Chapter 5 - The Severed Ring|
The grandfather clock in the grand hallway chimed midnight when heavy headlights swept across the high kitchen windows.
Two large black luxury sedans had bypassed the outer perimeter and parked aggressively in the circular driveway.
Luca did not even blink; he had known this confrontation was inevitable the moment he sent Vanessa away.
“Hannah, take Samuel up to my personal study on the third floor,” Luca instructed with calm authority.
“Lock the reinforced door from the inside and do not open it for anyone except me.”
“Luca, please don’t fight,” Samuel pleaded, clutching the sleeve of his brother’s shirt with frantic fingers.
Luca crouched down until he was eye-to-eye with the boy, offering a warm, confident smile that erased all fear.
“Nobody is fighting tonight, buddy,” Luca promised, gently tapping Samuel’s nose.
“I am just taking out the trash that should have been thrown away ten months ago.”
I took Samuel’s hand, leading him swiftly up the grand staircase toward the safety of the fortified private wing.
Downstairs, the heavy front doors swung open with a resounding bang that echoed up the marble walls.
Marco Bellini, Vanessa’s older brother and an arrogant enforcer for their family’s syndicate, strode into the foyer.
Vanessa followed closely behind him, having changed into a dark designer coat, her eyes swollen with furious, vengeful rage.
“You humiliated my sister in front of the entire Chicago council, Moretti!” Marco shouted, his hand hovering near his jacket lapel.
Luca walked slowly down the stairs, descending with the silent, lethal grace of a hunting panther.
“You are standing in my house uninvited, Marco,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
“And you are speaking to the head of the Moretti family as if you have a right to breathe my air.”
“We had an agreement!” Vanessa screamed from the foyer.
“Your father owed us loyalty! That miserable little brat belongs in a reform boarding school, not running this mansion!”
Luca reached the bottom step and stopped just two paces away from Marco.
“My father left a recording from his hospital bed, Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
Vanessa froze, all the fiery rage instantly draining from her face, leaving behind a sickly, hollow pale.
“He documented your extortion attempt,” Luca continued, his eyes fixed on Marco’s widening pupils.
“He documented the bribes you paid to the night shift staff at St. Jude’s to keep me from receiving the emergency calls.”
Marco took an involuntary step back, realizing the lethal trap they had walked into.
“Luca, listen to me—” Marco began, raising both hands in a desperate plea for diplomacy.
“Get out of my city,” Luca cut him off, his voice like grinding stones.
“If I see Vanessa, you, or any Bellini associate within five miles of my brother’s school or this house, I will erase your name from Illinois.”
Luca pulled Vanessa’s four-carat diamond engagement ring from his trouser pocket and dropped it onto the floor.
The platinum band clinked against the marble, rolling until it stopped against Vanessa’s expensive leather boots.
May you like
“Take your ring,” Luca said with absolute finality.
“Your family is dead to me.”
