Chapter 10 - THE SHADOW OF DEREK COLE
|
The peace of our new life was threatened on a rainy Tuesday morning in early December.
I had just returned from visiting my mother at Northwestern, stepping into the grand foyer with my umbrella dripping onto the mat.
Mrs. Carter was waiting near the arched corridor, her face pale with noticeable distress.
“Madison, dear,” Mrs. Carter whispered, glancing nervously toward the executive study.
“What is it, Mrs. Carter?” I asked, immediately sensing the shift in the house’s energy.
“There is a man in the study with Mr. Moretti,” she said quietly.
“He arrived thirty minutes ago with a court summons.”
“He claims to be Ellie’s biological father.”
The umbrella slipped from my numb fingers, clattering loudly against the marble floor.
Derek Cole.
The coward who had abandoned his pregnant girlfriend seven years ago had suddenly crawled out of the shadows.
I didn't wait for permission.
I gathered the skirts of my wool dress and sprinted down the corridor toward the heavy mahogany doors of the study.
I shoved the door open, my breathing ragged with panic.
Inside, the room was thick with suffocating tension.
Luca sat behind his massive carved desk, his hands clasped loosely over a manila legal file.
Standing across from him was Derek Cole.
He wore an ill-fitting designer suit that couldn't conceal the desperate, sleazy look in his eyes.
His face was flushed, his hands twitching as he gestured wildly.
“Madison!” Derek gasped, turning toward me with a fake, practiced smile.
“Look at you! Living like royalty while I’ve been searching for our daughter for three years!”
“Shut your mouth, Derek,” I snarled, a vicious, protective rage roaring through my veins that I didn't know I possessed.
“You haven't searched for anything except your next bar tab!”
“You abandoned Ellie before she took her first breath!”
Derek scoffed, pulling a folded legal document from his breast pocket.
“I was young and scared, Maddie! But the law is the law!”
“I’m her legal, biological father!”
He slammed the paper down on the edge of Luca’s desk.
“I filed for emergency temporary custody in the Cook County family court this morning!”
“A single mother living in the house of a known organized crime figure is an unfit environment!”
“The judge will grant me full custody within seventy-two hours!”
Derek turned to Luca, a greedy, arrogant smirk spreading across his thin lips.
“Unless, of course, Mr. Moretti wants to settle this out of court.”
“Say... ten million dollars in cash to sign away my parental rights forever?”
Luca did not move a muscle.
He didn't yell.
He didn't draw a weapon.
He simply opened the manila folder resting beneath his fingers and pulled out a single sheet of glossy paper.
“Derek Cole,” Luca spoke, his voice smooth, cultured, and devoid of any emotion.
“Thirty-one years old.”
“Currently three hundred and forty thousand dollars in debt to sports betting syndicates in Atlantic City.”
Derek’s smirk faltered slightly.
“What does my personal finance have to do with my daughter?!”
Luca pulled out a second sheet, tossing it onto the desk.
“Two weeks ago, an offshore account registered in the Cayman Islands transferred fifty thousand dollars into your checking account.”
“The routing source was an entity named Bellini Maritime Holdings.”
The air left Derek’s lungs in a sudden, sharp wheeze.
I stared at the paper in utter horror.
Vanessa.
Even from her exile in Italy, Vanessa Bellini had tracked down Ellie’s deadbeat father, paid off his initial debts, and instructed him to sue for custody to tear my child away from me.
Luca stood up slowly, rising to his full, terrifying height.
He walked around the massive desk, his steps silent and predatory, stopping two inches from Derek’s cowering frame.
“You didn't come here for your daughter, Derek,” Luca whispered, looking down into the man’s terrified eyes.
“You came here because a disgraced mafia family promised you millions to torture the woman you discarded seven years ago.”
“I... I have rights!” Derek stammered, backing toward the bookshelf.
“I am her father!”
Luca reached out, his hand wrapping around Derek’s throat like an iron vise.
He lifted the man off his feet with one arm, slamming him against the mahogany paneling.
Derek gagged, kicking his legs, his eyes bulging with sheer terror.
“A father protects,” Luca snarled, his voice vibrating with absolute fury.
“A father provides.”
“A father bleeds before he lets a single tear fall from his child’s eyes.”
Luca leaned in close, his dark eyes burning into Derek’s soul.
May you like
“You are not her father.”
“You are a ghost that made a mistake by walking into my house.”
