Chapter 3 - THE BOY IN THE GREENHOUSE
Luca stared at the crayon drawing in his hands.
The clumsy letters. The bright yellow sun in the corner. The pure innocence of a child’s love, weaponized by the woman wearing his diamond ring downstairs.
He had ordered men broken for lesser insults. He had dismantled rival syndicates for crossing his boundaries. But using a six-year-old child to enforce a lie?
That required a special kind of monster.
"Where is the boy right now?" Luca asked. His voice was no longer quiet. It was a low, terrifying rumble that commanded absolute obedience.
Natalie wiped her wet cheeks, wincing as she shifted her weight on her injured ankle. "He's safe. I pulled him out of school this morning when I saw Vanessa going through my mail. I hid him."
Answer one: Leo wasn't currently at the school where Vanessa could easily grab him.
Open two: Why was Vanessa going through a housemaid's mail in the first place? And how did a billionaire's fiancée even know Natalie had a nephew?
"Hid him where?" Luca demanded. "Natalie, my estate is heavily guarded, but if she has men working for her on the outside—"
"He's not outside," Natalie interrupted, her voice shaking. "He's here. On the property."
Luca blinked. "Where?"
"The old Victorian greenhouse," she whispered. "The one past the rose gardens. Nobody goes in there because the heating system is broken. I gave him my phone and told him to play games under the potting tables until I came to get him. I was packing this bag to go get him and run."
Luca didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the canvas duffel bag off the bed and threw it over his shoulder. Then, without a word, he stooped down and easily scooped Natalie into his arms.
She gasped, her face flushing crimson. "Mr. Moretti! Put me down! I can walk—"
"You couldn't walk in the dining room, and your ankle is the size of a baseball," Luca said flatly, carrying her out into the hallway. "If we're going to get to your nephew before Vanessa realizes you aren't in your room, we do it my way."
They moved through the servant's corridors, avoiding the main halls where the party guests were wandering. The night air hit them like a wall of ice as they slipped out the back terrace doors. The Chicago wind was brutal, but Luca’s arms were a furnace, holding Natalie securely against his chest as he strode across the manicured lawns.
The old greenhouse loomed in the darkness, its glass panes reflecting the moonlight. It was massive, overgrown with wild ivy and forgotten exotic plants.
Luca kicked the rusted door open and set Natalie down gently on a wooden bench just inside.
"Leo?" Natalie called out, her voice echoing in the damp, earthy air. "Leo, baby, it's Auntie Nat!"
Silence.
Panic seized Natalie's face. She tried to stand, but her ankle gave out. Luca caught her shoulder, pressing her back down. "Stay."
He unbuttoned his suit jacket, his hand resting near his sidearm. He moved silently down the center aisle, his eyes scanning the dense foliage.
"Leo," Luca called out, making his voice as gentle as a man of his reputation could manage. "Your aunt sent me. We brought your bag. We're going to get you somewhere warm."
A rustle from beneath a massive fern.
Then, a tiny voice. "Do you have the secret word?"
Luca stopped. He looked back at Natalie, who offered a tearful, shaky smile.
"Pancakes," Natalie called out.
Slowly, a small figure crawled out from under the wooden potting tables.
He was small for six years old, wearing a faded blue sweater and holding an iPad tightly to his chest. His dark hair was messy, and he was shivering.
But when the moonlight caught the boy’s face, Luca stopped breathing.
Reversal: Luca had expected a boy who looked like Natalie. But the child staring up at him had striking, piercing green eyes. Eyes that were identical to the woman who had locked Eleanor in the cooler.
Vanessa’s eyes.
Luca looked back at Natalie, his mind racing. "Natalie. You said he's your nephew. Your sister's son?"
Natalie swallowed hard. She looked away, her hands gripping the edge of the bench. "No," she whispered. "I lied. He's not my sister's."
Luca slowly knelt down to be eye-level with the boy. "Hey, buddy. I'm Luca. Let's get you back to your mom."
"She's not my mommy," Leo said matter-of-factly, stepping out into the aisle. "She's my Auntie Nat. A nice man gave me to her when I was a baby."
Luca felt a chill that had nothing to do with the broken greenhouse windows.
He reached out to help the boy up, and as he did, Leo's sweater sleeve pushed up.
Wrapped around the boy's tiny wrist was a thick, braided leather bracelet. It was old, worn, and fastened with a unique, heavily tarnished silver clasp shaped like a crescent moon.
Luca’s heart slammed against his ribs.
Cliffhanger: He grabbed the boy's wrist gently but firmly, pulling the bracelet closer to the light.
"Leo," Luca choked out, the blood draining from his face. "Where did you get this bracelet?"
Leo blinked, looking confused. "It was in my backpack. Auntie Nat said it came with me when the nice man gave me away."
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Luca stared at the crescent moon clasp.
It wasn’t just a piece of jewelry. It was the exact bracelet Luca’s younger brother, Marco, had been wearing the night he was killed in a hit-and-run accident six years ago.
