Chapter 9 - The Ghost of the Past
The sunroom felt as if the oxygen had been completely vacuumed out of it.
I stared at the tablet, unable to process the image glowing on the high-definition glass. The boy stepping off that private jet had Mateo’s dark, curly hair, Mateo’s wide, almond-shaped amber eyes, and the distinct, high cheekbones of the Moretti bloodline.
And the woman.
Elena Moretti.
The woman whose portrait hung behind heavy velvet curtains in the private archives of the east wing. The woman Luca had told the world had died in an explosion in Sicily four years ago—the tragedy that had turned him into the cold, ruthless monster the entire eastern seaboard feared.
She wasn't dead.
She was standing on American soil, backed by the Solonik syndicate—the most violent, unyielding arm of the Russian Bratva.
"Luca..." My voice came out as a hollow, terrified squeak.
Luca didn't move. He stood frozen, staring at the screen, his broad chest barely rising or falling. The air around him turned toxic, crackling with a terrifying, apocalyptic stillness. The emerald ring lay forgotten in the open velvet box on the sofa between us.
"Dante," Luca whispered. The tone was so quiet, so devoid of human emotion, it made the fine hairs on my arms stand straight up. "Lock down the perimeter."
"Already done," Dante said, his hand resting tightly on the butt of his sidearm. "All three gates are barricaded with armored trucks. I’ve called in thirty men from the Brooklyn docks. But Luca... the Bratva didn't come to New York to sneak around in the dark. They just filed a formal petition with the High Commission."
Luca snapped his head up. "What kind of petition?"
"Custody," Dante replied, his voice heavy with grim finality. "Elena has her original marriage certificate. She has birth records from a private clinic in Moscow. She’s claiming that you faked her death to steal her son, and she’s brought the full weight of the Solonik family to enforce her claim. If you refuse to meet her at the neutral grounds tonight, the Commission will declare the Moretti family rogue. Every syndicate in the country will have a green light to burn our operations to the ground."
"She abandoned him," Luca growled, a low, guttural vibration rising from the depths of his chest like the roar of a wounded predator. "She took twenty million dollars from the family vaults, gave the coordinates of our Sicilian villa to our enemies, and faked her own death so she could run to Moscow with Mikhail Solonik! She left my son to burn in a nursery!"
"The Commission doesn't know that, Luca!" Dante shouted, his frustration finally breaking through his composed facade. "To the other families, she is a grieving mother returning from hiding to claim her rightful heir. And look at the photo, Luca! Look at the damn boy beside her!"
My eyes snapped back to the screen.
The second boy. The twin.
Luca looked down at the tablet. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of sheer, agonizing disbelief crossed his features. "There was only one baby. The doctors in Palermo said—"
"They lied to you," Dante said quietly. "Solonik bought the clinic. They took one child to Moscow as insurance, left Mateo with you, and staged the car bomb. They’ve been holding that boy for four years, Luca. Waiting for the right moment to strike at your heart."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room.
My head spun. A twin. Mateo had a twin brother living in the cold, brutal compound of a Russian crime lord. And the mother who had abandoned him had returned not for reconciliation, but to tear Mateo out of this house and use both boys as pawns to seize control of the Moretti empire.
Suddenly, small footsteps echoed down the hall.
"Emma! Look! Mrs. Higgins gave me three cookies because I said please!"
Mateo bounded into the room, holding a paper napkin with three crumbly, chocolate-dusted cookies, his face glowing with pure, innocent joy.
He stopped in his tracks, sensing the crushing weight in the room. His bright smile faded, his dark eyes darting between his father’s rigid posture, Dante’s pale face, and the tears pooling in my eyes.
"Daddy?" Mateo asked softly, clutching the napkin tightly against his chest. "Why is everyone mad?"
Luca fell to his knees.
He didn't care about the tablet. He didn't care about the Commission, or the Russian syndicate, or the war that had just ignited on his doorstep. He reached out and pulled Mateo violently into his arms, burying his face in the crook of his son's small neck, holding him so tightly I thought the boy might break.
"Daddy's not mad, sweetheart," Luca whispered, his voice thick, choking back an ocean of tears he refused to let fall. "Daddy's not mad at you. Never at you."
Mateo blinked, confused, but wrapped his little arms around his father's broad shoulders, patting his back with one cookie-covered hand. "You're squeezing too hard, Daddy."
