Chapter 2 - The Scent of Old Smoke
The silence in Luca Moretti’s study did not feel like absence of sound; it felt like a heavy weight pressing into the room until the floorboards groaned under it.
He sat behind his massive mahogany desk, looking down at the small print I had pulled from my apron. The edge of the photograph was slightly bent from being tucked into my uniform pocket for four hours while I carried silver platters across parquet floors, but the faces were sharp. In the gray drizzle of a Chicago Tuesday, Luca had looked exhausted, his umbrella tilted just enough to keep the water off the shoulder of the woman beside him.
Elena Moretti.
Even in grainy black and white, she had the kind of grace that didn’t come from money; it came from surviving the men who made it. She wore no jewelry except a thin gold band on her right index finger, her hair gathered loosely against the collar of her cream trench coat.
"She still has something that belongs to me," Luca repeated under his breath. The words were flat, dead, like stones dropped into wet gravel.
"Mr. Moretti," I began, my voice catching on the swollen tissue of my left cheek, "I didn't mean to listen. The guest room door was unlatched when I brought the towels. I thought Miss Bellini had left her key inside, so I—"
"Olivia."
He didn't raise his voice, but my name from his mouth sounded like an iron gate swinging shut. He gestured to the leather armchair opposite him. "Sit down."
I didn't want to sit. When you are a housemaid in an eight-million-dollar brownstone on Astor Street, you learn early that furniture is for the people whose names are on the deeds. You stand by the baseboards, you wait behind the swinging pantry door, you keep your eyes fixed on the silver polish.
"I'm fine, sir."
"You’re shaking," he said, not unkindly, though his eyes never softened. "And you have an ice pack melting onto the carpet."
I glanced down, mortified. The paper towel Dr. Harris had given me was dripping clear water onto the Persian rug. I pulled it back against my chest, but Luca was already standing. He walked over to the sideboard, poured three fingers of amber liquid into a heavy crystal tumbler, and set it on the desk directly in front of the empty chair.
"Sit," he commanded again.
This time, my legs gave out enough that I obeyed. The leather was cold against my back through the thin fabric of my uniform.
"Start from the beginning," he said, leaning his hip against the edge of the mahogany table, close enough that I could smell the faint trace of expensive cologne mixed with the bitter tang of tobacco and rain. "Not what you told Dr. Harris about the doorframe. Not what you told me downstairs. What happened the second you opened that door."
I swallowed the lump in my throat, my fingers digging into the moist paper towel. "It was three forty-five. The caterers were setting up the lower kitchen for the appetizers, and Mrs. Carter sent me up with the Egyptian cotton linens for the guest suite on the third floor. I had my arms full. I pushed the door open with my shoulder, and that’s when I heard her."
"Vanessa."
"Yes, sir. She was by the window. She was speaking in Italian first—fast, angry. The man, Mr. Mercer, was sitting on the edge of the vanity. He had a manila envelope on his lap. When she saw me, she dropped her phone onto the settee."
I paused, remembering the sudden, sharp venom in Vanessa’s eyes. Downstairs, she had always played the part of the gracious, delicate bride-to-be, fluttering her eyelashes at Luca’s associates and complaining that the air conditioning was too drafty. But up there, in the dim light of the spare room, she had looked like a completely different person—hollow-eyed, calculating, and vicious.
"She told me to get out," I continued, staring at the tumbler of bourbon on the desk. "I apologized. I backed toward the hall. But then Mercer spoke. He said, ‘Let her leave, Bellini. She’s just a scrubber.’ And Vanessa... she laughed. She said, ‘Scrubbers have big ears and empty pockets. Take the basket from her.’"
Luca’s jaw set into hard, rigid lines. "Go on."
"He came at me. He was fast, Mr. Moretti. He grabbed the linen basket out of my hands and threw it onto the floor. I tried to reach for the hallway handle, but Vanessa caught my hair. She dragged me back in by my collar. She said if I breathed a word about Mercer being in the house before the toasts were finished, she would tell you I was stealing from her jewelry box. She had already taken a pair of pearl studs from her dressing table and slipped them into the pocket of my spare apron on the door."
"Framing you," Luca murmured.
"Yes. And then Mercer opened the folder to show her the prints. He said, ‘The negatives are in the safe deposit in Evanston. If Moretti marries you on the fourteenth, Elena gets these by courier on the fifteenth. She’ll believe he played her. She’ll burn the lease.’"
