Chapter 2 – THE SECRET IN THE SUMMER HOUSE

Luca took the phone from my hand.

He read the screen once. Then twice.

His jaw locked so tightly I thought his teeth might shatter.

“Where did you find this?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.

“Behind the espresso machine. I think Vanessa dropped it when she was yelling at Anthony.”

Luca stared at the glowing words. We have to move before the boy talks.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly. “Who is the boy?”

Luca closed his eyes. The pain etched into his features made the powerful mafia boss look suddenly broken.

“Six years ago,” he whispered, “my sister Isabella was killed in a car accident. Her husband died on impact. The police said their five-year-old son, Leo, was thrown from the vehicle into the river.”

My heart stopped. “They never found him?”

“No,” Luca said, his voice cracking. “My mother died of a broken heart three months later. It destroyed our family.”

I looked at the phone. “You think Carlo Bellini has your nephew?”

“If Isabella died, her shares of the Moretti estate transferred to my mother,” Luca explained, pacing the kitchen. “When my mother died, the shares transferred to me. Unless…”

“Unless Leo was still alive,” I finished, the horrifying reality settling over me.

“If Leo is alive, he inherits half the empire. But a minor’s trust requires an executor. If Vanessa marries me, her family gets access to the accounts.”

Luca grabbed his coat from the chair.

“I need to find Carlo.”

“Wait,” I said, remembering Vanessa’s threat. “Vanessa knows where I live. If they realize I found the phone, my mother isn’t safe.”

Luca stopped. He looked at me, truly seeing me for the first time—not as a maid, but as someone caught in the crossfire of his family’s war.

“Give me your address,” he commanded. “I’ll send my best men to move your mother to a secure hotel right now.”

I wrote it down frantically.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Luca said. “You’re coming with me.”

“Where?”

“To find the truth.”

We drove in silence through the freezing November rain. Luca’s black SUV tore through the slick Chicago streets.

We weren’t heading toward the city center where the Bellini family lived. We were heading out toward the lake, into the wealthy, isolated suburbs.

“Where are we going?” I asked, clutching the dashboard.

“The Bellini summer house,” Luca said. “It’s been boarded up for years. But if Carlo is hiding a child, he wouldn’t risk keeping him in the city.”

We arrived at a massive, wrought-iron gate completely covered in overgrown ivy. Luca didn’t even slow down. He rammed the SUV straight through the heavy chains, the metal snapping with a violent crack.

He parked the car near the edge of the woods, killing the headlights.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered, pulling a heavy black handgun from his shoulder holster.

We crept through the wet grass toward the looming, dark silhouette of the summer house. The windows were boarded from the outside.

But a faint yellow light glowed from the basement window.

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the back patio.

Luca moved like a shadow, rounding the corner with his weapon raised. I followed, my heart pounding in my throat.

Lying on the wet concrete of the patio was a man.

He had been severely beaten, his face covered in blood, clutching his ribs.

It was Anthony. The gardener.

“Anthony!” I gasped, rushing forward and dropping to my knees beside him.

Luca knelt down, his eyes wide with shock. “Anthony, what happened? Who did this?”

Anthony coughed, spitting blood onto the rain-slicked stones.

“I’m sorry, Luca,” the old man sobbed. “I tried to get him out. I tried. But Carlo’s men caught me.”

“Get who out?” Luca demanded, though I could tell he already knew the answer.

Before Anthony could speak, the heavy wooden door of the patio creaked open.

A small figure stepped out into the freezing rain.

He was wearing a faded pair of pajamas that were far too small for him. He was painfully thin, shivering violently in the cold.

But it wasn’t the boy’s fragile appearance that made Luca drop his gun to the stone patio.

It was what the boy was holding.

Clutched tightly in his small, trembling hands was a string of delicate white pearls.

Maria Moretti’s pearl bracelet.

The boy looked at Luca with wide, terrified eyes.

“Did Grandma send you?” he whispered.

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