Chapter 10 – THE BOY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

I walked across the manicured lawns of the Moretti estate as the evening sky turned a deep bruised purple.

My heart was in my throat. Don’t tell your mother.

What could possibly be in that locker that involved us? We were just the help.

I entered the massive mahogany doors of the main house. The guards nodded to me with a new level of respect. I was no longer the maid who cleared plates; I was the estate manager.

I walked down the long, silent hallway to Luca’s private study and knocked twice.

“Come in.”

I pushed the heavy oak doors open.

Luca was sitting behind his father’s massive desk. Only one lamp was on, casting long, dark shadows across his face.

On the desk in front of him sat a stack of thick, bound ledgers, several stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and a small, worn wooden box.

“Mr. Moretti?” I asked, stepping hesitantly into the room.

He didn’t look up immediately. He just stared at the wooden box.

“The ledgers have the names,” Luca said quietly. “Two state senators, a chief of police, and a handful of judges. They helped Marcus cover up the poison. They ruled it a heart attack.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“I already sent copies to the FBI anonymously,” Luca said. “By tomorrow morning, half of Chicago’s elite will be in federal custody. The rot is gone.”

He finally looked up at me. His dark eyes were filled with an emotion I couldn’t read. It wasn’t anger. It was sorrow. And a profound sense of shock.

“But that’s not why I called you here,” he said.

He reached out and pushed the small wooden box across the polished mahogany desk toward me.

“Open it,” he ordered softly.

My hands trembled as I approached the desk. I reached out and lifted the brass latch on the wooden box.

Inside, sitting on a bed of faded red velvet, was a baby’s silver rattle.

And tucked beneath the rattle was a photograph.

I pulled the photograph out. It was old, the edges yellowed and curled.

It showed my mother. She looked much younger, maybe in her early twenties. She was standing in the very garden I had just walked through.

But she wasn’t wearing a maid’s uniform. She was wearing a beautiful summer dress.

And standing next to her, with his arm wrapped tightly and lovingly around her waist, was a man I recognized instantly from the massive portrait hanging in the hallway outside.

Lorenzo Moretti.

Luca’s father.

My breath caught in my throat. I dropped the photo onto the desk as if it had burned my fingers.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, stepping back. “My mother was a maid.”

Luca stood up slowly.

“Margaret wasn’t just a maid, Elena,” Luca said, his voice incredibly gentle. “My father hired her as a maid to keep her close to him without arousing suspicion. My mother was sick for years before she died. My father was incredibly lonely.”

The room started to spin.

“No,” I stammered. “No, my mother would have told me.”

“She couldn’t,” Luca said. “Because Marcus found out about the affair. That’s what the argument was really about the night my father died. Marcus wasn’t just angry about the business. He was angry that my father was planning to alter his will to include his mistress.”

Luca reached into the box and pulled out a birth certificate.

He handed it to me.

I looked down at the official seal.

Name: Elena Brooks.

Mother: Margaret Brooks.

Father: Lorenzo Moretti.

The paper slipped from my hands, fluttering to the floor.

I wasn’t just the maid.

I was his sister.

“Marcus threatened to kill you and your mother if she ever revealed the truth,” Luca explained softly. “That’s why she ran away the night my father died. She wasn’t just running from a murder scene. She was protecting her daughter. She was protecting Moretti blood.”

Tears streamed down my face. “I’m… I’m your sister?”

Luca walked around the desk. The intimidating mafia boss, the man who commanded empires, stopped in front of me.

He reached out and gently pulled me into a hug.

“You’re my sister,” Luca whispered. “And you are never going to be a servant again.”

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