Chapter 2 - The Fiancée's Deadly Secret—and the Poor Maid Who Became the Mafia Boss's Only WitnessThe first time Luca Moretti touched my hand, he was trying to stop me from running into the Chicago night.
"Grace."
His voice was firm.
"Look at me."
I couldn't.
My mother's photograph was still glowing on my phone screen.
She stood outside her little alterations shop on West Taylor Street, wearing the blue coat I'd bought her for Christmas.
She was smiling.
Completely unaware that someone was watching her.
"I have to go," I whispered.
I turned toward the door.
Luca caught my wrist.
Not painfully.
Not roughly.
But firmly enough to stop me.
"Running out there won't help her."
"You don't understand."
His expression softened slightly.
"Then explain."
"She's all I have."
The words broke something inside me.
My father was gone.
My grandparents were gone.
My younger brother had died when I was sixteen.
My mother had spent the last thirteen years pretending she was stronger than she felt.
She had worked through illnesses, unpaid bills, and winters when the heating barely functioned.
She'd taught me how to sew a button, balance a checkbook, and survive disappointment without becoming cruel.
And now someone was threatening to kill her because I'd moved a chair.
I pulled against Luca's hand.
"Please."
He released me immediately.
Then he took out his phone.
"Matteo. Send two trusted officers to West Taylor Street. Quiet approach. No sirens. Confirm Mrs. Parker's safety and move her somewhere secure."
He listened.
"Not the mansion. Use the medical residence on Sheridan. And verify the team personally."
He ended the call.
I stared at him.
"You know where my mother works?"
"Your employment file lists her shop."
"You're sending people to get her?"
"Yes."
"Will they hurt her?"
His expression changed.
"No, Grace."
I swallowed.
"How do I know?"
He was silent for a moment.
Then he handed me his phone.
"Call her yourself. Tell her exactly what's happening. She doesn't have to go anywhere she doesn't want to."
I looked at the phone.
Then at him.
It was the first choice anyone had given me since the nightmare began.
My mother answered on the fourth ring.
"Grace, sweetheart?"
I nearly cried.
"Mom."
"What's wrong?"
"Are you at the shop?"
"Of course. Mrs. Donnelly brought in three dresses that need hemming before Saturday."
I closed my eyes.
"Mom, listen carefully."
There was a pause.
"Grace?"
"Something happened at work. Someone may be watching you."
"What?"
"I need you to lock the doors."
"Sweetheart, you're frightening me."
"I know. I'm sorry."
I explained as much as I could without mentioning the Mafia.
That part was difficult.
My mother knew who Luca Moretti was.
Everyone in Chicago did.
When I told her he was arranging protection, she went quiet.
Then she asked the question I'd been dreading.
"Are you in trouble with that man?"
I looked toward Luca.
He stood several feet away, giving me privacy.
"No, Mom."
"Then why is he involved?"
I swallowed.
"Because I saw something I wasn't supposed to see."
She sighed.
"Oh, Grace."
It was the same exhausted sound she'd made when I was seven and brought home a stray kitten.
Only this time, the consequences were much worse.
"Listen to me," she said. "You don't owe anyone your life because they pay your salary."
My eyes filled.
"I know."
"Do you?"
I looked at Luca again.
He was speaking quietly to Matteo.
For a man with such a frightening reputation, he looked strangely tired.
"I think I'm starting to."
By midnight, my mother was safe.
I spoke to her again from the small sitting room beside Luca's private office.
She was staying in a secure residence with two women assigned to help her.
She complained about the mattress.
That was how I knew she was all right.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Bellini was becoming increasingly hysterical.
I could hear her shouting through the hallway.
"You can't keep me here!"
Then Luca's voice.
"Watch me."
A moment later, the office door opened.
He entered with Matteo.
Both men looked grim.
"Your mother is safe," Luca told me.
"I spoke to her."
"Good."
He sat behind his enormous desk.
Matteo placed a folder in front of him.
"We found Ellis's vehicle abandoned near the river."
"Any sign of him?"
"No."
"Blood?"
"None."
"Then he's running."
"Possibly."
Luca looked at me.
"Grace, I need you to tell me everything you remember about the device."
I nodded.
He gestured toward the chair opposite him.
"Sit."
I did.
Matteo opened a notebook.
I described Vanessa kneeling beside the chair.
The transmitter.
The green light.
Her phone.
Her expression.
Everything.
Luca listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he asked, "Did she speak to anyone?"
"Not that I heard."
"Did she receive a call?"
"No. But she looked at her phone."
"What time?"
I thought carefully.
"Eight twenty-six. Maybe eight twenty-seven."
Matteo wrote it down.
Luca's gaze sharpened.
"Why are you so certain?"
"Because I checked the clock after she threatened me. I was supposed to bring the soup course at eight thirty."
For the first time that night, Matteo looked impressed.
"Good memory."
I shrugged.
"When you're responsible for serving thirty people, you watch the clock."
Luca leaned back.
"And you noticed the transmitter wasn't active until Vanessa returned."
"Yes."
"Why does that matter?"
I hesitated.
