Chapter 7 - THE SIGNATURE IN RED INK
Luca took the yellowed bank wire from my hand and angled it toward the dim kitchen light.
At the bottom of the fifty-thousand-dollar payment—wired three days before the July 2014 ambush in Cicero that nearly killed Luca and forced Clara into hiding—was an authorized signature in faded red fountain ink:
Teresa Moretti-Vane.
My stomach dropped.
Vane.
Clara Vane hadn’t been a stranger hired by Luca’s father at the private clinic.
“Clara was Aunt Teresa’s niece from her first marriage,” Luca whispered, the blood draining from his face as thirty years of family history rearranged itself in a single horrific second. “Teresa introduced her to me at the charity gala in the spring of 2014.”
Uncle Sal let out a bitter, barking laugh from where Marco held him pinned against the kitchen counter.
“You still think sweet old Aunt Teresa was crying at the dinner table tonight because she felt sorry for your mother?” Sal sneered. “Teresa hated Lucia more than Matteo ever did! Your grandfather left the Gold Coast mansion and the trust fund to Lucia instead of Teresa. When you fell in love with Clara and talked about taking your mother’s inheritance and moving to California, Teresa realized she was going to be cut out of the family fortune forever!”
I stared at the bank paper in horror.
Aunt Teresa had paid the gunmen to ambush Luca’s car in 2014—intending to kill Luca so her young niece Clara, already pregnant with Luca’s heir, would inherit the Moretti estate as his widow under Teresa’s control.
When Luca survived the shooting and Matteo locked Clara away instead, Teresa’s entire plan collapsed.
“Wait,” I said, my pulse racing as I remembered the scene at the mansion thirty minutes ago. “Mr. Moretti… you told your guards to lock Vanessa and Aunt Teresa together in your private study.”
Luca’s head snapped up.
“And my mother’s safe is behind the paneling in that study,” Luca said, pulling his phone from his coat pocket and dialing the mansion’s security desk.
The line rang once. Twice. Three times.
No answer.
Instead, a text message popped up on Luca’s screen from an unknown number—with a photo attached.
It was a picture taken inside Luca’s mahogany study at the mansion.
Vanessa was tied to a leather armchair with a silk drapery cord, a red mark across her cheekbone. Standing beside her was Robert Bellini—holding a heavy silver revolver—while Aunt Teresa stood calmly behind the desk holding the open steel door of Lucia Moretti’s wall safe.
Beneath the photo was a single message:
You have my four men and the ledger at Irving Park. I have your house, your fiancée, and the original trust deeds. Bring the boy and the oilskin pouch to the Boatyard on Loomis in forty minutes, or I burn your mother’s house down with everyone inside.
“He didn’t send his whole crew here,” Marco said grimly, looking out the kitchen window toward the quiet street. “The four men we just took down were a distraction to pull you and the guards away from the mansion so Teresa could let Bellini in through the service gate.”
Behind me, Leo stiffened, pulling his hand out of mine.
“They want me,” the eleven-year-old said quietly, his dark eyes wide but oddly steady for a child who had grown up behind locked doors. “If I go with them, they won’t hurt the lady at your house.”
Luca dropped immediately to one knee in front of his son and gripped both of the boy’s shoulders.
“Listen to me very carefully, Leo,” Luca said, his voice fierce and unwavering. “Nobody is ever trading you, locking you in a room, or using you as a bargain again as long as I’m breathing. Do you understand me?”
Leo swallowed hard and gave a small, hesitant nod.
“Even though you just met me?” the boy asked in a tiny voice.
“I’ve been looking for the best part of my mother for twenty-two years,” Luca said softly, touching the silver rosary around the boy’s neck. “I didn’t just meet you, son. You’re the only real family I have left.”
Nurse Martha wiped her eyes and stepped forward. “Take them through the neighbor’s yard, Mr. Moretti. My brother-in-law is a retired precinct captain in Evanston—if Marco drives me and Leo there now, nobody in Chicago will touch him.”
Luca stood up and looked at Marco. “Take the back alley to the second SUV three blocks over. Get Leo and Martha to Evanston and do not take your eyes off them.”
Then Luca looked at the oilskin pouch in his hand—and at Uncle Sal.
“If Bellini and Aunt Teresa want the ledger at the Loomis Boatyard,” Luca said coldly, “I’ll bring it to them.”
“Luca, it’s an ambush,” I said, stepping forward and catching his coat sleeve. “Bellini has at least six men with him, and your guards at the mansion are down.”
I looked down at the oilskin pouch, then at the small silver micro-player with the lithium battery that I had pulled out of the cracked cassette recorder earlier—still sitting in my apron pocket.
An idea clicked into place in my mind.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said quickly, pulling the tiny voice recorder from my pocket and holding it beside the walnut sewing box. “Why did Robert Bellini help Aunt Teresa hide that 2014 bank wire if the ambush was meant to kill you and steal the Syndicate from both families?”
Luca’s eyes narrowed as he flipped to the second page inside the oilskin pouch—an autopsy amendment from the Cicero clinic in 2014.
“Because Robert Bellini didn’t know Teresa ordered the 2014 shooting,” Luca breathed, staring at the second name on the casualties list. “Look who else died in my car that night.”
I read the typed line at the bottom of the medical report:
Passenger 2 (Deceased on arrival): Dominic Bellini, age 24.
May you like
Vanessa’s older brother—Robert Bellini’s only son.
Teresa had let Robert Bellini believe for twelve years that rival street gangs killed his son in that ambush, when her own bank wire had paid the shooters.
