Chapter 4 - A Late Night Confession in the Rain
The third-floor guest suite was warm, quiet, and far removed from the cold tensions of the ground floor.
I helped Dr. Adler hang his coat, made sure he had fresh water and tea, and showed him how to use the room’s internal phone line if he needed anything.
“He likes you,” the doctor said quietly as I adjusted the blanket over the armchair.
I paused.
“Mr. Moretti doesn't know me, Doctor. I’ve just been serving his coffee for six weeks.”
“Luca’s father had a rule,” Dr. Adler said softly, looking toward the window where rain beat against the glass. “He said you judge a man’s true allies not by how they act when the sun shines, but by who stays beside you in the mud. Tonight, you stood in the mud with an old stranger. Luca doesn't forget that.”
I gave him a modest smile, wished him goodnight, and locked the suite door carefully behind me.
When I returned to the ground floor study, the house was dead silent.
Luca was sitting at the massive oak desk, surrounded by stacks of financial records, property deeds, and old legal contracts.
A single green banker’s lamp cast a warm glow across his sharp features.
“Close the door, Nora.”
I pulled it shut and stood respectfully near the entrance.
“Come here,” he said, gesturing to the leather chair opposite him. “Sit.”
I sat.
Up close, without the formal mask he wore in front of the city’s elite, Luca looked exhausted. There were faint lines around his eyes, and a shadow of grief clung to his features.
“Why do you work here?” he asked suddenly.
I blinked.
“I needed the income, sir.”
“Your file says you worked at St. Jude Memorial for four years as an administrative clerk. Why did you leave?”
I swallowed hard.
“My mother was diagnosed with stage three lymphoma eighteen months ago. Her treatments required full-time care. The hospital hours were too rigid, and the bills piled up faster than my salary could cover them. This house paid three times the market rate for household staff.”
Luca leaned back in his chair.
“Is your mother doing better?”
“She’s in remission,” I said, feeling a warmth in my chest at the thought of her. “She’s still weak, but she’s alive. My brother Leo just started college. So every dollar matters.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“Vanessa cut three of the household staff two weeks ago without my approval. She told them they were redundant.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “One of them was Mrs. Gable. She had been with your family for ten years.”
“I reinstated her pension yesterday,” Luca said. “Vanessa didn't know.”
He picked up the old silver watch, resting it between his palms.
“My father died of a heart attack fifteen years ago,” Luca continued, his voice lowering into a gravelly whisper. “At least, that was the coroner’s report. But my father never trusted doctors—except Samuel Adler. And tonight, Samuel brought me the proof that my father was being poisoned slowly by the Bellinis before they orchestrated his final collapse.”
My breath caught.
“They poisoned him?”
“Victor Bellini controlled the pharmaceutical distribution for our logistics hubs. He had access to compounds that mimicked cardiac arrest.”
Luca looked straight into my eyes.
“Vanessa was twenty-two when she approached me three years ago. She made me believe that our families needed to unite to keep peace in Chicago. I thought I was honoring my father’s legacy by marrying into the Bellinis.”
He closed his fist over the watch.
“Instead, I invited the murderers into my home.”
“What will you do?” I asked, realizing the magnitude of the danger we were sitting in.
“I’m going to tear their empire down piece by piece,” Luca said calmly. “And I need people around me who cannot be bought.”
He slid an envelope across the desk toward me.
“What is this, Mr. Moretti?”
“A retainer. Five thousand dollars. From tonight on, your title is no longer junior maid. You are my personal administrative aide in this house. You report directly to me. No one—not Vanessa, not her brothers—gives you orders.”
I stared at the envelope, then at him.
May you like
“Why me?”
“Because when Vanessa threatened you tonight, you didn't flinch,” Luca said softly. “You protected an old man who had nothing to give you. That makes you rarer than anyone who sat at my dining table tonight.”
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