Chapter 6
“Lock the doors. Arm every man we have. Nobody breaches this floor!”
Luca’s voice thundered through the hallway as Marco sprinted away to execute the orders.
Luca slammed the bedroom doors shut and threw the deadbolt. He turned to me, his chest heaving. The polished, controlled Mafia boss was gone; in his place was a desperate father.
“Arthur Vance is Vanessa’s uncle?” I repeated, the words feeling foreign in my mouth. “How? Arthur didn’t have any siblings.”
“He lied to you about everything, Emily,” Luca said, pulling a heavy tactical vest from the back of his closet. “If Vanessa is Arthur’s niece, it means this was a long-con. They didn’t just want you out of the picture. They wanted the Moretti fortune.”
I looked at Grace, who was tossing fitfully in her sleep, her small brow furrowed.
“When Isabella faked Arthur’s death, she thought she was neutralizing a threat,” Luca explained rapidly, checking the magazine of his pistol. “But she actually gave him the perfect cover. He’s been operating in the shadows for five years. And he used Vanessa to infiltrate my life.”
“Vanessa was going to marry you,” I realized. “If something happened to you after the wedding…”
“She would inherit everything,” Luca finished grimly. “And with you and Grace out of the way, there would be no true heir to contest it.”
I felt sick. The woman who had humiliated my daughter just hours ago was part of a plot to steal her birthright—and possibly her life.
“Mommy?”
A small, sleepy voice broke the tension in the room.
I rushed to the bed. Grace was sitting up, rubbing her eyes. She looked at Luca’s tactical vest and the gun on the nightstand, her lower lip trembling.
“Are the bad men coming back?” she whispered.
I climbed onto the bed and pulled her into my lap, burying my face in her soft hair. “No, baby. Nobody is going to hurt you. Mommy and Daddy are here.”
She looked up at Luca. “Are you really my daddy?”
Luca’s hardened expression melted. He walked over, setting his gun down, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Yes, piccola,” he said gently, tracing the line of her cheek. “I’m your daddy. And I am so, so sorry I wasn’t there for your birthdays.”
Grace reached under her pillow and pulled out a crumpled, crayon-drawn picture. She handed it to Luca.
“I drew this for you,” she said proudly. “Mommy told me you were a superhero who lived far away.”
Luca looked at the drawing. It was a stick figure of a man in a black suit, holding hands with a little girl and a woman.
Tears welled in the eyes of the most feared man in Chicago. He folded the drawing carefully and placed it in his breast pocket, right over his heart.
“It’s my favorite thing in the entire world,” he whispered.
Suddenly, the lights in the mansion flickered, and then died completely.
The room plunged into pitch black darkness.
Outside, the estate’s emergency sirens began to wail, a deafening, terrifying sound that shattered the quiet night.
Grace screamed, burying her face in my neck.
Luca was on his feet instantly, moving with deadly precision in the dark. He grabbed his gun and a heavy flashlight.
“They cut the main power,” Luca said, his voice clipped.
A loud explosion rocked the foundation of the house, shaking the dust from the ceiling.
“They blew the front gate,” Luca swore. He turned to me, illuminating my face with the edge of the flashlight beam. “Emily, take Grace and go into the panic room behind the closet. Now.”
“Luca, I’m not leaving you!”
“You have to protect our daughter!” he shouted, the fear finally breaking through his stoic mask.
Before I could move, a voice echoed through the estate’s intercom system, powered by the backup generator.
It was Vanessa.
“Luca, darling!” her voice purred through the speakers, dripping with malice. “I have your mother down here in the foyer. If you and your little maid don’t come downstairs in the next sixty seconds… I’m going to put a bullet in Isabella’s head.”
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