Chapter 10 - [THE GHOST IN THE ELEVATOR]
The private elevator dinged.
The polished steel doors slid open, and a woman stepped into the penthouse.
She looked like an older, sharper version of Luca. She had the same piercing dark eyes, the same aristocratic jawline, but her hair was a stark, icy silver, pulled back into a severe chignon. She wore a tailored black trench coat that looked expensive and intimidating.
In her gloved hands, she held a large, flat object wrapped tightly in brown canvas.
“Eleanor,” Luca said. He didn’t say Mom. The word was sharp, devoid of any warmth.
Eleanor Moretti looked around the lavish penthouse, her eyes lingering on me before sweeping back to her son.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Luca,” she said. Her voice was raspy, cultured. “No thanks to your father’s incompetence.”
“Why are you here?” Luca demanded, stepping between her and me. “You haven’t shown your face in twenty years. You didn’t come when Dad died. You didn’t come when Clara died.”
At the mention of Clara, Eleanor’s mask slipped for a fraction of a second. Her grip tightened on the canvas-wrapped object.
“I read the papers, Luca. I know Richard Vale was arrested. I know the truth about Clara came out.”
“And that brings you out of hiding?” Luca sneered. “Looking for a payout now that the board is cleared?”
“I don’t want your money,” Eleanor snapped, her composure cracking. She marched forward and slammed the flat object onto the glass coffee table.
She ripped the brown canvas away.
I gasped.
It was an oil painting. An incredibly vivid portrait of a young girl sitting in a garden of white roses. The girl had dark curls and was laughing, reaching out toward the painter.
It was Clara.
But she wasn’t a teenager. She was perhaps five or six years old.
“Where did you get this?” Luca whispered, his anger momentarily evaporating into sheer shock. “Dad said this painting burned in the estate fire in ninety-eight.”
“Your father lied,” Eleanor said bitterly. “He lied about a lot of things to make me look like the villain when I left.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. “You abandoned us, Eleanor. You walked out on a ten-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl. Nothing he said could make you look worse than you already were.”
Eleanor’s eyes blazed. She reached out and grabbed the heavy gilded frame of the painting.
With a violent twist, she turned the painting over to reveal the wooden backing.
“I didn’t abandon you, Luca,” she said, her voice shaking with sudden, raw emotion. “I was banished.”
She pointed a trembling, manicured finger at the back of the canvas.
Taped to the old wood was a thick, yellowed envelope, sealed with red wax.
It bore the seal of the Moretti family lawyer.
“Richard Vale didn’t just blackmail your sister,” Eleanor whispered. “Twenty years ago, he blackmailed me. He told your father I was having an affair. He faked the photos. He convinced your father I was trying to sell family secrets to the feds.”
Luca stared at her, paralyzed.
“Your father gave me two choices,” Eleanor said, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “Leave the country without my children, or Richard would arrange for a ‘car accident’ that would take both of you away from me forever.”
The room was dead silent.
I looked at Luca. The man who controlled Chicago, the man who feared nothing, looked like a little boy whose world had just been ripped out from under him.
“You’re lying,” Luca said, but his voice lacked conviction.
“Read the letter, Luca,” Eleanor sobbed. “It’s your father’s sworn confession. He sent it to me the week before he died. He knew he was wrong. He knew Richard had played him.”
Luca reached out with a trembling hand and ripped the envelope from the back of the painting.
He broke the wax seal.
He pulled out the letter, his eyes scanning the elegant, aging script.
I watched as the anger bled out of him, replaced by a devastating, crushing grief. He dropped the paper onto the glass table.
“My god,” Luca choked out. He fell back into one of the armchairs, burying his face in his hands.
Eleanor stood frozen, unsure if she should comfort the son she hadn’t touched in two decades.
I stepped forward. I gently placed my hand on Luca’s shoulder. He leaned into my touch instantly, seeking the grounding warmth.
But as I looked down at the back of the painting, my eyes caught something else.
The tape that had held the envelope had peeled back slightly, revealing a small, hollowed-out section in the wooden frame.
And tucked inside that hollow was a secondary, much smaller piece of paper.
“Wait,” I said.
I reached down and wedged my fingernail into the groove, pulling the small slip of paper free.
It wasn’t a legal document. It was a handwritten note.
The handwriting wasn’t the lawyer’s. It wasn’t the father’s.
It was my mother’s handwriting.
Eleanor, keep the painting safe. When the boy is old enough to understand, show him the back. - Helen Sullivan.
I stopped breathing.
“My mother,” I whispered, looking up at Eleanor. “My mother gave you this painting?”
Eleanor looked at me, really looked at me for the first time. Her eyes widened as she recognized my face.
“You’re Thomas’s daughter,” Eleanor breathed.
“What does my mother have to do with this?” I demanded, my heart racing.
Eleanor swallowed hard. “Emma… your father didn’t just work in the garden. And your mother wasn’t just a nurse.”
Eleanor pointed to the little girl in the painting.
“When I was banished, I couldn’t take Clara. She was sick. She needed constant medical care. Your mother was the private nurse hired to keep her alive.”
Eleanor looked at Luca, who had raised his head, his eyes burning.
May you like
“And she’s the one who helped me escape the night Richard sent his men to kill me,” Eleanor said.
TITLE: THE SCARS WE CARRY
