Chapter 3 - Footsteps in the Dark
The study smelled of aged leather, dried tobacco, and rain.
I sat on the edge of a deep mahogany armchair, holding a linen-wrapped ice pack against my left forearm. The cold was a sharp, biting pain, but it dulled the throbbing heat beneath my skin.
The grandfather clock in the corner chimed midnight.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city of Chicago was a blur of amber lights through the sheeting downpour. The Moretti estate sat behind twelve-foot wrought-iron gates on the edge of Lake Forest, completely detached from the ordinary world. Out there, people worried about rent and groceries. In here, power was the only currency that bought tomorrow.
The heavy oak door swung open, and Luca walked in.
He had removed his suit jacket. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick, corded muscle and the edge of an intricate black tattoo that disappeared beneath his cuff—a crown of thorns wrapped around a balance scale.
He crossed over to the bar cart without looking at me, pouring two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal tumbler.
“Drink?” he asked.
“No, thank you, Mr. Moretti.”
He took a slow sip, then walked over to his massive desk and leaned against the edge of it, crossing his ankles. The soft lamplight caught the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the dark stubble along his jawline.
“Take the ice away,” he said.
I hesitated, then lifted the cold cloth.
Under the bright desk lamp, the bruises looked even worse than they had in Sofia’s bedroom. The skin was mottled with dark plum and angry yellow edges. Four distinct ovals on the inside of my arm, one deep indentation on the outside where Isabella’s thumb had dug down toward the bone.
Luca stared at it for a long, quiet minute. The only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the clock and his steady breathing.
“She’s right-handed,” Luca noted quietly. “She stood in front of you, reached out, and twisted.”
My mouth went dry. “Mr. Moretti, please. I don’t want to cause trouble. I know Miss Romano’s family is very important to your business. If it’s better for everyone, I can find another position.”
Luca’s eyes snapped up to mine. They were a dark, predatory gray.
“You think this is about business?”
“Isn’t everything?”
A faint, bitter smile touched the corner of his lips, but it vanished before it reached his eyes. “Most things are. Not this.”
He set his glass down on the desk with a soft *clink*. He walked toward my chair, each step deliberate, until he stopped right in front of me. Slowly, he crouched down so that his eyes were level with mine.
The proximity made my breath hitch. He was too close. The dangerous gravity that surrounded him pulled all the air out of my lungs.
“Did she threaten you?” he asked.
“She... she told me to remember my place.”
“And what do you think your place is, Emma?”
“I’m Sofia’s nanny,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I keep her safe. I make sure she feels loved. That’s all.”
“That is everything,” Luca corrected softly. His hand moved. For a second, I flinched, an instinctive reaction born from years of being handled roughly by life.
Luca saw the flinch. His hand froze in midair, his jaw tightening so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. Then, with excruciating slowness, his fingers touched the edge of my wrist, completely avoiding the bruised flesh.
His fingers were warm, calloused, and surprisingly gentle.
“Sofia hasn't smiled since her mother died,” he said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “She didn’t talk for four months. She didn't paint. She refused to sleep in her own room. The doctors called it trauma. Her grandparents called it grief.”
He looked down at his hand resting near mine.
“Then you answered an agency ad. You didn’t care about the Moretti name. You didn't ask for a bonus. You just sat on the floor with her and built a tower out of wooden blocks until she spoke to you.”
“She was lonely,” I whispered. “I know what that feels like.”
Luca looked back up into my eyes. There was something raw in his gaze, an opening in the armor that he clearly didn't show to anyone else in this city.
“Isabella Romano will never be Sofia’s mother,” he said, each word carved from granite. “She was chosen because her father controls twenty miles of Lake Michigan shoreline that my competitors want to turn into a war zone. I needed an alliance to keep the violence away from my gates. But I will burn that shoreline to the water before I allow that woman to put her hands on anyone under my roof.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “She won’t let this go. She warned me. She said I was a stray.”
“You are not a stray,” Luca said firmly. He stood up, breaking the magnetic hold between us, but his presence still dominated the entire room. “You are the guardian of my daughter. That makes you family under the old laws. And in this house, nobody harms family.”
He walked back to his desk, picking up a pen and scribbling something on a notepad.
“Tomorrow night is the autumn gala at the Drake Hotel,” Luca continued, his business tone returning like a steel shutter coming down over a window. “Every family from Milwaukee to Indianapolis will be there. Isabella thinks she will be on my arm as the future mistress of the Moretti house.”
He tore the paper from the pad and held it out to me.
“What is this?” I asked, looking at the address written in his sharp, slanted handwriting.
“A boutique on Michigan Avenue,” Luca said. “A car will pick you up at ten tomorrow morning. You will be fitted for an evening gown.”
Panic surged through me. “Mr. Moretti, no. I can’t go to a gala. I don’t belong in those rooms. I’m a servant.”
“You belong wherever I place you,” Luca countered, his voice leaving no room for debate. “Tomorrow night, Isabella will see exactly where she stands. And more importantly, her father will see it too.”
“You’re using me,” I said, the realization hitting me like a splash of cold water. “You’re using me to provoke them.”
Luca didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny it. He simply looked at me across the desk, his gray eyes unreadable once more.
“I am using you to protect you,” he said. “If you stay in the shadows, Isabella will find a way to make you disappear quietly. But if you stand in the light beside me, touching you becomes an act of war. Even the Romanos aren't reckless enough to start a war in front of five hundred witnesses.”
He pointed toward the door. “Go to bed, Emma. Lock your door tonight. Marco is stationed at the end of the east corridor.”
I stood up, holding the note in my trembling hand. I looked at the powerful, dangerous man who had just rewritten my fate with a few quiet sentences.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Yes?”
“What happens if they are reckless enough?”
Luca picked up his crystal glass and looked through the amber liquid at the dark city beyond.
May you like
“Then,” he said, “they learn why my father named me after a storm.”
***
