Chapter 2 - THE SHATTERED ENGAGEMENT
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The silence inside the grand dining room was heavy enough to suffocate everyone present.
Thirty-two wealthy guests sat frozen like stone statues under the golden chandeliers.
Luca Moretti did not blink.
His dark eyes remained fixed entirely on the trembling woman in the crimson silk dress.
Vanessa Bellini tried to take another step toward the mahogany double doors.
Daniel, Luca’s head of private security, did not budge an inch from his post.
His broad chest blocked her escape route completely.
Antonio gripped his silver-topped cane and stood up on his own two feet.
He did not wobble.
He did not look like a man whose mind was slipping away into darkness.
He looked like the patriarch who had ruled Chicago’s underworld for forty years before handing the reins to his son.
“Tell him, Vanessa,” Antonio said, his gravelly voice slicing through the chilled air.
“Tell Luca what your father carried into this very house seventeen years ago.”
Vanessa’s lips parted, but only a dry gasp came out.
Luca took three deliberate steps toward his fiancée.
Every step sounded like a death knell against the imported marble floors.
“My mother disappeared on a Tuesday in July,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
“I spent three days tearing this city apart with my bare hands looking for her.”
He stopped inches away from Vanessa, towering over her.
“When she returned, she had bruises on her wrists and wouldn’t speak a single word for two months.”
Vanessa pressed her red clutch against her chest like a useless shield.
“Luca, I was just a child back then,” she whimpered, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know what my father was doing.”
“You knew enough to steal my father’s hearing aids tonight,” Luca countered coldly.
“You knew enough to hire an unlicensed psychiatrist to forge a dementia diagnosis against Antonio Moretti.”
The guests gasped in unison.
Whispers broke out among the city council members and syndicate lieutenants at the table.
“You wanted him locked away in a private facility before our wedding day,” Luca continued, connecting every piece of the puzzle.
“Because you knew the moment he spoke at the reception, your family’s secret would die.”
Antonio took a slow breath.
“Her father brought Caterina back that morning,” the old man revealed, looking at his son.
“Marco Bellini walked your mother through the kitchen doors with blood on her collar.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his neck jumped.
“Marco claimed he had rescued her from an ambush,” Antonio continued.
“He demanded twenty percent of our shipping docks as a reward for saving her life.”
The old man turned his piercing gaze toward Vanessa.
“Little Vanessa was sitting in the front passenger seat of Marco’s car, holding my wife’s stolen diamond necklace.”
Vanessa burst into frantic sobs.
“My father forced me to hold it!”
“You kept that necklace in your jewelry box for seventeen years,” Antonio snapped.
“I saw it around your neck at the charity gala last winter.”
Luca stared at the woman he had promised to marry.
Disgust washed over his sharp, handsome features.
Slowly, he reached out and took Vanessa’s left hand.
She looked up with a flicker of desperate hope in her eyes.
Luca did not kiss her hand.
Instead, he slid the seven-carat emerald-cut diamond ring off her finger.
The ring made a sharp click as he tossed it onto the linen tablecloth.
It rolled directly into an empty wineglass.
“The engagement is over,” Luca announced to the entire room.
Vanessa let out a choked scream.
“You cannot do this to me, Luca!”
“Daniel,” Luca said, ignoring her completely.
“Take Miss Bellini to the private holding suite downstairs.”
“Luca, please!” she shrieked as Daniel gripped her arm with iron fingers.
“My father will destroy you for this!”
“Let him try,” Luca whispered.
May you like
As Vanessa was dragged through the double doors, Luca turned his dark eyes across the room.
His gaze swept past the terrified guests and landed directly on me.
