Chapter 3 - THE TORN TRUTH
~1,100 words
The restaurant plunged into a deafening silence, save for the sound of Isabella’s desperate weeping.
Luca felt the floor drop out from beneath him. He looked from his beautiful, elegant fiancée, crying over the crumpled Polaroid, to the trembling waitress in the stained apron.
“What the hell is going on?” Luca demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. He grabbed Isabella by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. “Isabella. Look at me. What do you mean, that’s your daughter? You told me you never had children.”
Isabella couldn’t catch her breath. She clutched the photograph to her chest as if holding it could protect the little girl in the picture.
“I lied!” she sobbed, her perfectly styled hair falling around her face in a mess. “Luca, I’m so sorry. I lied to you. I had a baby seven years ago, before I ever met you. I was young, I was terrified, and the father was a monster. I gave her up for closed adoption the day she was born to protect her.”
The waitress—whose nametag read Elena—stumbled backward, hitting the edge of a mahogany table.
“A closed adoption,” Elena whispered, her eyes wide with shock. “Seven years ago. At Saint Mary’s Hospital.”
Isabella froze. She looked at the waitress, her tear-filled eyes widening. “How do you know that?”
“Because my husband and I couldn’t have children,” Elena cried, pointing a trembling finger at the dead man on the floor. “David and I adopted a baby girl seven years ago from Saint Mary’s. We named her Mia.”
The two women stared at each other, separated by a dead body, but bound together by the same little girl. The rich socialite who gave her away to save her, and the poor waitress who took her in to love her.
Luca’s mind was spinning. The criminal empire he ran was built on logic, strategy, and power. But this—this was a tangled web of secrets that had just exploded in his dining room.
“Vincent,” Luca said suddenly, looking at the gold ring in the photograph. “My underboss. Why does Vincent have your daughter?”
Isabella’s face went completely pale. She looked away, refusing to meet Luca’s eyes.
“Isabella,” Luca warned, stepping closer. “If Vincent is the one holding this child, you need to tell me why. Right now.”
“Because,” Isabella choked out, “Vincent is her biological father.”
The words hit Luca like a physical blow to the chest. He stumbled back a step.
Vincent. His right-hand man. The man who had stood beside him in a dozen gunfights. The man who had toasted to his upcoming wedding just last week. Vincent had fathered a child with Isabella before she met Luca, and he had kept it a secret all these years.
“He didn’t know,” Isabella pleaded, grabbing the lapels of Luca’s suit. “Vincent never knew I was pregnant! I ran away from him because he was cruel. He was ruthless. When I met you, you were different. You had honor, Luca. I fell in love with you. I never told Vincent about the baby because I knew he would use her as a pawn in his sick games.”
“He knows now,” Elena interrupted, her voice hardening with a mother’s fierce desperation. She wiped her tears, her sadness morphing into pure rage. “David must have figured it out. That’s why he kidnapped her from me three years ago. He’s been holding Mia hostage, blackmailing Vincent this whole time!”
Luca looked at the dead man on the floor. It all made sickening sense now.
David had stolen the child to blackmail the wealthy mob boss, Vincent. But David got greedy. He realized Isabella was engaged to Luca Moretti, the head of the entire family. So David approached Isabella with the silver pocket watch, trying to extort money from her too.
And Vincent, realizing David was becoming a liability, had poisoned his drink tonight to silence him forever.
Except Vincent didn’t know the waitress serving the drinks was the adoptive mother who had been hunting David for years.
Luca’s phone buzzed again.
He didn’t hesitate this time. He opened the message.
VINCENT HAS THE GIRL. HE KNOWS YOU KNOW. HE IS LEAVING THE RESTAURANT THROUGH THE KITCHEN NOW.
“We have to go,” Luca barked, his instincts taking over. He pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and chambered a round.
“Luca, wait!” Isabella cried. “If you go after him, he’ll kill her! He doesn’t care about her, he only cares about power!”
“He won’t kill her if he’s dead first,” Luca said coldly.
He turned to his guards. “Lock down the front. Nobody leaves. Come with me.”
Luca sprinted toward the swinging doors of the kitchen, his men close behind. Elena didn’t stay back. She grabbed a heavy cast-iron serving tray from a nearby table and ran after them, driven by a mother’s adrenaline. Isabella kicked off her designer heels and followed barefoot.
They burst into the massive industrial kitchen.
Chefs and dishwashers were cowering under stainless steel prep tables, their hands over their heads.
At the far end of the kitchen, near the loading dock exit, stood Vincent.
He was a tall, imposing man in a tailored gray suit. His dark hair was slicked back, and his heavy gold ring glinted under the fluorescent lights. Two of his own loyal guards stood beside him, their weapons raised.
“Drop it, Luca!” Vincent shouted over the hiss of a boiling steam pot.
Luca aimed directly at Vincent’s chest. “Where is the girl, Vincent?”
Vincent smiled. It was a cold, empty smile that sent a shiver down Luca’s spine.
“You always were too sentimental, boss,” Vincent sneered. “I finally track down the rat who was blackmailing me, I put poison in his glass from the balcony, and instead of thanking me, you point a gun at me over a bastard child I never wanted.”
“She’s my daughter!” Elena screamed, stepping out from behind Luca, gripping the iron tray so hard her knuckles were white.
Vincent looked at the waitress in the stained apron and laughed. “You’re the pathetic woman David married? God, he really was a loser. Don’t worry, sweetheart. The kid is safe. For now.”
“Where is she?!” Isabella cried out, standing beside Elena.
Vincent’s eyes locked onto Isabella. His smile faded into a sneer of absolute disgust.
“You broke my heart, Bella,” Vincent spat. “You ran away from me, hid my own flesh and blood, and engaged yourself to the boss. You think I was going to let you live happily ever after? I’m taking over this family tonight, Luca. And the kid is my insurance policy.”
Vincent raised his hand.
Suddenly, the loading dock doors burst open. Six more heavily armed men rushed in. Vincent’s men.
Luca and his three guards were instantly outnumbered.
“Kill them all,” Vincent ordered, turning to walk out the door. “But leave the women alive. I want them to watch.”
The kitchen erupted in gunfire.
Luca dove behind a massive steel stove, pulling Isabella down with him. Bullets shattered plates and ripped through pots, sending scalding water and hot oil spraying across the tile floor. Elena ducked behind a prep table, shielding her head with the iron tray as bullets sparked against it.
Luca returned fire, dropping two of Vincent’s men, but they were pinned down. They had seconds before they were flanked and executed.
Then, Luca noticed something on the floor near Isabella’s hand.
It had fallen out of Vincent’s pocket when he turned to run.
A small, heavy object.
Luca reached out and grabbed it.
It was a rusted, antique key, attached to a faded leather tag. Stamped into the leather were three faded letters: S.H.M.
Luca’s heart hammered against his ribs. He knew exactly what those letters meant.
Sacred Heart Monastery.
An abandoned church on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Vincent’s private, off-the-books hideout.
“I know where she is,” Luca shouted over the gunfire.
He looked at his men. They nodded, knowing what they had to do. They stood up, laying down a wall of suppressive fire, sacrificing their own cover to give Luca a window.
“Run!” Luca roared, grabbing Isabella’s hand and Elena’s arm, dragging the two mothers toward the service elevator.
They barely made it inside before the doors slammed shut, bullets denting the metal from the outside.
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As the elevator descended to the garage, the three of them stood panting in the dim light.
Luca looked at the rusted key in his hand. The true war hadn't even begun, but the clock was ticking, and the lives of the women he loved—and the child they shared—depended entirely on him.