"I know," Luca choked out, refusing to let go. "I know, buddy."
I looked at them, my heart shattering into a thousand jagged pieces.
Everything we had fought for—the peace we had bled for, the safety we had carved out of Isabella’s ashes—was an illusion. This world didn't allow happy endings. It was an endless, churning meat grinder of debts, bloodlines, and ghosts rising from unmarked graves.
Luca finally released Mateo, standing up and smoothing down the boy's sweater. "Go to your room, Mateo. Marco is outside the door. I want you to stay with him until I come get you. Understand?"
"Can Emma come?" Mateo asked, looking at me with big, pleading eyes.
Luca looked at me.
His amber eyes were torn, shredded between an unbearable, protective love and the cold, terrifying duty of a man preparing to march into hell.
"Emma will be up in a minute, buddy," Luca said softly. "Go on."
Mateo nodded reluctantly and walked slowly out of the sunroom, glancing back over his shoulder twice before disappearing around the corner.
Once the boy was gone, Luca turned to face me.
He walked over to the sofa, picked up the small velvet box containing the emerald ring, and closed the lid with a sharp, decisive *click*.
"Pack your bags, Emma," Luca said, his voice completely flat, dead, devoid of all the warmth he had shown me minutes earlier.
My heart seized. "What?"
"Dante has a private jet fueled at Teterboro," Luca continued, not looking at my eyes, staring instead at the floor between us. "You will take five million dollars from my private account. You will leave the country tonight. Go to Switzerland. Go to New Zealand. Go somewhere where the Moretti name doesn't exist."
"No," I said, standing up, my voice steady despite the tears streaming down my face. "No, Luca!"
"You don't understand what’s coming!" Luca roared, his composure shattering, his fists clenching so hard his knuckles turned stark white. "Elena didn't come alone! Solonik brought two hundred soldiers to New York! The Commission is split! There is going to be blood in the streets from Manhattan to Montauk! I cannot protect you and fight this war at the same time!"
"I don't need you to protect me!" I screamed back, closing the distance between us, grabbing the lapels of his expensive suit jacket, forcing him to look down at me. "I protected your son when three armed hitmen kicked down that stable door! I bled for this family! You cannot just throw five million dollars at me and tell me to run while you hand Mateo over to a monster!"
Luca grabbed my wrists, his grip tight, his chest heaving against mine.
"She is his biological mother, Emma!" Luca rasped, pain bleeding from every syllable. "Under the law of the Commission, she has a claim! If I fight her, they will take him anyway, and they will slaughter everyone who stands near me! I will not watch them put a bullet in your head!"
"Then let me stand with you!" I cried, refusing to let go of his jacket. "You offered me that ring two minutes ago, Luca! You asked me to be your queen! You asked me to rule this house with you! Was that a lie? Was that just pretty words to keep the nanny in your bed?"
Luca flinched as if I had struck him across the face.
His eyes burned with an agonizing, ferocious fire. He yanked me against his chest, crushing my body against his, his mouth crashing down onto mine in a desperate, bruising, possessive kiss.
It tasted of salt, desperation, and fire.
It was everything we had held back for six long months—the quiet glances in the hallways, the late-night whispered conversations over whiskey and antiseptic, the shared terror in the stable. It was rough, demanding, and full of an unbearable grief.
When he finally pulled back, resting his forehead against mine, we were both gasping for air.
"It wasn't a lie," Luca whispered, his fingers tangled tightly in my hair. "It will never be a lie. You are the only queen this house will ever have."
"Then don't send me away," I breathed against his lips.
Luca closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of me, battling the war raging inside his soul.
Then, the heavy sirens began to wail across the estate.
The piercing, high-pitched alarm echoed through the walls, red emergency lights flashing along the perimeter corridors. Dante sprinted back into the room, his assault rifle drawn, his face grim as death.
"They're at the main gate, Luca," Dante said, racking the bolt back. "Elena. Solonik. And Don Falco from the Commission. They’re demanding an audience right now."
Luca opened his eyes.
The man who had kissed me vanished. In his place stood the Capo dei Capi—cold, terrifying, and ready to burn the world to ash.
He slipped the velvet box containing the emerald ring into my trembling hand, closing my fingers tightly over the velvet.
May you like
"Keep it," Luca said, his voice steady as iron. "Because by midnight, either I put this on your finger in front of the entire five families... or there won't be a Moretti left alive to bury."
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