Chapter 9 - THE BOY IN THE FRONT SEAT
My heart dropped into my stomach as I answered the phone on the first ring.
“Clara?” I said, my voice rising above the commotion in the foyer.
“Miss Emma, it’s fine—we’re fine!” Clara’s voice rushed through the receiver, breathless with relief. “A big gray sedan pulled into the lane behind us and I panicked before I realized it was your groundskeeper coming back to check the broken boiler gate! Leo wanted to know when Mr. Sal was coming back with his hot chocolate!”
I let out a breath I felt like I had been holding since eight o’clock that night and sagged slightly against the marble stair rail.
“They’re safe,” I told Luca. “It’s just Thomas the groundskeeper at the back gate.”
Across the foyer, Hector Bellini and Marcus Vance didn’t leave through the service entrance. They walked down the grand front steps in handcuffs in front of every politician, judge, and businessman they had invited to witness their takeover of the Moretti name.
Before Hector was placed into the back of the second car, he stopped and glared back up the steps at his daughter.
“You ruined your own name tonight, Vanessa,” he spat. “You have nothing left in this city.”
Vanessa stood tall at the top of the marble steps, the night wind blowing a loose strand of dark hair across her face.
“I have my sister’s son alive,” Vanessa said quietly. “That’s the only thing in your house that was ever worth saving.”
Within an hour, the dining room was cleared, the remaining guests had departed in hushed shock, and the heavy mahogany front doors of the mansion were finally closed against the world.
When Sal brought Clara and Leo in through the front foyer, Aunt Teresa was waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase with a warm quilt in her arms.
The moment seventy-eight-year-old Teresa saw Leo’s dark curls and Matteo’s eyes looking up at her from beneath a green dinosaur pajama top, she dropped to her knees on the carpet and sobbed, wrapping the boy in an embrace that smelled of lavender and peppermint.
Leo patted her shoulder politely with his red mitten.
“Are you Auntie Teresa?” he asked. “Mr. Sal said you always have the striped candies in your purse.”
Teresa laughed through her tears, kissing both of his cheeks. “I have a whole crystal jar of them upstairs, tesoro.”
The next morning, the mansion felt entirely different.
For the first time in the ten months I had worked there, the heavy velvet curtains in the dining room and study were pulled wide open, letting the bright October sunlight pour across the oak floors.
Vanessa came down the stairs at nine o’clock wearing a simple cashmere sweater and jeans, carrying a single leather suitcase.
Luca met her at the foot of the stairs.
There was no harshness left between them, only the quiet honesty of two people who had finally stopped pretending to be parts in their fathers’ play.
“I booked a flight to Boston for this afternoon,” Vanessa said softly. “Camilla had an old college friend there who runs an art gallery. I’d like to start over somewhere nobody knows the name Bellini.”
Luca nodded once and reached into his breast pocket, handing her a thick white envelope.
“Your sister’s share of the trust my father left in that locker is being transferred into an independent account in your name,” Luca said. “And whenever you want to come back to see Leo—the front door is open to you, Vanessa. Always.”
Her eyes filled with genuine tears. For the first time, she turned to Sal, who was standing by the hall table in his pressed dark coat, and then to me.
“Mr. Russo,” she said quietly, lowering her head. “And Emma. Thank you for not listening to me last night. If you had put him in that cab, my nephew wouldn’t be eating pancakes in that kitchen right now.”
Sal gave her a gentle nod. “Safe travels, Miss Vanessa.”
Once her town car pulled down the drive, Luca walked into the sunny breakfast room where Leo was sitting on two stacked velvet cushions at the head of the table, happily swinging his feet while Mrs. Gable poured warm maple syrup over pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse.
On the sideboard beside the table sat Sal’s old cardboard box—empty now, except for the tissue paper.
The framed 1992 photograph of eight-year-old Luca, his father, and Sal was standing in the center of the fireplace mantel, right beside Matteo’s silver pocket watch and Leo’s blue crayon drawing of the black car.
Luca turned to me as I began clearing the coffee cups.
“Put that tray down, Emma,” Luca said.
I froze, habit making me straighten immediately. “Sir?”
“Aunt Teresa isn’t getting any younger, and with Clara helping look after Leo, this house needs someone running the entire estate staff who isn’t afraid to tell me when I’m wrong,” Luca said, a faint, warm smile touching his eyes. “Consider yourself house manager, at double your salary—starting right after you pack a bag for the week.”
I blinked in surprise. “Pack a bag? Where am I going?”
Before Luca could answer, Sal walked into the breakfast room carrying his battered steel thermos and two pairs of small red wool mittens—the old one with M.M. stitched inside the cuff, and a brand-new matching pair Mrs. Gable had knitted before dawn.
“First week of October, Miss Emma,” Sal said with a wink, setting the thermos on the table. “Wisconsin. Same cabin by the lake we went to in ’92. Only this year, we’ve got a smaller fisherman coming along, and somebody has to keep Luca from burning the pancakes.”
Leo scrambled down from his chair and ran straight to Sal, grabbing the old driver’s hand with his red mitten while reaching his other hand up for Luca.
“Are we going in the big black car, Uncle Luca?” Leo asked brightly.
Luca reached down, swung his brother’s son high onto his shoulders, and laughed—the exact, wide, unguarded laugh from the 1992 photograph on the hood of the old station wagon.
“Only if Mr. Sal says we’re ready, kid,” Luca said.
May you like
Sal picked up his chauffeur’s cap, placed it squarely on his head, and opened the front door to the morning sun.
“Car’s warmed up and waiting,” Sal said softly. “Let’s take the family home.”