"Because I don't think she was controlling it."
Both men looked at me.
I continued.
"I think someone else activated it remotely."
Matteo frowned.
"Explain."
"The light was green when I first saw it. Then red when the voice came through. That usually means a change in operating mode."
Luca was silent.
Then he looked toward Matteo.
"Get Daniel."
Daniel Mercer arrived ten minutes later.
He carried a laptop and the transmitter in a protective container.
His expression was tense.
"I've identified the manufacturer."
Luca leaned forward.
"Who?"
"A European electronics company that supplies specialized communications equipment."
"Who purchased it?"
"That's where things get interesting."
Daniel opened his laptop.
"The serial number belongs to a batch reported stolen eighteen months ago."
"From where?"
"A private security contractor in Zurich."
Matteo cursed under his breath.
Luca's face hardened.
"The Architect."
Daniel nodded.
"Possibly."
He turned the laptop toward us.
A map appeared.
Several red dots marked locations around Chicago.
"The device transmitted to a relay point approximately three miles from the mansion."
"Can you identify the address?"
"Not exactly. But the signal passed through a commercial building near the river."
Luca looked toward Matteo.
"Find out who owns it."
"Already working on it."
Then Daniel hesitated.
"There's something else."
Luca's expression darkened.
"Say it."
"The pressure sensor wasn't connected to an explosive."
I exhaled.
For the first time in hours, I felt a little relief.
Then Daniel continued.
"It was connected to a recording trigger."
Luca frowned.
"Recording what?"
"Whoever occupied the chair."
He clicked another file.
A photograph appeared.
Luca's chair.
Then a diagram showing a hidden microphone positioned beneath the seat.
Daniel pointed toward the screen.
"The device was designed to capture conversations at the head of the table."
"Why?"
"Because someone expected you to discuss something important tonight."
Luca looked at Vanessa's engagement ring lying on the desk.
She'd removed it during questioning.
"Then the entire dinner was a setup."
Daniel nodded.
"Yes."
I stared at the screen.
Something bothered me.
"The microphone was under the seat."
Daniel looked at me.
"Correct."
"Wouldn't that produce terrible audio?"
He blinked.
"Usually."
"So why put it there?"
The room went quiet.
I continued.
"If they wanted to record Luca, they could have hidden a microphone in the flowers or beneath the table."
Daniel slowly leaned forward.
"Unless the microphone wasn't the primary purpose."
Luca looked at him.
"Then what was?"
Daniel examined the diagram again.
His expression changed.
"Oh."
"What?"
"The pressure sensor."
He looked up.
"Someone wanted confirmation that Luca was sitting in a specific location."
Matteo frowned.
"For what?"
Daniel swallowed.
"To synchronize something else."
At 1:18 a.m., Luca ordered the dining room searched.
Every chair.
Every table leg.
Every flower arrangement.
Every light fixture.
The security team worked for nearly an hour.
They found nothing.
Then I remembered something.
"The chandelier."
Luca turned.
"What?"
I looked toward the dining room ceiling.
"Vanessa insisted on replacing the main chandelier last week."
Matteo frowned.
"That was part of the wedding renovations."
"I know. But the old chandelier wasn't damaged."
Luca looked at Daniel.
"Check it."
A maintenance ladder was brought into the room.
Daniel climbed carefully toward the enormous crystal fixture.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
Then he stopped.
"Boss."
Luca stepped forward.
"What?"
"There's a second device."
My blood turned cold.
Daniel pointed toward a small black component hidden inside the chandelier's metal housing.
It was positioned directly above Luca's chair.
"Don't touch it," Luca ordered.
Daniel froze.
Matteo immediately cleared the room.
I was escorted into the hallway.
Vanessa stood nearby, guarded by two men.
When she saw Daniel descending the ladder, her expression collapsed.
"Oh, God."
Luca turned toward her.
"You knew."
She shook her head violently.
"No."
"You knew there was something above my chair."
"No!"
"Then why are you crying?"
She looked at the chandelier.
And whispered, "Because they told me it was only a camera."
Luca stared at her.
Then he spoke in a voice so quiet it frightened me more than shouting.
"Who told you?"
Vanessa's lips trembled.
"The Architect."
The second device was not a camera.
It contained a compact pyrotechnic charge capable of shattering the chandelier's supporting mechanism.
Had Luca sat in the chair, the pressure sensor would have transmitted a signal.
The chandelier could have collapsed directly onto him.
The entire arrangement had been designed to look like a tragic accident.
A wealthy Mafia boss killed during his engagement celebration.
A devastated fiancée.
Thirty witnesses.
And no obvious assassin.
I felt sick.
Vanessa began sobbing.
"I didn't know!"
Luca stood before her.
"Then why did you hide the transmitter?"
"They told me it was surveillance!"
"Who?"
"I never met him!"
"Then how did he contact you?"
She looked away.
Luca stepped closer.
"Vanessa."
She finally whispered, "Through Julian."
Her younger brother.
The man who owed four million dollars.
Luca turned toward Matteo.
"Bring Julian Bellini here."
Matteo hesitated.
