Chapter 2 - The Ice and the Fire
“Don’t touch it, sir!”The words flew out of my mouth before I could censor them. Servants didn't yell at Luca Moretti. People in Chicago didn't raise their voices to him unless they had a death wish.Luca paused, his large hands hovering just inches from the laces of my cheap work shoe. He looked up. In the gray drizzle, his dark hair was beaded with water, his sharp, aristocratic features framed against the gloomy afternoon sky.“If you try to walk on that foot to reach the staff quarters, you will tear whatever ligament is currently hanging by a thread,” he said, perfectly reasonable, completely terrifying. “Unlace the shoe, or I will cut it off.”I swallowed hard. With trembling hands, I bent forward and pulled at the soaked laces. The moment I loosened the knot and tried to ease the leather collar over my heel, a bolt of agony shot straight up my shin. I gasped, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes.“Stop,” Luca murmured.He didn't wait for permission. His long fingers gently took hold of the heel, his other hand bracing my calf. With a steady, practiced movement, he slid the shoe off.The sight of my ankle made my stomach twist. It wasn't just swollen; it was misshapen. A dark plum-colored hematoma had blossomed across the lateral bone, puffing the skin tight and shiny.Luca’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He touched the skin just above the swelling with two fingers. His touch was remarkably gentle for a man whose knuckles bore faint, pale scars of past violence.“She didn't just shove you,” Luca said softly. His eyes rose to mine. “You fell from the retaining wall path, didn't you?”“It was the edge of the terrace stone,” I confessed, shivering as another gust of autumn wind swept through the garden. “The drop is about two feet into the lower flowerbed. When she pushed me, my heel caught the lip.”“And you climbed back up.”“I had to bring Bruno inside.”Luca looked down at the Cane Corso. Bruno had rested his heavy chin squarely on Luca’s knee, looking back and forth between his master and me with deep, soulful eyes.“He stayed with you the whole time?” Luca asked.“He didn't leave my side. He helped me pull myself up by his collar.”A faint, almost imperceptible shadow of a smile touched Luca’s lips, then vanished just as quickly. “He’s a better judge of character than I am.”Before I could process what he meant by that, Luca stood up in one fluid motion. He reached down, slipped one arm behind my shoulders and the other beneath my knees, and lifted me effortlessly off the bench.A squeak of panic escaped my lips. “Mr. Moretti! What are you doing? I’m filthy! My clothes are wet!”“You’re freezing, and your foot is broken,” he said, turning toward the main house. “Hold on to my neck if you don't want to fall.”I had no choice. Terrified of dropping, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He was solid as iron. He smelled like expensive wool, cedarwood, and the crisp, ozone bite of rain. Bruno trotted alongside us, his tail giving a single, approving wag as Luca pushed open the heavy terrace doors with his shoulder.The warmth of the Moretti mansion hit us instantly. We entered the private study—a room strictly off-limits to junior staff. Floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, a massive marble fireplace crackled with roaring birch logs, and thick Persian rugs muffled our entry.Luca didn't carry me toward the servant’s corridor. He carried me straight to the deep leather chesterfield sofa facing the fire and set me down gently against the cushions.“Stay here,” he said.“Mr. Moretti, Mrs. Gable will fire me if she sees me on this furniture—”“Mrs. Gable works for me, Emma. No one fires anyone in this house without my word.”He crossed the room to his desk, picked up the antique brass landline, and punched a two-digit extension.“Marco,” Luca said into the receiver. “Call Dr. Rossi. Tell him to come to the estate immediately through the side gate. And find Mrs. Gable. Have her bring dry clothes, a blanket, and an ice pack to my study.”He paused, listening to whoever was on the other end.“No,” Luca said coldly. “Isabella is leaving. Make sure she is off the property within thirty minutes. If she refuses, have security escort her car to the gate.”He hung up without waiting for a reply.The sheer finality of it left me dizzy. The Rossi-Falcone alliance was legendary in Chicago. Isabella’s family practically owned the city’s concrete suppliers; Luca’s family owned the real estate and the political machinery. A broken engagement wasn’t just a domestic quarrel; it was the geopolitical equivalent of a declaration of war.Luca walked back toward the fire, pulling off his damp suit jacket and tossing it over the back of an armchair. He rolled up his crisp white shirt sleeves, revealing dark ink curling around his forearms—intricate, old-world tattoos that hinted at the Moretti family's blood-soaked history.He grabbed a low wooden footstool, brought it over to the sofa, and carefully placed a soft throw pillow on top of it. Then, he lifted my swollen foot and rested it elevated on the pillow.“Why didn't you tell me the moment it happened?” he asked, pulling up an armchair opposite me and sitting down.I stared at my hands in my lap. My fingers were still red and numb from the cold. “I couldn't.”“Because you were afraid of Isabella?”“Because I’m a maid, Mr. Moretti,” I said, meeting his gaze despite the knot of fear in my throat. “Girls like me don't accuse women like Isabella Rossi of assault. If I complained, I’d be labeled a liar, fired without a reference, and blacklisted from every agency in the city.”Luca leaned back, steepling his fingers. His dark eyes searched my face with an unnerving intensity.“You think that little of my judgment?”“I don't know you, sir,” I answered honestly. “I only know what everyone knows. You don't tolerate mistakes. You don't tolerate disruption. Isabella is your fiancée. I am someone who earns sixteen dollars an hour cleaning your guest rooms.”A heavy quiet fell between us, broken only by the crackle of a log shifting in the hearth.“My father arranged that engagement three weeks before he died,” Luca said, his voice quiet, almost reflective. “He believed that tying our family to the Rossi bloodline would bring peace between the north and south sides of the river. He thought Isabella was a lady.”He looked toward the window, where the rain was beating harder against the glass.“A real lady doesn't shove a girl off a ledge over a silk scarf,” Luca added, turning his gaze back to me. “And a real man doesn't allow a snake in his house just because her father owns the docks.”Before I could reply, the study doors burst open.Mrs. Gable bustled in, her usually rigid, unflappable face pale with shock. Behind her, Marco—Luca’s chief of security, a towering man with a scar splitting his left eyebrow—stood guard in the doorway.“Sir!” Mrs. Gable gasped, taking in the sight of me curled up on the master’s leather sofa, covered in mud, with Luca sitting beside me in his shirtsleeves. “I—I brought the supplies. What on earth happened?”“Emma had an accident on the terrace,” Luca said, rising smoothly to his feet. His tone was brisk, completely professional once again. “Her ankle needs to be stabilized until Dr. Rossi arrives. Help her change out of the wet jacket.”“Of course, Mr. Moretti,” Mrs. Gable said hurriedly, setting down a basin, towels, and an ice pack.Luca walked toward the door, then stopped beside Marco.“Is Isabella gone?” Luca asked.“Her car just cleared the outer perimeter, boss,” Marco answered in a low, gravelly voice. “She was screaming. Said her father will have your head on a pike before the week is out.”Luca didn't even flinch.“Tell the gate guards to double the shift,” Luca instructed calmly. “And Marco?”“Yeah, boss?”“Put two men on Emma’s mother’s apartment in Bridgeport. Starting right now.”My heart stopped.I looked up from the sofa, my breath catching in my throat. How did he know where my mother lived? I had never put that address on my employment application; I had used a post office box to keep my family safe from the debt collectors my brother Leo had left behind.Luca caught my terrified expression from across the room.He didn't offer an explanation. He just held my gaze for three agonizing seconds, his dark eyes carrying an unreadable promise.“Nobody touches what belongs in this house, Emma,” he said quietly. “Rest your foot. We have a long night ahead of us.”***
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