Chapter 1 – THE PHOTOGRAPH BURIED IN THE CAKE BOX

The silence in the dining room was suffocating.

Forty guests stared at Vanessa.

Nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

Luca’s voice had been quiet, but it carried the lethal weight of a man who controlled the Chicago underworld.

“What wedding rehearsal, Vanessa?”

Vanessa’s flawless face drained of color.

Her hands trembled as she gripped the edge of the table.

“Luca, darling,” she stammered, her voice suddenly high and fragile. “The maid is confused. She’s lying to you. She must have misheard the delivery woman.”

Luca didn’t look at her.

He looked at me.

“Emma,” he said softly. “Did you mishear?”

I shook my head.

My apron was stained with chocolate, my hands still shaking, but I stood my ground.

“No, sir. She said it very clearly. She asked if you still believed the wedding was next Saturday.”

Vanessa lunged forward, raising her hand as if to strike me.

“You lying little—”

“Daniel!” Luca barked.

Before Vanessa could take another step, Luca’s head of security was standing between us.

Daniel didn’t touch her, but his massive presence was enough.

Vanessa froze.

“Luca,” she wept, real tears finally spilling over her cheeks. “Why are you listening to her? She’s just a housemaid!”

“She’s a housemaid who just stopped me from eating a fatal dose of peanut butter,” Luca replied coldly.

He turned to Daniel.

“Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves. Not the guests, not the staff. And certainly not my fiancée.”

The guests murmured in panic, but no one dared to argue.

Luca stepped closer to me.

“Emma. Where is the box this cake came in?”

“In the kitchen pantry, sir.”

“Show me.”

He didn’t ask Vanessa to follow, but she did, trailing behind us like a desperate ghost, sobbing quietly.

We pushed through the swinging doors into the massive stainless-steel kitchen.

The kitchen staff had been dismissed hours ago, exactly as Vanessa had ordered.

I walked to the pantry and retrieved the heavy white bakery box.

I set it on the marble island.

Luca stared at it.

The logo on the front read: Bella Dolce Pâtisserie.

“Vanessa,” Luca said without turning around. “You told me you ordered this from the French bakery downtown.”

Vanessa choked on her tears. “I did! They must have subcontracted the order!”

Luca ignored her.

He reached out and carefully lifted the bottom cardboard insert of the empty box.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a false bottom.

As Luca pulled it up, something slipped out and landed on the marble counter.

It was a glossy 8×10 photograph.

Vanessa gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.

Luca picked up the photograph.

I was standing close enough to see it.

It wasn’t a picture of a cake.

It was a picture of Vanessa.

She was wearing a stunning white wedding gown, standing at an altar inside a beautiful church.

But the man holding her hands, smiling lovingly at her, wasn’t Luca Moretti.

It was a man I recognized from the portraits in the estate’s long hallway.

Matteo Moretti.

Luca’s older brother.

The brother who was supposed to be serving a twenty-year sentence in federal prison.

Luca stared at the photograph.

The silence in the kitchen was broken only by Vanessa’s hyperventilating.

“Answer one,” Luca whispered to himself, his voice terrifyingly devoid of emotion. “We know what wedding rehearsal the baker meant.”

He turned slowly to face Vanessa.

“You’re already married to my brother.”

Vanessa collapsed to her knees on the kitchen floor, weeping uncontrollably.

“I didn’t have a choice!” she screamed. “Luca, please! He threatened me!”

Luca didn’t flinch.

“But that opens two new questions,” Luca continued, stepping closer to her.

He held up the photograph.

“How did Matteo get out of a maximum-security prison without my syndicate knowing?”

He dropped the photograph onto the marble counter.

“And why did the woman who delivered this cake want me to know?”

Vanessa shook her head violently, pressing her face against the cold floor tiles.

“I don’t know! I swear I don’t know who she was!”

Luca looked at me.

“Emma. The woman who brought the cake. Describe her.”

I closed my eyes, picturing her face.

“She was tall. Dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. She wore a black coat.”

I swallowed hard.

“And she had a very distinct scar on her left cheek. Like a crescent moon.”

Luca stopped breathing.

Daniel, standing by the door, went completely rigid.

“Boss,” Daniel whispered.

Luca’s dark eyes widened.

“That’s impossible,” Luca said, his voice cracking for the first time all evening.

“Mr. Moretti?” I asked, terrified by his reaction. “Who is she?”

Luca looked at me, a cold dread washing over his face.

“She’s my sister.”

He looked back at the photograph of his brother.

“And she died in a boat explosion five years ago.”

Share