Chapter 3 – THE ADDRESS ON THE FADED TRAIN TICKET

The crayon drawing trembled in my hands.

To Auntie Rose.

Clara was dead. I had buried her. I had stood in the freezing rain and thrown a handful of dirt onto her mahogany casket.

“Dominic, get out,” Luca commanded, his voice deadly.

Dominic smirked, tipped his head to Nonna Adelaide, and slipped back out the door.

I looked at the drawing, then at the silver locket. “Clara is dead. She died a year before we were married.”

“She did,” Luca said softly. “I swear on my life, Rose. Clara is gone.”

“Then who had her child?” I screamed, the polished facade of the mafia wife finally shattering. “Who is this boy, Luca?”

Nonna Adelaide stepped forward and gently took the drawing from my hands. “Come with me, Rose. Let my grandson figure out how to clean up the mess he has brought to our door.”

I followed her into the private den, leaving Luca standing in the foyer. The heavy mahogany doors clicked shut, plunging us into the quiet smell of old leather and pipe tobacco.

Adelaide walked over to the fireplace and stared into the cold ashes.

“Clara was wild,” Adelaide said quietly. “You were the gentle one. The good one. But Clara… she loved the danger of our world.”

“She was dating Dominic,” I said, remembering my sister’s secretive late nights.

“No,” Adelaide corrected, turning to face me. “She was with Luca. But she was promised to Dominic by her father.”

My world tilted. “Luca?”

“When Clara became pregnant, she knew Dominic would kill the child—and her—if he found out it was Luca’s. So she ran.” Adelaide paused, her eyes filled with an ancient sorrow. “She died in that crash, Rose. But the boy survived.”

“And Luca knew?”

“He found out a month before we arranged your marriage to him,” Adelaide said. “He has been hiding the boy for five years. Protecting him from Dominic.”

“By lying to me.” I wiped a tear from my cheek. “By making me sell my mother’s legacy to pay for his secret.”

“He used the money to pay off the foster family holding the boy hostage,” Adelaide explained. “A rival family found the child first. Luca needed clean, untraceable cash to buy him back without Dominic finding out. Your flower shop was the only clean asset we had.”

I sank into a leather armchair. “And Vivian?”

“Vivian found the paper trail,” Adelaide said, disgust in her voice. “She has been blackmailing Luca for six months. Threatening to tell Dominic about the boy unless Luca left you and made her the woman of this house.”

It all made sense. The sudden distance. The late nights. The way Luca flinched when I mentioned starting a family. He was being extorted, and he had chosen to humiliate me rather than risk his son.

I looked down at my hands. Inside the locket, behind the picture of the boy, I noticed a tiny sliver of paper sticking out.

I carefully pulled it loose.

It was a faded train ticket stub. Chicago to Elmwood.

On the back, written in smeared blue ink, was an address: 1424 Maple Street.

“Nonna,” I said, standing up. “I need the keys to your car.”

Adelaide’s eyes narrowed. “Rose, it is dangerous. If Dominic follows you…”

“Dominic thinks Vivian has the upper hand. Luca thinks I’m going to upstairs to cry.” I gripped the keys she handed me. “I need to see him. I need to see my sister’s son.”

I slipped out the back entrance, moving through the kitchen and into the garage. I took Adelaide’s unassuming gray sedan, leaving my flashy Mercedes behind.

The drive to Elmwood took forty minutes. The neighborhood was quiet, lined with old, working-class homes.

I parked down the street from 1424 Maple. It was a small, blue house with a peeling front porch.

I walked up the steps, my heart pounding in my throat, and knocked on the door.

A middle-aged woman answered. She looked tired, wearing a faded cardigan.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m here to see Leo,” I said, guessing the name Clara had always loved.

The woman’s face drained of color. She tried to slam the door, but I wedged my foot in the frame.

“Please,” I begged. “I’m his aunt.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” the woman hissed. “They told me no one would come.”

“Who told you?”

Before she could answer, a little boy peeked out from behind her legs.

He was the boy in the locket. He had Clara’s nose and Luca’s dark, intense eyes.

But he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking past me, toward the street.

“Auntie Rose?” he asked in a small, quiet voice.

“Yes, sweetheart,” I choked out, tears finally falling. “It’s me.”

“Then why did the bad lady say she was you?”

I froze. “What?”

The caretaker gasped and pulled the boy back. “A woman came yesterday. Red dress. She said she was Rose Moretti. She gave us a new address and said we had to move tonight.”

Vivian.

Vivian hadn’t just blackmailed Luca. She had found the boy.

Suddenly, the screech of tires echoed down the quiet street. Two black SUVs blocked Adelaide’s car.

The doors opened, and Dominic stepped out.

He looked at me standing on the porch, a sinister smile spreading across his face.

“Well, well,” Dominic called out. “Look what the florist found.”

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