Chapter 3 – THE BROKEN ENGAGEMENT

The silence in the dining room was suffocating.

Twenty-eight of Chicago’s wealthiest elites sat frozen in their chairs.

Vanessa’s face crumpled into a mask of pure panic. She stood up, her red silk gown brushing against the heavy oak table.

“Luca, you’re twisting my words,” she pleaded, her voice trembling. “I love Abigail. I was trying to prepare her for the pressure of our world! Your family has enemies. She needs to be strong!”

Luca didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

“By starving her?” he asked quietly.

“By teaching her discipline!” Vanessa shrieked, the panic breaking her composed facade. “Do you think your first wife taught her anything useful? Caroline spoiled her! She made her weak!”

The mention of Abigail’s dead mother was like a gunshot.

Abigail flinched, hiding her face against my apron. I wrapped my arms around her trembling shoulders.

Luca took a slow, deliberate step toward Vanessa. The aristocratic businessman vanished. In his place stood the ruthless head of the Moretti syndicate.

“You do not speak my late wife’s name,” Luca whispered.

Vanessa backed up, her heel catching on the carpet. “Luca, be reasonable. Our families are merging on Saturday. The Bellinis are bringing the downtown real estate contracts! You can’t humiliate me in front of everyone over a misunderstood conversation!”

Luca didn’t look at the guests. He looked at the seamstress.

“Mrs. Whitaker. Thank you for your honesty tonight. You will be paid double for your time. You may leave.”

The seamstress gathered her purse and practically ran from the room.

Then Luca looked at his head of security, Marco, who stood silently by the double doors.

“Marco,” Luca commanded. “Clear the room.”

Chairs scraped frantically against the marble floor. Within two minutes, the elite of Chicago had fled the mansion, leaving half-empty champagne glasses and untouched caviar behind.

Only Luca, Vanessa, Abigail, Marco, and I remained.

Vanessa was hyperventilating now. “You can’t cancel the wedding, Luca. My father will consider it an act of war!”

“Let him,” Luca said coldly. He pulled the diamond engagement ring off his own pinky finger—a Moretti family heirloom—and dropped it into his champagne glass.

“Pack your bags, Vanessa. You have one hour to leave my house.”

“No!” she screamed, her face twisting into something ugly and desperate. “You can’t do this! I did this for us! She was going to ruin everything!”

Vanessa spun around and pointed a trembling, perfectly manicured finger directly at Abigail.

“Tell him the truth, you little brat!” Vanessa yelled. “Tell him what you’ve been hiding in your bedroom!”

My blood ran cold.

Abigail gasped, her hands flying to her pockets.

Luca stepped between his daughter and Vanessa. “Don’t you ever speak to her like that.”

“Oh, please!” Vanessa laughed, a harsh, hysterical sound. “You think she’s just a sweet, innocent little girl missing her mommy? Ask her what she’s been reading! Ask her what she’s been planning!”

Vanessa reached into her designer clutch and pulled out a folded piece of heavy parchment paper.

She slammed it onto the dining table.

“I found this hidden under her mattress yesterday,” Vanessa sneered. “I wasn’t trying to starve her, Luca. I was trying to break her before she broke you.”

Luca stared at the folded paper. He didn’t touch it.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Read it,” Vanessa challenged. “It’s a letter from Caroline. Written the week before she died. She didn’t leave it for you. She left it for her precious daughter.”

Abigail began to sob hysterically. “No! Please don’t read it! Daddy, please!”

Luca looked at Abigail, his heart breaking at her terror. But the mention of a letter from his dead wife was impossible to ignore.

He slowly reached out and unfolded the paper.

I watched his eyes scan the lines.

For three seconds, nothing happened.

Then, Luca’s face turned the color of ash. His hands began to shake.

He looked up at Abigail, his eyes filled with a horror I couldn’t comprehend.

“Abby,” Luca whispered, his voice cracking. “Is this true? Did your mother really believe this?”

Abigail couldn’t speak. She just buried her face in my apron and cried.

I looked over Luca’s shoulder, catching a glimpse of the handwritten letter.

It was written in elegant, looping cursive. And the final sentence made my heart stop.

My sweet Abigail. If I die, you must run away. Because the man you call your father is the one trying to kill me.

But that wasn’t what made my blood run cold.

I didn’t recognize the contents of the letter.

But I recognized the handwriting.

It wasn’t Caroline Moretti’s handwriting.

It was my mother’s.

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