Luca’s eyes sharpened suddenly. His dark brows pulled together, a dangerous, electric flicker passing through his gray eyes. "The lease?"
"That's what he called it, sir. The lease."
Luca didn't speak for nearly a minute. He reached out, picked up the crystal tumbler he had poured for me, and took a slow, deliberate sip. His hand was entirely steady.
"My former wife," Luca said, his voice dropping into that chilling, measured tone that made people across Chicago check their rearview mirrors, "did not leave me because of another woman. She left because she could not sleep in a house where every car that slowed down on the street might have a submachine gun in the passenger seat. When we divorced four years ago, we divided our holdings. Everything was clean. Except for one property."
He set the glass down with a soft clink.
"The foundry on the South Branch," he said. "The original property where my grandfather melted down iron before he ever bought a warehouse. My father put it in Elena’s name during the federal investigations of nineteen-ninety-eight. An old insurance policy. It cannot be sold, transferred, or leased without the unanimous consent of the Moretti bloodline and Elena's personal signature."
I looked at him, confused. "Why would Vanessa care about an old foundry?"
"Because the city of Chicago finalized the riverfront corridor rezoning project six weeks ago," Luca replied, his voice turning cold. "The land the foundry sits on isn't worth iron scrap anymore. It’s worth ninety million dollars in commercial development rights. And Vanessa’s father, Don Antonio Bellini, has three construction conglomerates currently facing bankruptcy."
The realization hit me like a slap to the other side of my face.
The engagement. The twenty-six guests downstairs drinking six-hundred-dollar champagne. The diamond earrings Vanessa wore like armor.
It was never a love match. It wasn't even an ordinary mafia alliance. It was an ambush.
"Vanessa doesn't want Elena to burn the lease," Luca whispered, his eyes drifting back to the window where the Chicago skyline flickered through the rain. "She wants Elena to sever all ties with me in disgust. If Elena signs over the remaining administrative rights to an independent trust to get away from my 'betrayal,' Vanessa’s family takes the controlling interest in the South Branch by default."
He turned back to me. His eyes swept over the bruised skin beneath my eye, the purple swelling that had spread down into the soft hollow of my cheek.
"And how did you get the mark, Olivia?"
My throat tightened. "When she threatened my mother... I pulled away. Mercer grabbed my arm, but his shoes slipped on the loose towels on the floor. He shoved me hard to keep his balance. I caught the edge of the brass lockset on the guest room door."
Luca reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a clean, linen handkerchief. He leaned down, his large, scarred hand remarkably gentle as he dabbed a bead of melted ice and red moisture from my temple.
"She told you that you were a scrubber," Luca whispered, his breath warm against my temple. "She told you that you were worth seventy-four dollars until Friday."
I stiffened, shocked that he remembered the exact number I had thought in my head hours earlier.
"I know what every person in this house is paid, Olivia," he said, as if reading my mind. "I know your mother has been in the assisted-living facility on Devon Avenue since April. I know your father worked thirty years in the rail yards before his pension disappeared into the bank crashes. And I know you don't lie."
The door behind us opened without a knock.
Daniel stood in the frame. His tie was loose, his dark trench coat dripping water onto the hardwood. In his hand, he held a sleek black tablet.
"Boss," Daniel said, his voice clipped. "Mercer didn't go to Evanston. He’s parked two blocks away on Elm Street, sitting in a dark blue sedan. And someone just sent an encrypted message from inside this house to his personal burner."
Luca didn't turn around. He kept his gaze locked on my bruised face, his fingers still holding the linen handkerchief.
"Who sent it, Daniel?"
"The IP address originates from Miss Bellini's private dressing room," Daniel replied. "The text is only four words: 'Move the delivery up.'"
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard a small muscle fluttered beneath his cheek.
"Call the garage," Luca commanded, stepping back from the desk. "Bring the armored Continental to the alley gate. Don't turn on the headlights."
Daniel nodded, but hesitated. "And Miss Bellini, sir? She’s still upstairs. She asked Mrs. Carter for a cup of chamomile tea five minutes ago."
Luca looked down at the photograph of his ex-wife one last time, then slipped it into his breast pocket, right over his heart.
"Let her have her tea," Luca said, his voice flat as a winter pond. "She’s going to need it before the morning."
May you like
He looked back at me, extending his hand toward the armchair.
"Get your coat, Olivia," Luca said. "You're coming with me."
