Chapter 2 - THE LOCKED GATES
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The screen of Vanessa’s phone glowed like a venomous spark against the polished mahogany dining table.
Nobody in the room breathed for five agonizing seconds.
I watched Luca’s eyes drop toward the illuminated screen, his entire posture freezing into stone.
Frank let out a strangled whimper and clutched his chest, his knuckles turning chalk-white.
Vanessa lunged forward with frantic desperation, her polished red fingernails scratching frantically across the wood.
She tried to flip the phone over, but Luca’s hand clamped around her wrist like a steel vice.
“Don’t touch it,” Luca whispered, his tone so deceptively calm that ice flooded through my veins.
Vanessa gasped in pain, twisting her arm as tears of panic welled in her eyes.
“Luca, please, that’s just spam or some sick prank!” she cried out.
Luca didn’t blink, his dark eyes never leaving her terrified face.
He used his free hand to pick up the device, bringing the message directly before his gaze.
Every muscle along his jawline cordoned into rigid knots of barely restrained fury.
“‘Anthony has been taken care of,’” Luca read aloud, his voice vibrating through the hollow dining room.
Frank let out an agonizing wail that sounded like an animal torn apart in the dark.
“Anthony!” the old man sobbed, burying his wrinkled face into his trembling hands.
“My baby brother is dead because of my pride!” Frank screamed toward the ceiling.
I immediately rushed to Frank’s side, wrapping an arm around his trembling shoulders to keep him from collapsing off his chair.
“Breathe, Mr. Moretti, please take a deep breath,” I whispered urgently into his ear.
Luca threw Vanessa’s wrist aside with sheer disgust, causing her to stumble back into the antique sideboard.
Glasses clinked and shattered onto the Persian rug behind her.
Luca turned to the chief of security standing in the dining room archway.
“Lock the entire estate down right now,” Luca commanded with thunderous authority.
“No vehicle enters, no vehicle leaves, and nobody touches Anthony’s car until I inspect it myself.”
The guard nodded briskly and sprinted down the hallway, shouting tactical commands into his radio.
Heavy iron gates slammed shut in the distance, echoing across the rainy Chicago night.
Luca turned his chilling attention back to his wife, stepping toward her with deliberate, terrifying patience.
“Who sent you that message, Vanessa?” he asked, each syllable dropping like lead.
Vanessa pressed herself against the wallpaper, shaking her head vigorously as mascara ran down her cheeks.
“I swear to God, Luca, I don’t know who that is!” she pleaded with trembling lips.
“Someone is trying to frame me because they hate seeing me as the lady of this house!” she insisted.
“Then why did you steal twelve letters sent from my uncle to my father over the last six months?” Luca challenged.
Her mouth opened, but no words came out except a pathetic, shallow gasp.
Luca turned his piercing gaze directly onto me.
“Claire,” he said, his voice commanding absolute truth.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?” I answered, keeping my hands steady against his father’s shuddering back.
“Where are the other eleven letters you mentioned?” Luca asked.
“They are locked inside the bottom drawer of Mrs. Moretti’s private study desk on the second floor,” I answered clearly.
Vanessa shrieked like a wounded animal.
“She’s lying! She broke into my private quarters! She’s an envious servant trying to tear this family apart!”
Luca didn’t even glance at her screaming face.
He looked down at his sobbing father, gently resting a heavy hand on Frank’s trembling head.
“Sit with my father, Claire, and don’t leave his side,” Luca ordered softly.
“I am going upstairs to see every single lie my wife has buried in this house.”
Frank grabbed his son’s sleeve, tears streaming freely down his wrinkled cheeks.
“Bring him back, Luca,” Frank begged, his voice cracking with twenty years of unspeakable regret.
“If Anthony is dead, my life ends tonight too.”
Luca squeezed his father’s fragile shoulder with unwavering strength.
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“Uncle Anthony is not dying tonight, Dad,” Luca promised darkly.
“And whoever laid a finger on him will pray they were never born.”
