Chapter 5 – THE BELLINI THREAT
The kitchen was dead silent as Grace stared at the parchment.
“Me?” Grace whispered, shaking her head. “No. No, I clean offices. I don’t know anything about shipping empires or foundations.”
Luca placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You protected my niece. You loved her when my family abandoned her. There is no one else I would trust more.”
“But Vanessa—”
“Vanessa is going to prison for a very long time,” Luca said firmly.
Suddenly, the kitchen doors swung open.
My heart jumped into my throat.
It wasn’t the police.
It was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a tailored grey suit. He had a jagged scar across his jawline and cold, dead eyes. Two massive men flanked him.
Luca immediately stepped in front of Grace and Sophie.
“Antonio,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl.
Antonio Bellini. Vanessa’s older brother. The current head of the Bellini syndicate.
“Luca,” Antonio sneered, looking around the kitchen. “I hear you had my sister arrested. Something about a boating accident?”
“She confessed to murdering my brother, Antonio. In front of fifty witnesses.”
Antonio chuckled, buttoning his suit jacket. “Witnesses can be terribly unreliable. Especially in Chicago.”
He looked past Luca and locked eyes with me.
“And I hear a little maid with a bleeding shoulder is the one who caused all this trouble.”
I backed up against the marble counter, my pulse hammering in my ears.
Luca didn’t flinch. “You are trespassing in my home, Antonio. Get out before I have my men remove you.”
“Your men?” Antonio mocked. “You mean the ones standing outside who just let me walk right through the front door?”
Luca’s jaw clenched. He realized what had happened. Antonio had bought off the outside guards.
“I’m not here to fight, Luca,” Antonio said smoothly. “I’m here for a simple trade. You drop the charges against my sister, and you hand over the girl.”
Grace let out a muffled cry, hugging the sleeping Sophie tighter.
“You will never touch her,” Luca said evenly.
“She isn’t yours, Luca. She’s a bastard child. Hand her over to us, and we’ll put her in a nice, quiet orphanage in Sicily. Vanessa gets the Foundation, you keep your shipping routes. Everyone wins.”
“No,” Luca said.
Antonio sighed. “I was hoping you’d say yes. Because if you say no, I have to kill everyone in this room.”
His two men reached inside their jackets.
I grabbed the only weapon I could find—the heavy cast-iron skillet resting on the stove.
But Luca was faster.
Before Antonio’s men could draw their weapons, Luca’s hand snapped up. The deafening crack of a gunshot echoed through the kitchen.
One of Antonio’s men dropped to the floor, clutching his leg.
Luca stood perfectly still, a silenced black pistol in his hand, aimed directly at Antonio’s chest.
“You forget whose house you are in, Antonio,” Luca whispered.
Antonio raised his hands slowly, a smirk still playing on his lips.
“You kill me, Luca, and the five families will declare war on the Morettis. You’ll be dead by morning.”
“Maybe,” Luca said. “But you’ll be dead right now.”
Giovanni, the old lawyer, stepped forward. “Mr. Bellini. You are playing a losing hand. The inheritance has already been secured. Grace Bennett is the legal executor. Vanessa has no claim.”
Antonio’s eyes narrowed. “Is that true?”
“Signed and notarized,” Giovanni said, holding up the parchment.
Antonio stared at the document. His jaw worked furiously. He knew the old world laws. A notarized blood-seal was unbreakable in their circles.
“Fine,” Antonio spat. He looked at Luca. “You keep the brat. But Vanessa walks.”
“Vanessa goes to prison,” Luca said.
Antonio shook his head. “If my sister goes down, she takes the Senator with her. And if the Senator goes down, the federal indictments will wipe out your shipping routes along with mine. You’ll lose everything your father built.”
Luca didn’t lower his gun. “I’d rather burn it all to the ground than let her walk free.”
“I don’t think you will,” Antonio smiled. “Because I know something you don’t.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, child’s drawing.
He tossed it onto the kitchen island.
“My sister is a very thorough planner, Luca. She knew this might go wrong.”
I looked down at the drawing. It was a crayon sketch of a house with a red door.
Grace screamed.
“That’s my house!” Grace cried, dropping to her knees. “That’s Sophie’s bedroom window!”
Antonio smiled coldly. “I have two men parked across the street from your little apartment, Grace. If I don’t walk out of here and make a phone call in exactly sixty seconds, they are going to burn that apartment building to the ground.”
He looked at Luca.
“There are twenty families in that building, Luca. Women. Children. Are you really going to let them burn just to punish my sister?”
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