Chapter 2 - THE QUESTION THAT FROZE THE ROOM
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The dining room became so silent that the hum of the central heating sounded like a roaring train.
Fifty guests sat frozen in their chairs, their silverware suspended mid-air above expensive china plates.
Luca Moretti did not move a single muscle in his broad, tattooed frame.
His hand remained resting on Oliver’s small shoulder, but his fingers had locked into an iron grip.
His dark eyes slowly lifted from his son’s navy sweater and fixed directly upon Vanessa Bellini.
Vanessa was clutching her champagne flute so tightly that the delicate crystal stem was bowing beneath her fingers.
Her face had lost every trace of color, turning the shade of freshly fallen snow.
“Who was in the house last night, Vanessa?” Luca asked, his voice deceptively soft and terrifyingly level.
Vanessa swallowed hard, her throat bobbing beneath her diamond choker necklace.
“Luca, he’s a confused child,” she stammered, offering a fragile, trembling laugh that convinced no one.
“You know how Oliver’s nightmares get when he skips his evening routine.”
“The trauma from the crash has always made him invent things.”
Oliver stepped forward, pressing his little sneakers against the polished marble floor.
“I’m not inventing it, Daddy,” Oliver said, his voice rising with a rare, desperate clarity.
“He came into my bedroom through the balcony door while Emily was downstairs getting my warm milk.”
“He had a scar across his left eyebrow and smelled like sweet tobacco.”
Luca’s jaw set so hard that a thick vein pulsed visibly against his temple.
He knew that description intimately.
Only one man in the entire Midwest underworld carried a jagged knife scar through his eyebrow and smoked clove cigarettes.
It was Enzo Moretti, Luca’s estranged first cousin and the head of logistics for the Bellini family’s shipping docks.
Luca slowly turned his head toward the arched entrance of the ballroom where his head of security, Marco, stood guard.
“Marco,” Luca commanded, not once raising his voice above a calm, conversational rumble.
“Yes, boss?” Marco replied, stepping forward with his hands folded neatly over his tactical belt.
“Lock every exterior gate on this estate.”
“Disconnect the landlines and activate the cellular signal jammers across all thirty acres.”
“Nobody leaves this dining room until I have finished speaking with my fiancée.”
A collective gasp rippled through the seated guests, several socialites instinctively checking their dead phone screens.
Vanessa took a frantic step backward, her red silk gown brushing against the heavy mahogany sideboard.
“Luca, this is insane!” Vanessa cried out, her voice cracking across the high plaster ceiling.
“You’re holding fifty of the most powerful people in Chicago hostage over a nine-year-old’s bedtime story!”
“My son was in the back seat of that Mercedes two years ago, Vanessa,” Luca said, taking two slow, deliberate steps toward her.
“The police report stated that Julianna was alone when her car plunged into the ravine off Lake Shore Drive.”
“The medical examiner told me that the impact killed her instantly and that she had been driving forty miles over the speed limit.”
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He stopped three feet away from her, towering over her trembling frame like an avenging angel carved from granite.
“Now tell me why my cousin Enzo was in my son’s bedroom asking him who was holding the steering wheel.”
