Chapter 6 - THE RED WEDDING PROTOCOL
Vanessa looked up from the floor, trembling. "W-what?"
"You heard me," Luca said, crouching down so his face was level with hers. He reached out with the barrel of his gun, using the cold steel to lift her chin until she met his dead, merciless eyes. "You wanted a grand wedding at Holy Name Cathedral. You wanted two thousand guests, television coverage, and the entire Midwest underworld watching you walk down that aisle."
"Luca, please... I was manipulated... Marco told me you were going to kill my father—"
"Silence," Luca said. The single word hit like a whip. Vanessa snapped her mouth shut.
Luca stood up, turning to Don Antonio. "Take your daughter home. Keep her inside the estate. If she touches a phone, if she leaves her bedroom, or if she takes a breath without my knowledge, I will seize every square foot of your northern freight yards before sunset."
Don Antonio nodded slowly, broken and humiliated. "Understood, Moretti."
Luca turned his back on them and looked at me. I was still leaning against the marble pillar, my clothes dusted with drywall powder, my good hand clutching the portfolio to my chest.
He walked over, extended his hand, and pulled me to my feet with effortless strength.
"Are you hit?" he asked.
"No," I whispered, dusting off my coat. "Just... my ears."
"Good. We're going back to the compound."
The ride back through the Chicago streets was executed under wartime protocol. Four black SUVs flanked our armored Maybach, sirens blaring through the afternoon traffic. Luca spent the entire drive issuing calm, surgical orders over a secure encrypted radio.
Accounts were frozen. Safehouses were raided. Marco’s known associates across the South Side were rounded up within hours. But Marco himself had vanished into the underground tunnels of the city’s industrial corridor.
When we arrived back at the estate, Luca didn't go to his office. He took me directly to the armory situated beneath the wine cellar—a concrete bunker lined with tactical monitors, server racks, and walls of high-grade weaponry.
"Sit," he ordered, pulling out an ergonomic chair in front of a bank of surveillance monitors.
I sat down, feeling the adrenaline finally beginning to wear off, leaving me trembling and exhausted. "Why are you keeping the wedding date? Marco knows you know. He's not going to show up to play best man."
"Marco won't show up in a tuxedo," Luca said, pulling up the architectural blueprints of Holy Name Cathedral on the central screen. "He'll show up with a strike team. Because he knows that if the wedding happens without an incident, Don Antonio will surrender the entire Bellini syndicate to me to save his own life. Marco's only play is to kill me publicly before the vows are exchanged."
He zoomed in on the cathedral’s mezzanine and organ loft.
"He wants a spectacle. I'm going to give him an execution."
Luca turned around, leaning against the edge of the console, crossing his arms. He looked at me closely. "You handled yourself well today, Claire. Most people who work for me scream and curl into a ball when the glass shatters."
"I grew up in foster homes in Detroit, Mr. Moretti," I said, a bitter edge slipping into my voice. "I know what it looks like when people are trying to hurt you. Screaming never stops a bullet."
A flicker of genuine respect crossed his hardened features. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small, velvet-lined box, setting it on the desk between us.
"Open it," he said.
I hesitated, then used my good right hand to lift the black lid.
Inside rested an antique platinum ring set with a brilliant, tear-shaped emerald, flanked by two baguette diamonds. It was stunning, historic, and completely out of place in a concrete bunker.
"This belonged to my grandmother," Luca said quietly. "It has been in the Moretti vault for sixty years."
I looked up, confused. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because Vanessa’s ring was sapphire. Everyone expects sapphire on the altar." Luca leaned forward, his voice low and intimate. "On Saturday morning, two hours before the ceremony, Vanessa Bellini will be quietly transferred to a secure federal safehouse under witness protection charges filed against her father’s rogue captains."
My heart skipped a beat. "Then who walks down the aisle?"
May you like
Luca’s slate eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made the breath catch in my throat.
"You do."
