Chapter 5 – THE EMERALD BRACELET

A bomb.

If Luca hadn’t brought us to the penthouse, my mother, my son, and I would be dead.

I sank onto the expensive leather sofa, burying my face in my hands. The reality of the world I had been dragged into was suffocating.

Luca ended the call and knelt in front of me. For a man who commanded hundreds of ruthless soldiers, his touch was remarkably gentle as he pulled my hands away from my face.

“Emma, look at me.”

I met his dark eyes. They were burning with a cold, calculated fury, but his voice was steady.

“You are safe here. Leo is safe. I give you my word, the Moretti family protects its own.”

“I’m not your family, Luca,” I whispered, the exhaustion finally breaking my defenses. “I’m the maid who serves your bread. And tomorrow, you’re marrying the woman who tried to blow up my child.”

Luca’s expression hardened. “There will be no wedding tomorrow.”

“You can’t just cancel it,” I argued, my panic rising. “Vanessa’s family is powerful. If you back out without absolute proof of what she’s done, it will start a war. Hundreds of people will die.”

“Then I will find the proof tonight,” he said.

He stood up and walked to his desk, pulling open a drawer. He took out a thick, leather-bound book and tossed it onto the glass coffee table.

“This is the ledger your father supposedly kept when he stole the money,” Luca explained. “My father kept it as evidence. I want you to look at it.”

I leaned forward, opening the dusty pages. Columns of numbers, offshore account details, and handwritten notes filled the pages.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I admitted.

“Look at the handwriting, Emma. Is it your father’s?”

I studied the loops and the sharp angles of the numbers. I thought back to the birthday cards and homework checks my father used to sign.

“No,” I said instantly. “My dad was a lefty. All his letters slanted backward. These slant forward. And he always crossed his sevens. There are no crossed sevens here.”

Luca nodded. “A forgery. Now, look at the bottom of page forty.”

I flipped to the page. Written in the margin was a note: Transfer complete. Account secured. – V.B.

Vanessa Bellini.

“She was sloppy,” Luca said softly. “Ten years ago, she wasn’t the polished boss she is now. She was a greedy teenager playing with her family’s syndicate.”

“But this isn’t enough,” I said. “You need hard evidence to present to the Commission, don’t you? The mafia council?”

“Yes,” Luca agreed. “If I move against her without undeniable proof of her betrayal against the syndicate, her family will claim I’m just a paranoid groom trying to break a treaty.”

I closed the ledger. “Then how do we catch her?”

“We let her think she won,” Luca said. “Tomorrow is the wedding. The entire Chicago underworld will be there. She thinks you are dead, Emma. She thinks the bomb went off.”

I stared at him. “You want me to play dead?”

“Only until the vows,” Luca said, a dangerous smirk crossing his face.

Before he could explain further, the bedroom door opened.

Leo walked out, rubbing his sleepy eyes. He was holding something shiny in his small hand.

“Mommy,” he mumbled. “The doggy had this in his collar.”

My breath hitched.

I rushed to Leo and took the object.

It was a heavy, gold charm bracelet, studded with emeralds.

Luca stepped closer, his face draining of color.

“Where did you get that?” I asked Leo gently.

“It was tucked inside the blue blanket the doggy sleeps on. I felt it when I was petting him.”

I looked at Luca. “Do you know whose this is?”

Luca reached out and touched the emeralds with a trembling finger.

“It belonged to my mother,” he whispered. “She was wearing it the night she was kidnapped. It’s been missing for thirty years.”

Vanessa hadn’t just planted evidence. She had kept trophies. And she had hidden the most damning piece of evidence right under Luca’s nose, inside his dog’s bedding, knowing he would never look there.

“She wanted to be close to her victory,” Luca realized, his voice laced with venom. “She wanted to marry me while my mother’s stolen jewelry was sitting fifty feet away.”

He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw the true mafia boss.

“Emma, get some sleep,” Luca ordered. “Because tomorrow, we are going to a wedding.”

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