Chapter 2 - The Ghost of the Moretti BloodlineMatteo Moretti was dead.
Everyone in Chicago knew that.
Two years ago, a car bomb tore through his Cadillac on Lake Shore Drive.
The police found dental records.
They found charred bone fragments.
Luca had mourned him for six months.
Then he slaughtered the rival crew responsible.
Or so he thought.
Now, Vanessa was telling him his dead brother was breathing.
Luca didn't yell.
He didn't scream.
The air in the room simply dropped below freezing.
“Say that name again,” Luca whispered.
His voice sounded like scraping iron.
Vanessa shrank back against the limestone mantelpiece.
“Matteo reached out to me four months ago,” she stammered.
“He told me he had to hide.”
“From whom?” Luca asked.
“From you!” Vanessa cried.
The dining guests sat frozen like statues.
Nobody dared to touch their cutlery.
Nobody dared to breathe.
Michael Torres stood glued to the hardwood floor.
I stayed pressed against the side wall.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“He said you set the car bomb, Luca,” Vanessa wept.
Luca’s left eye twitched.
It was the only tell he had before violence.
“My brother,” Luca said, deadly calm, “was my blood.”
“He had burns, Luca! Half his face was ruined!”
“And you hid him in my hotel?”
“He said he had proof!”
Luca turned his head slowly.
His eyes locked onto me.
“Emma.”
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Did you look at the service records for 1408?”
I cleared my throat.
My hands shook, but I kept my voice steady.
“I did, sir.”
“Was food ordered?”
“Every single day,” I answered.
Vanessa shot me a look of pure murder.
I didn't look down.
“What kind of food?” Luca asked.
“Room service,” I said.
“Always at night. Always rare steaks, black coffee, and unbanded cigarettes.”
Luca closed his eyes for a split second.
His chest rose and fell in one heavy motion.
That was Matteo’s exact breakfast.
Luca knew it instantly.
“Who delivered it?” Luca asked Michael.
Michael was frantically swiping through his tablet.
“A private courier,” Michael answered.
“Hired under Miss Bellini’s corporate account.”
Luca turned back to Vanessa.
He reached out his hand.
He didn't grab her.
He simply held out his palm.
“The ring,” Luca said.
Vanessa gasped.
“Luca, no! Our families—”
“Take off the ring, Vanessa.”
Her hands shook violently as she twisted the seven-carat emerald off her finger.
She dropped it into his open palm.
Luca didn't even look at the stone.
He tossed it into the roaring fireplace behind her.
The platinum hissed in the embers.
Several women at the table gasped.
“Get out of my house,” Luca said.
“Luca, hear me out!”
“If you are still on my property in sixty seconds,” Luca said quietly, “I will forget you are a woman.”
Vanessa grabbed her designer clutch.
She glared at me with pure hatred as she passed.
“You’re dead, maid,” she hissed under her breath.
She ran down the hallway.
The heavy oak front doors slammed shut.
Luca stood in the center of the grand room.
The thirty guests watched him in terrified silence.
“Dinner is over,” Luca announced.
The guests stood up instantly.
They didn't say goodbye.
They didn't grab their coats.
Within two minutes, the dining room was completely empty.
Only three people remained.
Luca.
Michael.
And me.
Luca walked over to the side bar.
He poured himself three fingers of bourbon.
He drank it in one swallow.
Then he looked at Michael.
“Call the hotel security detail.”
“Already done, boss,” Michael said.
“Tell them to lock down the fourteenth floor.”
Michael paused.
His screen flashed with an incoming alert.
His face turned completely gray.
“Boss...”
Luca turned around.
“What?”
“The fire alarm just went off in Suite 1408.”
Luca set his glass down so hard the stem shattered.
Bourbon dripped across the polished mahogany.
“Get the car,” Luca growled.
Then he pointed a bloody finger straight at me.
“You’re coming with us, Emma.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Me, sir?”
“You know the system better than my managers,” Luca said.
“And right now, you’re the only person in this city who hasn't lied to me.”
He pulled a heavy black pistol from his waistband.
May you like
He racked the slide with a clean, metallic clack.
“Let's go meet my dead brother.”
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