Chapter 4 - The House on Lockdown
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The heavy oak doors of the sitting room clicked shut as two security guards dragged Vanessa away.
Her desperate screams echoed down the marble corridors until the sound was swallowed by the thick stone walls.
Claire let out a breath she felt she had been holding for months.
Dr. Sterling immediately went to work on Rosa, administering an intravenous saline flush loaded with high-potency antioxidants to clear her system.
Luca pulled up a footstool and sat at Rosa's feet, holding her free hand against his forehead.
"You should have come to me on day one, Mom."
"Why didn't you tell me she was doing this?"
Rosa offered a bittersweet smile, her voice still raspy from crying.
"Look at you, Luca."
"You bear the weight of three thousand families across the state on your shoulders every single day."
"Every time you walked into this house, you looked exhausted."
"You looked like the world was tearing pieces out of you."
"How could I bring domestic gossip to a son who is fighting wars on the street?"
"Protecting you is not domestic gossip, Mom," Luca said, his eyes rimmed with red.
"It is the only reason I fight those wars."
Luca turned toward Claire, his sharp gaze studying her uniform and her steady hands.
"Claire."
"Yes, Mr. Moretti?" Claire replied, standing upright.
"You've been in this house for four months, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"My head of domestic staff hired you from an agency on the North Side."
"That's correct, sir."
"And when my mother complained about the tea, you didn't think she was crazy?"
Claire shook her head gently.
"Mrs. Moretti has sharper eyes than anyone in this house."
"When she talked about her childhood in Sicily, or the way your father ran his business, her memory was crystal clear."
"A woman does not have vivid forty-year-old memories and then suddenly forget where she placed her slippers five minutes later."
"Vanessa was deliberately moving things."
"I caught her moving Mrs. Moretti's glasses to the library bookshelf."
"I saw her hide Mrs. Moretti's rosary inside a flower vase."
"She was staging an illness to convince the staff and the doctors."
Luca stood up, towering over Claire, his presence commanding absolute authority.
"You risked your job to protect an old woman who couldn't protect herself."
"I risked my job because it was the right thing to do, Mr. Moretti," Claire said without flinching.
"Nobody deserves to be driven mad in their own home."
Luca gave a slow, respectful nod.
"Starting tonight, you are no longer a maid."
"You are my mother's personal chief of staff."
"Your salary is tripled."
"You will answer only to me and my mother."
"And wherever my mother goes, you go."
"Thank you, Mr. Moretti," Claire said, feeling a wave of relief wash over her.
Marco knocked twice and entered the room, holding Vanessa’s unlocked smartphone inside a transparent evidence bag.
"Boss," Marco said grimly.
"Our tech specialist just decrypted her messages."
"She wasn't running this scheme alone."
Luca took the evidence bag, his eyes narrowing into cold slits.
"Who is the partner, Marco?"
"Julian Vance," Marco replied.
Luca went completely rigid.
Julian Vance was not just any attorney.
He was the chief legal counsel for the rival Valenti crime family, and a man who had shaken Luca's hand at a charity gala only three nights ago.
"Julian Vance," Luca repeated, the name tasting like poison on his tongue.
"He didn't just want my mother's twelve million."
"He is trying to buy our supply lines out from under us."
Rosa sat up straight in her chair, the weakness in her posture vanishing entirely.
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"Then call the family, Luca," Rosa commanded with the steel of a true mafia matriarch.
"Nobody takes what belongs to the Morettis."
