Chapter 3 - The Price of Silence
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The heavy oak doors of Luca Moretti's private study clicked shut, locking the chaos of the ballroom far behind us.
I carefully helped Eleanor sit down on the plush leather sofa near the roaring stone fireplace.
Her hands were still shaking violently, so I knelt before her and began unwrapping the blood-soaked linen napkins.
Luca stood beside his massive mahogany desk, pouring amber whiskey into a crystal tumbler with trembling precision.
Across the room, Vanessa sat huddled in an armchair, clutching her bruised wrist while glaring at me with pure hatred.
"Luca, you are losing your mind over the ravings of a homeless maid," Vanessa hissed, trying to regain her regal composure.
"My father is an honorable businessman and a major contributor to the city council!"
Luca did not even blink as he slammed the crystal bottle onto the desktop, shattering the base.
"Your father is a vulture who built his fortune on the corpses of people who trusted him," Luca said coldly.
He walked over to Eleanor and set the glass of whiskey on the small side table next to her.
"Drink it, Eleanor," he said softly, his voice softening in a way that seemed alien to a notorious mob boss.
Eleanor took a small, shivering sip, the warmth bringing a faint touch of color back to her pale skin.
"Now tell me," Luca continued, crouching down to her eye level.
"Why did Vanessa bring you to my anniversary dinner tonight?"
Eleanor glanced toward Vanessa, who was shaking her head in a silent, desperate plea for silence.
"She found me three weeks ago at the Saint Teresa senior care facility on the South Side," Eleanor began quietly.
"My seven-year-old great-grandson, Leo, is dying of advanced leukemia."
I felt a lump form in my throat as I gently cleansed the cuts on Eleanor's scarred fingers with an antiseptic wipe from Luca's first-aid kit.
"The doctors found a specialized marrow treatment in Boston, but it costs two hundred thousand dollars," Eleanor sobbed.
"We didn't have two hundred dollars, let alone two hundred thousand."
Luca's jaw tightened until the muscles in his neck stood out like cords.
"Go on," he urged gently.
"Vanessa came to my room with a briefcase full of medical paperwork," Eleanor said, wiping a tear with her sleeve.
"She told me she knew I was the woman who pulled you out of the Belmont Hotel all those years ago."
Eleanor looked directly at Vanessa, whose face was completely drained of life.
"She said she would pay for Leo's treatment in full on one condition," Eleanor continued.
"I had to come to this dinner disguised as a catering waitress and surrender the original photograph of her father."
"And why make you drop the glasses?" I found myself asking, unable to contain the anger boiling in my chest.
Eleanor bowed her head in deep shame.
"She wanted to humiliate me before taking the photograph," Eleanor whispered.
"She told me that if I acted clumsy and broke the expensive crystal, she would create an excuse to have me arrested for destruction of property."
"Once I was locked in a holding cell, her father's corrupt detectives were waiting to take the evidence and make sure I never spoke again."
Luca slowly rose to his full height, towering over the room like an angel of death.
He turned his dark, predatory gaze upon his wife of three months.
"You were going to frame a seventy-year-old woman who pulled me from an inferno?" Luca asked, his voice deathly calm.
"You were going to let a seven-year-old boy die of cancer just to protect your father's filthy legacy?"
Vanessa scrambled out of her chair, falling to her knees in front of him.
"Luca, please! My father forced me into this!" she cried, grabbing at the hem of his jacket.
"He told me that if you ever found out the truth about the Belmont, you would butcher our entire family!"
Luca pulled his jacket out of her grasp with unvarnished disgust.
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"Your father was right about one thing," Luca whispered, leaning down so his lips were inches from her ear.
"He should have been terrified of me."
