Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS
Luca Moretti didn’t blink.
He didn’t raise his voice.
He simply stared at me across the cedar room, the silence between us so heavy it felt hard to breathe.
“He said I would know who he was,” Luca repeated.
The words sounded different coming from him.
Darker.
More dangerous.
I nodded, my left arm still pressed tightly against my ribs.
“Yes, sir. That’s what Mrs. Hart told Vanessa on the phone. And Vanessa turned completely pale.”
Luca turned slowly toward the open cedar chest.
He stared at the empty space where his mother’s recipe book used to sit.
For a man who controlled half of Chicago’s legitimate shipping ports and all of its underground ones, Luca rarely showed surprise.
But right now, his hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.
“Hannah,” he said quietly. “Did Vanessa say a name?”
“No, sir. She hung up the phone immediately.”
“And then?”
“Then she turned around and saw me standing in the doorway.” I took a shaky breath. “That’s when she shoved the gown box at me and told me to get out.”
Luca didn’t look angry at me.
He looked like a man who had just realized his entire house was built on a fault line.
“My mother’s recipe book wasn’t just a book,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It was a ledger.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“A ledger?”
“Dates. Names. Favors owed to the Moretti family from thirty years ago. Things my father thought were destroyed when he died. My mother hid them in plain sight.”
He walked over to the wedding gown box sitting on the table.
He ran his fingers over the faded blue ribbons.
“Vanessa wasn’t selling her clothes for money,” Luca said. “She was dismantling my mother’s legacy to find something specific. And this man—whoever he is—beat her to the ledger.”
A chill ran down my spine.
Answer one: The recipe book was a ledger.
Open two: What was Vanessa actually looking for? And who was the man who took it?
Before I could ask, footsteps echoed in the hallway.
Heavy, hurried steps.
Daniel, Luca’s head of security, appeared in the doorway.
His face was grim.
“Boss. We have a problem.”
Luca didn’t turn around. “Did you find out who picked up the book from the auction house?”
“Yes,” Daniel said. “But that’s not the problem.”
Daniel stepped into the room and held out a small, tarnished silver pocket watch.
I recognized it immediately.
It was the watch Vanessa always kept on her vanity downstairs. She claimed it was a family heirloom from her grandfather.
“One of the perimeter guards found this near the east gate,” Daniel said.
Luca finally turned.
He stared at the watch.
“The east gate is locked from the outside,” Luca said.
“I know,” Daniel replied. “And the chain is broken. Someone ripped it off her.”
My stomach plummeted.
“Where is Vanessa?” Luca asked, his voice deadly calm.
“Gone,” Daniel said. “Her car is still in the driveway. Her purse is in the dining room. But Miss Bellini is nowhere on the estate.”
The engagement dinner was still happening downstairs.
The guests were eating dessert.
And the bride-to-be had just vanished.
Luca took the silver watch from Daniel’s hand.
He pressed the small latch on the side.
The watch popped open.
I expected to see a clock face.
Instead, tucked inside the glass casing, was a tiny, folded photograph.
Luca pulled it out.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then, he slowly handed it to me.
“Do you know who this is, Hannah?”
I took the photograph with trembling fingers.
It was an old picture. Faded at the edges.
It showed a young woman holding a baby.
The woman was Vanessa. Much younger. Maybe eighteen years old.
But it wasn't the baby that made my blood run cold.
It was the man standing behind her, his hand resting possessively on her shoulder.
A man with a jagged scar across his jawline.
“I don’t know him,” I whispered.
“I do,” Luca said.
His voice sounded like ice cracking.
“That is Victor Rossi. My father’s oldest enemy. The man who supposedly died in a car fire five years ago.”
May you like
Luca looked toward the dark window.
“He’s alive. And my fiancée just left with him.”
