Chapter 1 – THE SILVER ROSARY IN THE FIREPLACE

The dining room felt like it had been plunged into freezing water.

Luca didn’t move.

He stared at the woman who had raised him after his own parents died.

Celia’s hands were trembling, but her chin remained lifted. She looked like a queen refusing to step down from the guillotine.

“What will I never forgive you for, Aunt Celia?” Luca’s voice was dangerously quiet.

Celia looked at Grace.

The thirteen-year-old girl was shaking, clutching the edge of the mahogany table.

“Luca, please,” Celia whispered, her iron facade finally cracking. “Not in front of the child.”

“You told a thirteen-year-old girl her mother was dead,” Luca said, taking a slow step toward his aunt. “You let my sister stand outside my gates for fifteen years. You don’t get to ask for discretion now.”

He turned to Anna.

“Tell me what happened the night Grace was born.”

Anna wiped her face. She looked at her daughter with an agonizing, desperate love.

“I was nineteen,” Anna began, her voice breaking. “I fell in love with a man the family didn’t approve of. His name was Julian. He was a mechanic. He had no money. No power.”

Celia scoffed bitterly. “He was a rat.”

Luca shot his aunt a look that silenced her instantly.

“Go on,” Luca said softly to his sister.

“When Celia found out I was pregnant, she was furious,” Anna wept. “She said a Moretti couldn’t have a bastard child with a mechanic. But I didn’t care. Julian and I were going to run away. We had packed our bags the night my water broke.”

Anna looked down at her scarred, unmanicured hands.

“Julian went to get the car. But he never came back.”

The room was completely still.

“Celia came to the hospital instead,” Anna continued. “She told me Julian had taken a payoff to leave the city. She said he didn’t want the baby.”

Grace let out a small, heartbreaking gasp.

“I didn’t believe her,” Anna said. “But I was terrified. And then Celia offered me a choice. She said if I gave the baby to her son—Marcus, who was married but couldn’t have children—Grace would grow up with wealth, protection, and the Moretti name.”

Anna looked directly at Celia.

“She told me if I refused, she would cut me off completely. I would be a nineteen-year-old single mother on the streets, and Grace would suffer.”

I stood against the wall, clutching the coffee pot.

My mother had almost lost our house when my father died. I knew exactly what that kind of terror felt like.

“So you left,” Luca said.

“I thought I was doing what was best for her,” Anna cried, covering her face. “I thought I was giving her a safe life.”

Celia immediately stepped forward, her voice rising in defense.

“And I gave her that life! Marcus raised her as his own until the day he died! I gave her everything you never could, Anna!”

Luca turned to his aunt.

“Answer one,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “We know why Anna left. You forced her out to save the family’s reputation.”

He stepped closer to Celia.

“But that opens two new questions.”

Celia swallowed hard.

“If Julian took a payoff and ran away,” Luca asked, “why did the police find his burned-out car at the bottom of the Chicago River three years ago?”

Celia went completely pale.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered.

“And the second question,” Luca continued, turning to his sister.

Anna reached into the pocket of her faded green dress.

Her hands shook violently as she pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver object.

She threw it onto the pristine white tablecloth.

It landed with a heavy clatter right next to Celia’s plate.

A silver rosary.

Celia stopped breathing.

“If Julian ran away,” Anna asked, her voice dropping to a furious, devastated whisper, “why was he clutching your husband’s silver rosary the night his body was found inside that car?”

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