arthritis, sitting alone in our tiny apartment.
“Why didn’t Vanessa’s father just kill us?” I asked, my voice cracking. “If we were such a threat, why pay our rent? Why bring me into your house?”
Luca lowered his phone, his expression grim. “Because keeping you close gave them leverage. And because your mother must possess something they desperately need. Something they haven’t been able to find for fifteen years.”
The SUV screeched to a halt in front of my crumbling apartment building. The contrast between Luca’s tailored suit and the graffiti-covered brick walls was jarring, but he didn’t hesitate. He drew a sleek black handgun from beneath his jacket and stepped out.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
We sprinted up the three flights of stairs. When we reached apartment 3B, my heart stopped.
The heavy wooden door was splintered off its hinges.
“Mom!” I screamed, pushing past Luca.
“Emily, wait!”
I burst into the living room. It was completely destroyed. The sofa cushions were slashed open. The cheap laminate floorboards had been pried up. The kitchen cabinets were ripped from the walls.
But there was no blood. And my mother wasn’t there.
I fell to my knees amidst the ruin of my life, sobbing. “They took her. They took her!”
Luca slowly walked into the destroyed bedroom. A moment later, he emerged. He wasn’t looking at the wreckage. He was looking at something in his hand.
“They didn’t take her, Emily,” Luca said quietly. “She ran.”
I wiped my face. “How do you know?”
Luca crouched beside me and held out his hand. Resting in his palm was a string of black wooden beads attached to a silver cross.
A rosary.
“Because this was left on her pillow,” Luca said, his voice tight with rage. “And I know exactly who this belongs to.”
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