Chapter 5 - THE TICKET TO NOWHERE
“Let him go!” I screamed, dropping the wedding dress and rushing forward.
Marcus caught me by the waist, pulling me back behind the safety of Luca’s broad shoulders.
Victor Bellini smiled. He was a wealthy, gray-haired man in a tailored suit, but his eyes were pure ice.
“Hello, Luca,” Victor said smoothly, keeping the gun pressed against my brother’s temple. Leo was pale, trembling, but he locked eyes with me, silently telling me he was okay.
“Let the boy go, Victor,” Luca said. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He stood perfectly still.
“I don’t think I will,” Victor replied. He gestured toward Vanessa. “Come here, darling.”
Vanessa quickly scurried across the marble floor, hiding behind her father.
“You see, Luca,” Victor continued, “I didn’t spend twenty years orchestrating this marriage just for you to ruin it over an old dress. The Bellini family needs the Moretti wealth. And we will have it.”
“You murdered my parents,” Luca stated. It wasn’t a question.
“It was business,” Victor shrugged. “Your father wouldn’t share the port contracts. Your mother wouldn’t stop digging into his death. So, they had to go.”
He looked at me.
“And Arthur Sullivan... well, he was just in the wrong car at the wrong time. But his lovely wife proved very useful.”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” I spat.
Victor chuckled. “Your mother gave me the greatest leverage of all.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an old, faded piece of paper. He tossed it onto the floor.
It fluttered to a stop near Luca’s shoes.
It was a train ticket. Dated exactly twenty years ago. The day of the crash.
“I bought her that ticket,” Victor said. “I told her to take her daughter and leave Chicago forever. But she refused. Because she wouldn’t leave her newborn son.”
I looked at Leo. My little brother.
“Leo isn’t my father’s son,” I realized, my voice dropping to a horrified whisper.
“No, he’s not,” Victor smiled. He looked at Luca. “Tell her, Luca. Tell her what your mother’s letters say.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. He looked at the letter in his hand, then at Leo.
“My mother was pregnant when my father died,” Luca said quietly. “She went into early labor from the shock. She knew whoever killed my father would come for the baby.”
Luca turned to me, his eyes filled with a grief so deep it stole my breath.
“She gave the baby to your mother, Emma. To hide him.”
The room spun.
Leo wasn’t my brother.
Leo was Luca’s younger brother. The true heir to the other half of the Moretti empire.
Vanessa laughed maliciously. “And now, if you don’t sign the estate over to my father right now, the true Moretti heir dies tonight.”
Victor cocked the gun.
But suddenly, Leo did something unexpected.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t beg.
He reached into his pocket.
“Mom told me to give you this, Emma,” Leo said, his voice surprisingly steady.
He pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver rosary and dropped it on the floor.
May you like
Victor Bellini looked down at the rosary.
And all the color drained from his face.
