Chapter 9 - A Daughter's Worst Nightmare|
I had never hated anyone as much as I hated Victor Bellini at that moment.
Not because he was powerful.
Not because he had destroyed Luca's family.
But because he had taken my mother, a woman who had spent her entire life helping people who rarely helped her back.
I couldn't stop shaking.
Luca gently took the phone from my hand.
“Victor.”
The voice on the other end became amused.
“Luca.”
“You've made your point.”
“Have I?”
“Let Evelyn Sullivan go.”
Victor laughed.
“Since when do you care about a maid's mother?”
Luca looked at me.
“Since I learned what happens when men like us treat innocent people as disposable.”
For a moment, Victor said nothing.
Then he spoke coldly.
“You've become sentimental.”
“No.”
Luca's voice hardened.
“I've become tired of burying people.”
Victor ended the call.
I collapsed into a chair.
The room seemed to spin.
My mother was somewhere in Chicago with a man who had imprisoned another human being for thirty years.
I imagined her frightened.
Alone.
Calling for me.
And I couldn't do anything.
Luca knelt beside me.
“Claire, look at me.”
I couldn't.
“Please.”
I finally raised my eyes.
“We're going to find her.”
I wanted to believe him.
But promises were easy.
My mother had spent my childhood teaching me that the only promises worth trusting were the ones people kept when keeping them was difficult.
I wiped my tears.
“Then we do this properly.”
Luca nodded.
“No secret retaliation.”
“No private army.”
“No one gets hurt because we're angry.”
He stared at me.
“You're asking a lot from a man like me.”
“I'm asking you to be better than Victor.”
For several seconds, he remained silent.
Then he stood.
“Maya needs to hear the recording.”
I handed him my phone.
The next hour became a blur of investigators, telephone records, and frightened conversations.
Maya arranged an emergency response to the kidnapping.
She also reviewed the security arrangements surrounding my mother's apartment.
One of Tomas's men had been attacked.
The other had been lured downstairs by a false emergency call.
Someone had known their exact location.
Someone had known their names.
And someone had known when they would be alone.
Tomas looked furious.
“This wasn't random.”
Luca stared at him.
“Sal.”
Tomas said nothing.
Neither did I.
But suddenly, Dominic's warning made perfect sense.
Salvatore Russo had access to the Moretti family's security arrangements.
He had attended the wedding.
He knew about Margaret.
And he knew where Tomas had taken my mother.
Maya asked Luca to remain in the room while investigators examined the possible leak.
I sat by the window, holding my mother's scarf.
She had left it in my handbag the previous week because she'd worried I would be cold on the bus home.
It still smelled faintly of her lavender soap.
That was when Vanessa arrived.
I almost shouted when I saw her.
She looked at my tear-streaked face.
Then at Luca.
“What happened?”
“Your father kidnapped Claire's mother,” Luca said.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
“He wouldn't.”
I stood so quickly that my chair scraped the floor.
“Don't.”
Vanessa looked at me.
“Claire—”
“Don't tell me what he wouldn't do.”
My voice broke.
“He kept a man imprisoned for thirty years.”
“He threatened Margaret.”
“He tried to kill us.”
“And now he has my mother.”
Vanessa began crying.
“I didn't know.”
“Then start helping us learn what you do know.”
For the first time, she didn't argue.
She sat down.
“My father owns several properties through companies that aren't in his name.”
“He uses private offices at the Harrington Hotel.”
“He also keeps a suite there under an employee's name.”
Maya immediately approached.
“Do you have the employee's name?”
Vanessa nodded.
“Peter Wexler.”
“And the suite?”
“Seventeen-four.”
Maya wrote it down.
“Anything else?”
Vanessa looked toward Luca.
“My father made me install an application on my phone.”
“He said it was for family security.”
“He could see my location.”
“He could read certain messages.”
Luca's face darkened.
“Did you use it to track me?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
Then she hesitated.
“But I think he used it to find Margaret after the wedding.”
Maya asked for the phone.
Vanessa handed it over.
As investigators worked, Luca stepped outside onto the hospital balcony.
I followed him.
Chicago's distant lights glowed beneath the cloudy sky.
For several seconds, we stood without speaking.
Then Luca said something I hadn't expected.
“Victor is not the only criminal in this story.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“I've threatened people.”
“I've allowed businesses to operate through fear.”
“I've convinced myself that because I didn't do what Victor did, I was somehow a better man.”
He turned toward me.
“But men like him taught me how to survive.”
“Then stop surviving that way,” I whispered.
He looked at me.
“I don't know whether the law will forgive me.”
“That's not what matters.”
“What does?”
“That you stop giving yourself reasons to hurt people.”
He lowered his head.
Then he nodded.
“When this is over, I'm telling Maya everything.”
I believed him.
Not because he was a powerful man making a grand promise.
But because for the first time, Luca Moretti seemed willing to lose his power.
My phone suddenly vibrated.
A video message appeared from an unknown number.
My hands shook as I opened it.
My mother sat in a chair beneath a bright ceiling light.
Her wrists were tied loosely in front of her.
She looked frightened but unharmed.
Victor stood behind her.
“Claire,” he said into the camera.
“You have two hours.”
Then my mother lifted her head.
And in a voice that broke my heart, she whispered something almost too quietly to hear.
“Sweetheart, don't give him anything.”
Victor switched off the recording.
But not before the camera captured a small detail.
Behind my mother was a framed photograph of the Chicago River.
May you like
And beneath it were three words embossed in gold.
The Harrington Hotel.
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