Chapter 4 - The Shadow on the Porch
The warehouse in Cicero had burned down to its concrete slab by four in the morning, casting a dull orange glare against the low-hanging clouds on Chicago's west side. I knew this not because I had seen it, but because Marco had returned to the estate smelling of ash, diesel fuel, and damp soot.
By seven o’clock, the rain had turned into a steady, gray mist that clung to the manicured lawns of the Moretti estate. From the window of Sophie’s bedroom, I watched two black SUVs idle near the wrought-iron front gates. Men in heavy dark overcoats paced the perimeter wall every twenty minutes, their silhouettes rigid against the weeping willows.
Inside the house, an eerie calm had settled. Mrs. Gable had not looked me in the eye when she brought up a silver tray of scrambled eggs and fresh toast for Sophie; the head housekeeper had already heard that I had been moved from the staff roster to an untouchable status by the don himself. The servants spoke in hushed, nervous whispers in the hallways, glancing over their shoulders as if Antonio Bellini’s hitmen were already hiding behind the heavy velvet draperies.
Sophie sat on the edge of the ottoman, wearing a simple gray knit sweater and denim jeans. She sat very still while I parted her dark hair down the middle, separating the strands into three even sections.
“Claire?” she asked softly, her eyes watching mine in the vanity mirror.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Are the bad men going to come here?”
My fingers paused for a fraction of a second before continuing the rhythm of the braid. “Your dad has the best security in the city, Sophie. Nobody is getting past those gates. He won't let anything happen to you.”
“Vanessa said my dad was a monster,” Sophie whispered, looking down at her sneakers. “She told me that monsters always end up alone, and that if I didn't help her make him look like a normal businessman, people would come and take him away to prison.”
A cold anger flared in my chest. Vanessa Bellini hadn't just been trying to erase Sarah’s memory; she had been systematically terrorizing an eleven-year-old child, using her father's dangerous reputation as a weapon to force her compliance.
“Your father loves you more than his own life,” I said firmly, securing the base of the braid. I picked up the blue ribbon from the vanity tray and carefully knotted it around the ends, smoothing down the edges. “A man who loves his daughter like that could never be a monster to her. You remember that, okay?”
Sophie turned around on the ottoman and threw her arms around my waist, burying her face into my sweater. I held her close, stroking her back, realizing with a sudden, fierce protectiveness that I would do whatever it took to keep the light in this little girl’s eyes from being snuffed out by the monsters who truly ran this city.
The door to the bedroom opened with a sharp click.
Luca walked in, already dressed for the day in a charcoal three-piece suit, his tie knotted in a perfect Windsor, a long wool coat draped over his forearm. He looked rested, despite having been awake all night; the only giveaway was the faint shadow of dark stubble along his hard jawline.
When he saw Sophie hugging me, his eyes softened, a faint trace of relief crossing his face before his professional mask slid back into place.
“Sophie,” he said. “Go down to the kitchen. Marco has two boxes of those blueberry pastries you like from the bakery on Taylor Street.”
Sophie’s eyes lit up. “The ones with the lemon sugar?”
“Every single one of them,” Luca replied, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Go on. Take your time.”
She darted out of the room like a shot, her sneakers squeaking on the polished hardwood hallway.
Once the sound of her footsteps faded down the grand staircase, Luca stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. He looked at me, his gaze sweeping over my face, taking in the dark circles under my eyes.
“You didn't sleep,” he noted.
“Neither did you, Mr. Moretti.”
“I’m used to it. You aren't.” He pulled an envelope from the breast pocket of his coat and set it on the vanity table beside my brush. “Marco went to your mother’s house in Bridgeport at dawn.”
My stomach dropped into freefall. The air vanished from my lungs. “What happened? Is she hurt? Luca, please—”
Without realizing it, I had used his first name. I had reached out and grabbed his forearm, my fingers digging through the expensive wool of his suit sleeve.
Luca didn't pull away. Instead, his other hand came up, covering mine. His palm was warm, rough with calluses, and completely steady.
“Breathe, Claire,” he ordered softly, his voice grounding me like an anchor dropped into a tempest. “Your mother is fine. She’s safe. She’s already in the back of an armored Yukon, thirty minutes away from this estate.”
I let out a shuddering breath, my knees trembling so violently that for a second, I thought I was going to collapse. Luca’s grip on my hand tightened, holding me upright effortlessly.
“Then... why do you look like that?” I managed to ask, staring at his dark eyes.
Luca released my hand slowly, though his fingers lingered on my wrist for half a beat longer than necessary. He pointed at the envelope on the table.
“Because Antonio Bellini’s men were already there,” he said coldly.
The world seemed to spin. “What?”
“They didn't break in,” Luca explained, his voice flat, devoid of emotion—which made it a thousand times more terrifying. “They were sitting in a gray sedan across the street from her porch. When Marco pulled up, they drove off. But before they left, they nailed something to your mother’s front door.”
With trembling fingers, I reached over and picked up the envelope. I pulled out a glossy photograph.
It was a picture of my mother’s small porch. Tacked to the screen door with a long iron roofing nail was a white silk wedding corsage—the exact same corsages that were supposed to be handed out to the bridesmaids at Luca and Vanessa’s wedding. Tied around the white rose was a thin strip of black electrical tape.
A message. In the language of the syndicate, a black ribbon around a bridal flower meant only one thing: *A funeral before the altar.*
“They know where she lives,” I whispered, horror coating the back of my tongue like ash. “They know who she is. They’re going to kill her because of me.”
“Nobody is going to kill her,” Luca snapped, his voice cutting through my rising panic like a straight razor. He took a step toward me, his frame filling my entire field of vision, eclipsing the terror in the room. “Look at me, Claire.”
I looked up. His eyes were burning with an intensity so fierce it felt like heat on my skin.
“You protected my daughter when you had nothing to gain and everything to lose,” Luca said, each word deliberate, hammered into the air between us like iron spikes. “Do you think I am the kind of man who lets the people who guard my child suffer for it? Antonio Bellini thinks he can intimidate me by threatening an elderly woman on 31st Street. He thinks he can make me crawl back to his niece on my knees to beg for mercy.”
He reached out, his thumb brushing against my cheek, catching a stray tear that I hadn't even realized had fallen. The tenderness of the gesture was so completely at war with the violence in his eyes that it made my heart stop.
“I am going to meet Antonio at noon at the neutral club on Michigan Avenue,” Luca whispered. “He wants a sit-down. He thinks we are going to negotiate the terms of a truce.”
“Are you?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
Luca let his hand drop from my cheek, his fingers curling into a fist at his side.
May you like
“No,” he said, his voice dropping into the absolute zero of a winter grave. “I am going to show him what happens when you threaten the Moretti house.”
***
