Chapter 3 – The Blood On The Doorstep

The drive to my mother’s house took twenty minutes. It felt like a lifetime.

I sat in the back of the armored black SUV, staring blankly at the rain sliding down the tinted windows. The cold, wet fabric of my uniform clung to my skin, smelling sharply of spilled champagne.

Beside me, Luca was completely silent.

He was scrolling through a tablet, his face illuminated by the harsh white glow of the screen. He was already liquidating Vanessa’s offshore accounts, erasing her from the family businesses with ruthless efficiency.

“Sir,” I whispered.

Luca didn’t look up. “Don’t call me sir, Emily. Not tonight.”

“My mother,” I started, my voice trembling so badly I had to force the words out. “She’s a good person. If she took that money… she must have been desperate. Please don’t hurt her.”

Luca finally turned his head. His dark eyes studied me.

“I don’t hurt innocent people, Emily,” he said quietly. “But we need to find out exactly what your mother knows. If Victor and Vanessa were working together, there are other players on the board. People far more dangerous than Victor.”

The SUV pulled onto Ashland Avenue.

It was a quiet, working-class neighborhood. Small houses with peeling paint and overgrown lawns.

As we approached my mother’s house, the headlights illuminated the front porch.

My heart completely stopped.

The front door was wide open, swaying in the wind.

And lying on the front steps was a shattered ceramic flower pot.

“Stop the car!” I screamed before the driver even hit the brakes.

I threw the door open and scrambled out into the pouring rain.

“Emily, wait!” Luca yelled, stepping out behind me, signaling for his two armed guards to follow.

I didn’t wait. I ran up the concrete steps, slipping on the wet pavement.

“Mom!” I screamed, bursting through the open front door.

The living room was completely destroyed.

The sofa cushions were slashed open, white foam spilling onto the cheap rug. The bookshelves were overturned. Every drawer in the kitchen had been pulled out and dumped on the floor.

They had been searching for something.

“Mom?!” I cried, running down the narrow hallway toward her bedroom.

I pushed the door open.

My mother was sitting on the edge of her bed.

Her hands were bound behind her back with zip ties. A bruised cut swelled above her left eye, bleeding down her cheek.

Standing over her was a man in a black leather jacket.

He had a knife pressed against my mother’s throat.

“Don’t move,” the man barked, pressing the blade deeper until a tiny bead of blood appeared on her skin.

I froze, terror paralyzing my lungs.

“Mom,” I choked out.

“Emily, run,” she sobbed.

Suddenly, a massive shadow filled the bedroom doorway behind me.

Luca stepped into the room.

The man in the leather jacket looked up, and his eyes widened in recognition.

“Luca Moretti,” the man sneered, though his hand holding the knife trembled slightly. “Victor warned me you might figure it out tonight.”

“Let the woman go,” Luca said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. “You have exactly three seconds before I put a bullet through your eye.”

“You shoot me, I slice her throat,” the man countered.

“One,” Luca said.

“I already found what I came for!” the man yelled, kicking a small wooden lockbox across the floor. It was empty. “Victor wants the real insurance policy!”

“Two,” Luca said, raising a suppressed pistol he had pulled from his holster.

The man panicked. He shoved my mother forward onto the floor and lunged toward the bedroom window to escape.

He didn’t make it.

Luca didn’t shoot. He stepped forward, caught the man by the back of his jacket, and slammed him face-first into the bedroom wall. The drywall cracked. The man crumpled to the carpet, unconscious.

I dropped to my knees, frantically pulling at the zip ties binding my mother’s wrists.

“It’s okay, Mom, I’ve got you,” I cried, finding a pair of scissors on the floor and cutting her free.

She collapsed into my arms, sobbing hysterically.

Luca looked down at the empty wooden lockbox on the floor.

“Mrs. Carter,” Luca said gently, crouching down to her eye level. “What did he take from the box?”

My mother looked up, her face pale with terror.

“He took the birth certificate,” she whispered.

I frowned. “What birth certificate? Mine?”

“No,” my mother cried, clutching my hands. “Not yours, Emily.”

She looked at Luca, her eyes filled with a heavy, ancient guilt.

“Eighteen months ago,” my mother sobbed. “When Vanessa paid me to admit Elena Romano into the clinic… Elena wasn’t just hiding from her husband.”

Luca went perfectly still. “What do you mean?”

“Elena was pregnant, Mr. Moretti,” my mother whispered. “Victor is sterile. He can’t have children. If Victor found out she was pregnant, he would have killed her.”

Luca’s face drained of color.

“Who was the father?” Luca demanded.

My mother reached into her pocket with a trembling hand. She pulled out a small, blood-stained photograph.

“She gave me this,” my mother said, handing it to Luca. “She told me to hide the baby. She told me to keep him safe until you found out the truth.”

I looked over Luca’s shoulder at the photograph.

It was a picture of Elena Romano, glowing and happy.

And standing next to her, his arm wrapped lovingly around her waist, was a man I recognized immediately.

It was Luca.

TITLE: The Ghost In The Clinic

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