Chapter 5 - The Boss on His Knees
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When Luca stepped into his mother’s lavish bedroom, the fierce, terrifying mafia don vanished entirely.
I was still sitting beside Rosa, carefully wrapping a sterile white bandage around her swollen, abraded right ankle.
The moment Luca saw the bandages and the bruised pallor of his mother’s face, his tall frame visibly sagged.
Without uttering a single word, the most feared man in the Midwest walked across the Persian carpet and dropped to both knees.
He buried his face in the soft fabric of his mother’s wool skirt and wrapped his powerful arms around her waist.
For the first time since I had started working in the Moretti household, I heard Luca Moretti sob.
It was a deep, guttural sound of pure agony and overwhelming filial guilt.
"I am so sorry, Mama," Luca choked out, his voice muffled against her lap.
"I brought a viper into your home and left you unprotected under my own roof."
Rosa’s eyes filled with tender tears as she gently stroked the thick dark hair of her forty-year-old son.
"Hush now, Lucianu," she murmured in soft Sicilian dialect, calling him by his childhood name.
"A mother doesn't hold grudges against her boy."
"You were busy keeping our family alive out in the cold streets; you could not have known the venom hidden in her heart."
Luca lifted his tear-streaked face and gently took both of her bandaged hands into his own, kissing each wounded knuckle.
"She will never touch you again, Mama."
"No one will ever make you feel small in this world ever again, I swear this on my father’s soul."
He turned his head toward me, his dark eyes brimming with an intensity that made my heart race.
"Claire," he said, rising to his feet with regal authority.
"Every servant in this mansion turned a blind eye because Vanessa gave them extra cash and threatened their families."
"You were the only one who stood up for my mother."
"You risked your life by helping her off that floor and defying my wife."
"I will never forget that loyalty as long as I live."
I lowered my gaze respectfully, feeling a warm flush spread across my cheeks.
"She is an angel, Mr. Moretti," I answered softly.
"Anyone with a beating heart would have done the exact same thing."
"No, they wouldn't," Luca countered firmly.
"From this moment forward, you are the director of this entire estate."
"You answer only to me and my mother, your salary will be multiplied by ten, and your family will be protected forever."
Before I could even process his breathtaking generosity, Dante burst through the double bedroom doors without knocking.
"Boss, we have an emergency," Dante said breathlessly, holding up a vibrating tablet.
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"Falcone's strike team just took out our outer surveillance cameras on Route 41."
"They are approaching the north gate right now."
