Chapter 2 - THE SILVER ROSARY
The silence in the dining room was absolute. Thirty of Chicago’s wealthiest elites held their breath, their champagne glasses frozen in mid-air.
Vanessa’s beautifully manicured hands clutched the silk fabric of her red gown. The color had completely drained from her face. She looked at the faded photograph lying on the mahogany table, then up at Luca.
“Luca, please,” she stammered, her voice losing all its usual command. “It’s not what it looks like. I was young. It was a mistake. We annulled it within months.”
Luca didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He simply looked at Margaret, whose work-worn hands were nervously twisting the strap of her brown handbag.
“Mrs. Bellini,” Luca said gently. “Is that true? Was the marriage annulled?”
Margaret closed her eyes, and a single tear slipped down her wrinkled cheek. “No, Mr. Moretti. Thomas didn’t believe in divorce. And he certainly didn’t believe in abandoning his vows when he got sick.”
A collective murmur ran through the guests. Vanessa spun around, her eyes flashing with a sudden, vicious panic.
“Shut up!” she hissed at her mother. “You’re senile! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I stepped closer to Margaret, instinctively putting myself between the older woman and her furious daughter. Vanessa glared at me, her mask slipping to reveal the cold, calculating woman who had threatened my job just hours before.
“Get out of my way, Emma,” Vanessa snapped. “This is a private family matter.”
“Not anymore,” Luca said. He stepped forward, picked up the photograph, and slid it into the breast pocket of his tailored suit. “You told me you were an only child, Vanessa. You told me your parents died in a car accident when you were nineteen. You told me you had no one.”
“I did it for us!” she cried out, taking a step toward him. “Luca, in your world, weakness is a liability. You’re a powerful man. I couldn’t bring my past into your future. My mother… she lives in a trailer park in Joliet. She cleans motels. How could I introduce her to this?” She gestured wildly at the crystal chandeliers, the imported flowers, the stunned guests.
Luca’s dark eyes hardened. “My grandfather arrived in this country with four dollars in his pocket and worked in a slaughterhouse. We do not hide our blood, Vanessa. We honor it.”
He turned to his head of security, a broad-shouldered man named Marco who stood near the foyer.
“Marco. Escort the guests to their cars. The engagement dinner is canceled.”
Vanessa let out a strangled gasp. “Luca, no! You can’t do this! The wedding is in three weeks!”
“The wedding is over,” Luca said coldly. “Pack your things. I want you out of this house by midnight.”
As Marco began ushering the whispering guests out the front doors, Vanessa sank into a nearby velvet chair, sobbing violently. But her tears didn’t look like heartbreak. They looked like defeat.
I gently guided Margaret toward a seat, offering her a glass of water. Her hands were shaking terribly.
“I’m so sorry,” Margaret whispered to me. “I just… she had something of his. Something she took.”
Luca overheard. He walked over, kneeling beside Margaret’s chair so he was at eye level with her. It was a stunning display of respect from a man the entire city feared.
“What did she take, Mrs. Bellini?”
Margaret looked at Vanessa, who suddenly stopped crying and sat bolt upright, her eyes wide with fresh terror.
“Don’t,” Vanessa mouthed.
Margaret reached into her collar and pulled out a tarnished silver chain. At the end of it hung half of a broken crucifix.
“When Thomas was diagnosed with leukemia,” Margaret said softly, “Vanessa left him. She packed her bags while he was sleeping. But she took his silver rosary. It was an antique, blessed in Rome. She knew it was the only thing of value he owned. She sold it to buy her first designer dress for a job interview.”
Luca looked at Vanessa in disgust. But Margaret wasn’t finished.
“I bought the chain back from the pawnshop,” Margaret continued, her voice trembling. “But the cross was broken. I have this half. Vanessa kept the other half in a jewelry box because she thought it was lucky.”
Margaret looked up at Luca, her eyes pleading. “Thomas passed away three weeks ago, Mr. Moretti. I came here today to ask her for the other half. Because his son wants to bury him with it.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Luca stood up slowly. “His son.”
Vanessa leaped from her chair. “He’s not mine! He’s not mine, Luca!”
Margaret looked at her daughter with a sorrow so deep it made my chest ache. “He is five years old, Vanessa. You gave birth to him, left him at the hospital, and changed your name. Thomas raised him alone until his dying day.”
I felt the air leave my lungs. A five-year-old boy.
Luca’s expression was unreadable, but a terrifying stillness settled over him. He turned to me.
“Emma. Go upstairs to the master suite. Bring me Vanessa’s jewelry box.”
Vanessa lunged for the stairs, but Marco stepped in her path, blocking her effortlessly. I ran up the grand staircase, my heart pounding. I knew exactly which box to look for. I dusted it every single morning.
I opened the heavy mahogany door to the master suite and rushed to Vanessa’s vanity. There, sitting among bottles of expensive perfume, was a lacquered black box. I opened it.
Inside were diamonds, pearls, and heavy gold bracelets. I dug through the velvet compartments. At the very bottom, hidden beneath a velvet insert, I felt cold metal.
I pulled it out.
It was the other half of the silver cross. But it wasn’t alone.
Wrapped tightly around the broken silver was a faded, folded piece of paper. I carefully opened it.
It was a birth certificate.
Mother: Vanessa Bellini. Father: Thomas Cole. Child: Leo Cole.
But as I scanned the document, my blood ran cold. The date of birth on the certificate wasn’t five years ago.
May you like
It was seven years ago.
And written in blue ink across the top of the official document, in handwriting I recognized as Vanessa’s, was a single, chilling phrase: Do not let him find the twin.
