Chapter 3 - THE BOATHOUSE AT MIDNIGHT
The doorknob rattled violently.
“Luca! Open this instant!” Vanessa’s voice lost its sweet edge, replaced by a sharp, rising panic. “Why is this door locked? What are you doing in there with her?”
Luca didn’t move an inch. He stood motionless beside the mahogany bench, the cream-colored note clutched in his fist, his dark gaze pinned to my face.
“Luca!”
“Go away, Vanessa,” Luca called out, his tone frighteningly flat. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”
A heavy silence fell over the hallway.
Then, through the thick oak, we heard the sharp click of her heels turning and rushing down the corridor toward the grand staircase.
Luca exhaled slowly, though his chest rose and fell with a suppressed violence. He unfolded the note again, smoothing the creases against his thigh.
“You haven't answered my question, Claire,” he said quietly. “Whose corpse were they planning to leave behind?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice trembling as I pulled my injured hand closer to my chest. “When she dropped that note in the linen room, I tried to pick it up. That’s when she slammed the door on my fingers. She wasn't just hiding a memory card, Mr. Moretti—she was hiding the timeline.”
Luca looked down at the silver memory card resting between us on the bench.
“Julian Vance has been my closest friend since we were twelve years old,” Luca said, each word measured like a falling guillotine. “His father gave me my first job on the docks when my own father died. For him to sit at my engagement table tonight while plotting to drain my accounts… and for Vanessa to orchestrate it from inside my own house…”
He reached out and picked up the memory card.
“If they want a midnight meeting at the boathouse,” Luca whispered, “we’ll give them one.”
“Mr. Moretti, no,” I protested, shaking my head. “If you go down there alone, or if they realize you know—they have guns, or worse. Julian is your best man; he knows every security blind spot on this entire estate.”
Luca stopped. He turned his head slightly, listening to something outside the high, arched window that overlooked the courtyard.
Down below, the distinct purr of a Mercedes engine echoed against the stone walls.
“That’s Julian’s car,” Luca said coldly.
He walked swiftly to the window and parted the heavy velvet drapes.
Parked near the eastern edge of the gravel drive, beneath the sprawling branches of an old oak tree, Julian Vance’s black coupe sat idling with its headlights off.
The passenger door opened.
A figure wrapped in a dark trench coat slipped out of the side entrance of the mansion and hurried across the lawn toward Julian’s car.
Even in the dim amber glow of the garden lamps, the distinctive red silk hem flashing beneath the coat was unmistakable.
It was Vanessa.
Luca’s reflection in the window glass showed a face devoid of any human warmth.
“They aren't waiting until midnight,” Luca said.
He turned around, pulling his cell phone from his pocket with his left hand while keeping his right hand resting near the holster hidden inside his jacket.
“Dante,” Luca barked into the phone as he speed-dialed his head of security. “Get the outer perimeter gates locked right now. No vehicles in or out. And bring two men to the east garden path by the old greenhouse. Quietly.”
He hung up before Dante could answer.
Then he looked back at me.
“You’re coming with me, Claire.”
I stood up, my knees shaking slightly from the painkiller Dr. Harris had given me. “Me? Mr. Moretti, I’m injured, I’m a housemaid—I shouldn’t be anywhere near—”
“Julian brought you into this house six months ago,” Luca interrupted, his voice cutting through my protests like steel. “He didn't pick you at random out of an employment agency. My security checked your personnel file—your mother’s medical facility was bought out by a shell company last year. Do you know who owns that shell company, Claire?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Who?”
“Vance Holdings,” Luca said. “Julian has been paying for your mother’s treatments. He put you in my house on purpose. Now tell me you don’t want to know why.”
The blood roared in my ears.
Every terrifying detail clicked into place with sickening clarity: the gentle prodding from Julian to apply for the Gold Coast position, the way he always happened to visit the mansion on Tuesdays when I was working the third-floor wing, the subtle questions he used to ask about Luca’s private study schedule.
I wasn’t a housemaid to them.
I was a pawn.
“Let’s go,” I whispered, my fear instantly hardening into a cold, burning rage.
Luca’s eyes met mine for a fraction of a second—and for the first time, I saw a shared understanding pass between the mafia boss and his exploited employee.
We slipped out through the service staircase at the back of the third-floor corridor, avoiding the grand ballroom where thirty wealthy guests were still sipping champagne and listening to a string quartet play Vivaldi, completely oblivious to the war zone unfolding outside their doors.
The night air was freezing.
As we crossed the wet grass toward the dark shadow of the east garden, Luca suddenly pulled me behind the thick stone pillar of the greenhouse terrace.
Twenty yards ahead, half-hidden by the overgrown boxwood hedges, Julian Vance and Vanessa Bellini were standing beside the low stone wall of the sunken rose garden.
Vanessa was holding a thick manila envelope against her chest.
Julian’s voice drifted clearly across the quiet lawn.
“Did he suspect anything about the ledger?” Julian asked, his voice sharp and nervous.
“Not yet,” Vanessa snapped back, her designer heels sinking into the damp earth. “But Claire saw the memory card in the linen room. If Luca talks to her tonight, the whole thing blows up before the wedding tomorrow morning!”
Julian let out a cold, low laugh.
“Then we fix it tonight,” Julian said, reaching inside his coat and pulling out a heavy, dark object that caught the pale moonlight.
A suppressed pistol.
May you like
Beside me, Luca’s hand went inside his jacket, his fingers wrapping around the grip of his own weapon as he stepped out from behind the stone pillar into the moonlight.
“Put the gun down, Julian,” Luca’s voice rang out across the garden, calm, lethal, and absolute.
