Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF A NAME
Vanessa’s hands were shaking so violently I thought the gun might discharge by accident. Her beautiful red silk engagement dress was soaked in her father's blood, her perfectly styled hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and dust.
She looked completely unhinged.
"Nobody moves!" Vanessa shrieked, pressing the barrel of the silver revolver against Teresa’s temple.
Teresa, still crouched behind the overturned buffet table, closed her eyes and began to silently pray, clutching the pearls at her throat.
"Vanessa, drop the gun," Luca said. His voice was no longer the calm, collected tone of a mafia boss playing a game. It was the raw, desperate growl of a son terrified for his mother. He held his Glock aimed squarely at Vanessa's chest, but he didn't dare pull the trigger. If she flinched, Teresa would die.
"Put the gun down, Vanessa," my father pleaded from the floor beside me. "Your father is bleeding out. He needs an ambulance. This is over."
"It's not over until I say it's over!" Vanessa screamed, her eyes darting wildly around the ruined dining room. She looked at me, holding the brass Geneva key. "The cartel wants twenty million dollars by midnight, or they skin me alive. You think I care if my father bleeds out? He was going to leave me anyway! Throw me the key, Emily!"
"Vanessa, you won't make it to the front gate," Luca warned, taking a slow, agonizing step forward. "My men have the estate surrounded. You are trapped. Walk away now, and I will let you leave the city. I will even pay your cartel debt. Just let my mother go."
Vanessa laughed. It was a terrifying, hollow sound.
"You think I want your pity money, Luca? I was going to be the Queen of New Orleans! I was going to own the Moretti empire!" She jammed the gun harder against Teresa’s head. "Throw me the key, maid, or the old lady’s brains paint the wallpaper!"
I looked at the brass key in my palm. The metal was sticky with my own blood from the glass cuts.
I looked at Teresa. She opened her eyes and looked right at me.
"Don't do it, Emily," Teresa said softly, her voice remarkably steady. "She's a coward, just like her father. She won't shoot."
"I'll do it!" Vanessa screamed, pulling the hammer back with a loud click.
"Here!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet. "Take it! Just take it and let her go!"
I raised my arm and threw the brass key.
But I didn't throw it to Vanessa. I threw it as hard as I could toward the heavy velvet curtains covering the locked steel shutters at the far end of the room.
Vanessa’s eyes instinctively followed the arc of the flying key. For one crucial fraction of a second, the barrel of the gun drifted away from Teresa’s head.
Luca didn't hesitate.
He didn't shoot Vanessa—he knew a fatal shot could still cause a reflex trigger pull. Instead, Luca lunged across the distance, swinging his heavy Glock like a club. The steel grip smashed violently into Vanessa’s wrist.
A loud CRACK echoed through the room. Vanessa screamed in agony, the silver revolver flying from her shattered wrist and skittering across the floor.
Luca grabbed Vanessa by her blood-soaked collar and hurled her backward. She crashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor, sobbing and cradling her broken arm.
"Mom! Are you okay?" Luca dropped to his knees, frantically checking Teresa for wounds.
"I'm fine, my boy," Teresa breathed, her hands shaking as she touched her son's face. "I'm fine."
The heavy oak doors of the dining room suddenly burst open from the outside.
Dozens of uniformed police officers and FBI agents flooded into the room, their flashlights cutting through the dust and darkness. Luca’s tactical guards immediately lowered their weapons, stepping aside. Luca had called the authorities long before dinner started; the steel shutters and jammed doors had only delayed them.
"Secure the room! EMTs, we need medics in here!" an FBI agent barked.
Paramedics rushed in, immediately descending on Vincent Bellini, who was still gasping for air on the floor, and Arthur, who sat quietly waiting to be cuffed. Police officers dragged a screaming, cursing Vanessa to her feet, slapping handcuffs over her broken wrist, ignoring her shrieks of pain.
I stood in the center of the wreckage, my maid’s uniform torn and covered in dust.
My father walked over to me. He gently took my bruised hands in his.
"It's over, Emily," he whispered, kissing my forehead. "The ghosts are gone."
I leaned into him, letting the exhaustion and shock wash over me. For the first time in my life, I felt anchored. I wasn't just a girl who scrubbed floors for rich people. I was Thomas Carter's daughter.
"Excuse me."
I turned.
An FBI agent stood behind us, holding a small evidence bag. Inside the bag was the brass key with the scrap of red silk attached.
"Miss Carter," the agent said respectfully. "Mr. Moretti informed us that this key belongs to your family. We need to process it for evidence against the Bellinis, but once the trial is over... the contents of that Geneva account legally belong to your father. As restitution for false imprisonment and attempted murder."
I stared at the agent, stunned. "Restitution?"
"Thirty million dollars, Emily," Luca’s voice came from behind the agent.
Luca walked toward us, his tuxedo ruined, his face smeared with dust, but his eyes were softer than I had ever seen them. He stopped in front of me and my father.
"Vincent stole that money from my father," Luca said quietly. "But my father’s will explicitly stated that if the money was ever recovered, half of it was to go to the man who saved his life during a cartel shootout thirty years ago. Your father, Thomas."
My father shook his head. "Mr. Luca, I don't want the money. I just want my daughter."
Luca smiled gently. "You're getting both, Thomas. And you're never driving a car or hiding in the shadows again."
May you like
Luca turned his gaze to me. The intensity in his dark eyes made my breath hitch.
"And you, Emily," Luca said, reaching out to gently brush a piece of plaster from my hair. "You are no longer a maid in this house. You never should have been."
