Chapter 2 - THE SILVER LOCKET
The dining room felt like a tomb.
Thirty elite guests stared at the worn red plastic token resting in Luca Moretti’s palm. The initials V. BELLINI were scratched violently into the back, right beneath his own.
Luca didn’t look at the $25,000 check resting on the mahogany table. He only looked at the woman he was supposed to marry.
"You told me you grew up in a villa in Lake Como," Luca said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "You told me the Bellini family hadn't worried about money in four generations."
Vanessa’s perfectly manicured hands gripped the edge of the table. "Luca, she’s a confused old woman. My father gave away hundreds of those tokens to charity. Someone must have scratched my name on it."
"Nobody gave them away," Mrs. Carter said softly. She reached into her lavender purse again. "You had to stand in the principal’s office and declare your family’s income to get one. I remember the day you came in, Vanessa. You were crying because your shoes had holes in them."
Vanessa’s face turned the color of ash. "Shut up."
"You told me your father was a shipping magnate when we were kids," Luca said, stepping closer to his fiancée. "But you were in my cafeteria. In Chicago. Standing in the same poverty line I was."
"It doesn't matter!" Vanessa snapped, her polished facade finally cracking. "My father rebuilt our wealth! We are peers now, Luca. That’s what matters for this marriage."
"What matters is why you tried to pay her twenty-five thousand dollars yesterday," Luca replied.
He picked up the metal lunchbox Mrs. Carter had brought. He bypassed the tokens and the receipt his mother had signed, digging deeper into the rusted tin. His fingers brushed against something wrapped in a faded piece of newspaper.
He pulled it out.
It was a photograph. Faded, cracked at the edges.
"I took that picture on the last day of school, 1999," Mrs. Carter said. "The day before your family lost everything, Luca."
Luca stared at the photo. He turned it so Vanessa could see.
I leaned forward, wiping down the nearest crystal glass just to have an excuse to look. It was a picture of a young Luca sitting alone at a cafeteria table. But standing in the background, out of focus, was a young, scowling Vanessa.
And around her neck was a heavy, distinct silver locket.
Luca’s breath hitched. "Where did you get that locket, Vanessa?"
Vanessa backed away from the table. "It was my mother's."
"Liar," Luca snarled, his voice vibrating with sudden, violent rage. "That is a custom Moretti heirloom. It has the Sicilian crest on the clasp. My mother wore it every day of her life, right up until the afternoon our house was robbed. The same robbery that bankrupted my father."
The guests began whispering frantically.
"She was wearing it in the cafeteria," Mrs. Carter said quietly. "The very morning after your house was broken into."
Luca dropped the photo onto the table. "Your family didn't rebuild their wealth, Vanessa. Your father stole ours."
Vanessa looked around the room, her eyes wide with panic. Then, her gaze landed on me.
"This is your fault!" she screamed, pointing a shaking finger at me. "I told you to seat this old hag in the kitchen!"
She lunged across the space, grabbing the closest thing to her—a heavy crystal wine decanter—and hurled it directly at Mrs. Carter.
"Mrs. Carter!" I yelled.
I didn't think. I threw myself in front of the elderly woman, shielding her face with my arms. The heavy crystal smashed against my shoulder, shattering into a dozen pieces and sending dark red wine soaking into my uniform.
The pain was blinding, but the silence that followed was worse.
Luca stood perfectly still. He looked at the shattered glass on the floor, the wine dripping from my sleeve, and the terror in Mrs. Carter's eyes.
"Emma," Luca said quietly. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, sir," I whispered, clutching my shoulder.
Luca turned to his guards standing by the door. "Take Vanessa to the east wing. Lock her in. Nobody goes in or out."
"Luca, you can't do this! My father is arriving tomorrow!" Vanessa screamed as two massive men grabbed her arms.
"I'm counting on it," Luca said.
As they dragged her away, Luca knelt down to help me pick up the broken crystal. He reached for a large shard near the base of the table, but he froze.
Hidden beneath the mahogany leg, exactly where Vanessa had been standing, was a tiny, folded train ticket she had dropped when she lunged.
Luca picked it up and unfolded it.
I saw his jaw lock.
"Sir?" I asked.
He handed me the ticket. "Read the destination, Emma."
I looked at the faded ink. It was a ticket to a private boarding school in Switzerland. But what chilled my blood was the name printed on the passenger line.
May you like
LEO MORETTI.
Luca didn't have a son. But he had a younger brother who had supposedly died in a house fire twenty years ago.