"Boss, we've been trying to locate him."
"And?"
"He's missing."
Vanessa covered her face.
"They took him."
Luca stared at her.
"Who took him?"
"I don't know!"
"Stop lying."
She looked up.
For a moment, I thought she might finally tell the truth.
Instead, she pointed at me.
"Ask her."
I froze.
"What?"
Vanessa's expression changed.
Her tears stopped.
And she smiled.
A terrible, trembling smile.
"Ask your precious maid why the Architect knows her name."
Luca slowly turned toward me.
I couldn't breathe.
"I don't know him."
Vanessa laughed.
"Oh, Grace."
She looked directly into my eyes.
"You're going to pretend you don't remember?"
I shook my head.
"Remember what?"
She leaned forward.
"The night your father died."
My father's death had always been described as a heart attack.
He collapsed at home while watching television.
I found him on the living room floor.
I remembered the ambulance.
The hospital.
The doctor's sympathetic expression.
I remembered my mother crying so hard she couldn't speak.
And I remembered one other thing.
A stranger standing outside our house.
A tall man in a gray coat.
He watched the ambulance leave.
Then he walked away.
I'd forgotten about him.
Or tried to.
Now Vanessa was looking at me as though she knew exactly who he was.
"What does my father have to do with this?"
She smiled again.
"More than you think."
Luca stepped between us.
"Enough."
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
"You don't understand, Luca."
"Then explain."
She looked at him.
"Your father and hers were connected."
The room went silent.
Luca's expression changed.
"My father?"
Vanessa nodded.
"Antonio Moretti and Samuel Parker."
I stared at her.
My father had been an electrician.
A quiet man who loved baseball and made terrible jokes.
He had never mentioned the Moretti family.
Not once.
"You're lying," I whispered.
Vanessa tilted her head.
"Am I?"
Luca looked toward Matteo.
"Find everything we have on Samuel Parker."
Matteo nodded and left.
I stood frozen.
The world seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
My father.
Luca's father.
The Architect.
The chandelier.
The engagement dinner.
None of it made sense.
Then Vanessa said something that changed everything.
"Samuel Parker didn't die because his heart stopped."
I stared at her.
"He died because he refused to give them what they wanted."
At 3:42 a.m., Luca found me in the mansion's library.
I was sitting on the floor beside a bookshelf, trying not to cry.
I'd spent three years believing my father's death was random.
Tragic.
Unfair.
But random.
Now someone was telling me he'd been murdered.
And that his death was connected to the most dangerous family in Chicago.
Luca stopped several feet away.
"Grace."
I didn't look up.
"Please don't tell me to calm down."
He was silent.
Then he sat on the floor beside me.
The sight was so unexpected that I turned.
His expensive suit wrinkled against the carpet.
His tattooed hands rested loosely on his knees.
For a moment, he didn't look like a Mafia boss.
He looked like a tired man who had run out of answers.
"I'm not going to tell you to calm down," he said.
I swallowed.
"Do you believe her?"
"I believe she knows something."
"About my father?"
"Yes."
My throat tightened.
"Was he involved in your family's business?"
"I don't know."
I looked at him.
He met my eyes.
It was the first time I'd heard a man like Luca Moretti admit uncertainty.
"I'll find out," he said.
I shook my head.
"That's what everyone says."
"Grace—"
"My father was a good man."
"I believe you."
"He never hurt anyone."
Luca looked down.
"Then we need to find out who hurt him."
I wiped my eyes.
"Why would you help me?"
He was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, "Because you helped me when you had every reason to protect yourself instead."
My chest tightened.
He looked at me.
"And because someone is trying to make us enemies."
The next morning, Matteo arrived with a sealed envelope.
He looked exhausted.
Luca opened it at the breakfast table.
Inside was an old photograph.
Two men stood beside a black sedan.
One was Antonio Moretti.
Luca's father.
The other was Samuel Parker.
My father.
I recognized him immediately.
His crooked smile.
His thick brown hair.
The little scar near his chin.
My hands began to shake.
On the back of the photograph was a date.
October 14, 2009.
And four handwritten words.
THEY BOTH KNEW THE TRUTH.
Luca stared at the photograph.
Then he looked at me.
"Grace."
I couldn't speak.
He turned the picture over again.
Something was written beneath the date.
A location.
St. Catherine's Warehouse.
The same place Vanessa had mentioned.
Luca's expression darkened.
"We're going to find out what happened there."
Then Matteo's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
And went pale.
"Boss."
Luca looked up.
"What?"
Matteo swallowed.
"We found Julian Bellini."
Vanessa's brother.
The missing man.
"Where?"
"At the old St. Catherine's warehouse."
Luca stood.
"Alive?"
Matteo hesitated.
"Yes."
Then he looked directly at me.
"But he's asking for Grace."
My blood turned cold.
"Why?"
Matteo's voice dropped.
"Because he says Samuel Parker left something for his daughter."
Luca stared at him.
"What?"
Matteo swallowed.
"A recording."
He paused.
May you like
"And according to Julian, that recording contains the last words of Antonio Moretti."
END OF CHAPTER 2
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