Chapter 9 – THE BLACK ENVELOPE AND THE GHOST

The black envelope slipped from my fingers, fluttering onto the marble floor of the foyer.

“I’m still alive.”

I stared at the white paper, my heart hammering violently in my chest.

It had to be a sick joke. Giovanni was dead. The Coast Guard had pulled his body from the freezing lake. Luca had identified him. The nightmare was supposed to be over.

“Hannah? Is everything okay?”

My mother walked into the foyer, her new wheelchair gliding silently across the marble. She looked healthier, the color returning to her cheeks after a week of proper medical care and safety.

I quickly kicked the black envelope under the mahogany console table.

“Everything’s fine, Mom,” I forced a smile. “Just junk mail.”

“Luca is setting up breakfast on the patio,” she smiled warmly. “Come join us.”

“I’ll be right there,” I promised.

As she rolled away, I dropped to my knees and snatched the envelope. I shoved it into my pocket and sprinted up the grand staircase toward Luca’s study.

I burst through the oak doors without knocking.

Luca was sitting at his massive desk, reviewing legitimate real estate contracts. He looked up, startled by my entrance.

“Hannah? What’s wrong?”

I pulled the crushed paper from my pocket and threw it onto his desk.

Luca picked it up, reading the three words. His brow furrowed in confusion before hardening into anger.

“Where did this come from?” Luca demanded.

“It was in the morning post,” I panicked. “Luca, what if it’s him? What if Giovanni survived the water? What if it wasn’t his body you identified?”

“It was him,” Luca said firmly, though a flicker of doubt crossed his eyes. “I saw the ring on his finger. I saw his face.”

“Then who sent this?!” I cried.

Before Luca could answer, his private secure phone—the one sitting in the locked drawer of his desk—began to ring.

Luca froze. That number was only known to three people. His dead father. His dead brother. And him.

Slowly, Luca unlocked the drawer and pulled out the ringing phone. He hit speaker and placed it on the desk.

“Who is this?” Luca asked, his voice deadly calm.

A soft, staticky chuckle echoed through the speaker. It wasn’t Giovanni’s raspy voice. It was smoother. Younger.

“You really thought the old man was acting alone, Luca?” the voice purred. “Giovanni was a relic. He provided the muscle, but he didn’t have the brains to manage the offshore accounts. He needed a partner.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “Who are you?”

“I’m the man who actually controls the two billion dollars your sweet sister Isabella just signed over,” the voice smiled. “Thanks for clearing the board for me, by the way. With Giovanni and Michael out of the way, I inherit it all.”

“The accounts are locked to the Moretti bloodline,” Luca growled. “You can’t touch them.”

“Oh, but I can,” the voice replied. “Because before Vanessa got arrested, she handed me the master decryption key. The one your father hid twenty years ago. The one shaped like a child’s velvet shoe.”

My breath hitched. The red velvet shoe from the dirt tunnel. Luca had taken it. He still had it in his safe.

“If you have the key,” Luca said, bluffing, “why are you calling me?”

“Because the shoe is a fake,” the voice said coldly. “A decoy your father planted. The real key is a matching velvet hair bow. And I know your mother has it. Bring the bow to the abandoned railyard on 45th street by midnight. Or I send the feds the audio recording of Teresa admitting she poisoned your father.”

The line went dead.

Luca stared at the phone, his face completely pale.

He slowly looked up at me.

“Hannah,” Luca whispered. “Did my mother poison my father?”

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