90 "**“STOP WAVING YOUR HANDS! YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

Three days after the engagement was broken, the reality of living under the direct protection of Luca Moretti became starkly clear.

I had moved my belongings into a beautiful, sunlit suite across the hall from Isabella’s bedroom on the second floor. The room had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the manicured gardens, a private bath with a clawfoot tub, and a small library filled with classic literature. It was larger than the entire apartment I shared with my mother and Leo.

Every morning began the same way. Isabella and I would sit by the bay window in the breakfast nook, working on her vocabulary, reading aloud while she practiced lip-reading, and engaging in rapid, joyful conversations in American Sign Language. Her laughter, once suppressed and fearful, was beginning to return to the hallways like birdsong after a brutal winter.

Luca joined us whenever his schedule allowed. Watching him interact with his daughter was a surreal contradiction. One afternoon, I saw him standing on the terrace, screaming into a burner phone in rapid-fire Sicilian, his face twisted in such terrifying rage that the two armed guards at the perimeter stepped back in terror.

Ten seconds later, he hung up, crushed the phone beneath the heel of his leather boot, turned toward the living room, and sat down cross-legged on the carpet to build a Lego castle with Isabella.

"Claire," he said on the fourth morning, leaning against the doorframe of the study while Isabella was busily coloring a sketch of the Chicago skyline.

"Yes, Mr. Moretti?"

"Luca," he corrected, his voice quiet. "When we are in this house, you call me Luca."

I felt a warmth rise into my cheeks. "Luca. What is it?"

He gestured with his head toward the private library across the hall. "A word, please."

I signed to Isabella: *Be right back, Peanut. Keep coloring.*

She beamed and flashed me a two-handed *thumbs up*, completely immersed in her drawing.

I stepped across the hall into the library. The heavy mahogany doors closed behind Luca with a definitive click.

Standing near the antique fireplace was Marco, Luca’s primary enforcer and consigliere. Marco was a towering man in his late forties, with a broken nose, graying temples, and cold, dead eyes that had seen far too much violence. He held a manila folder under his arm.

"Did the Bellinis make a move?" I asked before I could stop myself. The tension radiating from both men was palpable.

Luca leaned against the edge of his massive desk, crossing his arms. "You’re perceptive, Claire. That’s good. In this family, ignorance will get you killed faster than a bullet."

Marco opened the folder and slid three glossy photographs onto the polished wood.

I looked down. My stomach plummeted through the floor.

The photographs were surveillance shots taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. The first showed my mother walking out of our neighborhood grocery store in Oak Park. The second showed my twelve-year-old brother, Leo, sitting on the bench outside his specialized deaf academy, his backpack between his knees.

The third showed Vanessa Bellini sitting in the back of a black Mercedes, talking to an older, silver-haired man whose face looked like a mask of cracked granite.

"Don Antonio Bellini," Luca said, his voice flat and deadly. "Vanessa’s father. He runs the distribution docks on the river and controls three council seats. He didn't take kindly to his daughter being returned to his doorstep with a broken engagement ring and a room full of witnesses to her disgrace."

"Why are they watching my family?" My voice trembled. Terror, ice-cold and paralyzing, seized my chest. "Leo... my mother... they have nothing to do with this! I was the one who spoke up! If Vanessa wants revenge, she should come after me!"

Luca moved before I could blink. In two strides, he closed the distance between us. His large hands came down firmly on my upper arms, anchoring me. The heat of his palms burned through the fabric of my sweater.

"Listen to me, Claire," he commanded, his hazel eyes pinning mine. "Look at me."

I forced myself to meet his fierce, unyielding gaze.

"Nothing is going to happen to your brother. Nothing is going to happen to your mother. Do you understand me?"

"How can you promise that?" I choked out, tears blurring my vision. "You don't know the Bellinis like you think you do! Vanessa is venomous. She told Isabella that you wanted her gone! A woman who can say that to a deaf nine-year-old is capable of anything!"

"Vanessa is a spoiled, vindictive child who uses poison because she doesn't have the stomach for steel," Luca growled. "Her father, however, understands the rules of the city. He thinks he can find leverage on me by targeting the woman who brought down his daughter’s grand alliance."

*The woman who brought down his alliance.*

The phrase hung in the air between us. Luca hadn't referred to me as a housekeeper or a servant.

"Marco," Luca said without taking his eyes off mine. "Tell her."

Marco stepped forward, his gravelly voice surprisingly gentle. "At six o'clock this morning, four of our best security details were assigned to your mother and Leo. They are being shadowed twenty-four hours a day. By noon today, your mother’s lease in Oak Park will be terminated. A moving crew is packing their things as we speak."

I gasped. "Packing their things? To go where?"

"To the secure brownstone two blocks from here, inside our primary perimeter," Luca explained. "It has reinforced steel doors, private guards, and an underground link to the safe houses. Leo’s school has already been notified that his security clearance is updated. Two armed escorts will drive him to and from his classes every day. They will sign to him, Claire. Both men are fluent."

I stared at Luca in complete disbelief. The sheer scale of resources, the absolute military precision with which he had moved to shield my vulnerable family—it defied everything I had ever known about the world.

"How much... how much will this cost me?" I whispered, my mind spinning.

Luca’s expression darkened slightly, an edge of irritation flashing in his eyes. "Did you not hear a word I said to you in the kitchen three days ago? You saved my daughter from an emotional slaughterhouse. You gave her back her voice. If Antonio Bellini thinks he can touch one hair on your brother’s head to spite me, he will find the entire Moretti syndicate at his throat."

He didn't release my arms. In fact, his fingers tightened marginally, drawing me an inch closer. I could feel the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, smell the dark, intoxicating scent of sandalwood, cedar, and crisp tobacco that clung to his skin.

"You belong to my house now, Claire," he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate register that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "And Luca Moretti protects what is his. Always."

For several heart-stopping seconds, neither of us moved. The air between us crackled with a strange, forbidden heat that had nothing to do with the mafia, or revenge, or contracts. It was raw, magnetic, and completely dangerous.

A sharp knock at the library door shattered the spell.

Marco cleared his throat.

Luca slowly released my arms, stepping back, though his eyes lingered on my face for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

"Enter," Luca called out.

The door opened, and one of the younger perimeter guards stepped in, looking pale. "Boss. There's a courier at the main gate. A personal delivery for Miss Claire Bennett. From the Bellini estate."

Marco immediately touched the holster beneath his arm. "Bring it in through the containment protocol. X-ray first."

"Already done, Marco," the guard said, holding up a small, elegant silver box tied with a blood-red velvet ribbon. "Scanned clean. No explosives, no biologicals. Just a card and an object."

Luca snatched the box from the guard's hands. He tore off the red ribbon with ruthless efficiency and flipped open the lid.

Inside rested a pair of antique silver dressmaking shears. The blades were sharp enough to shave with, polished to a mirror shine.

Beside the shears was a handwritten note on expensive cream cardstock.

Luca picked up the card. His eyes scanned the cursive script, and as he read, the blood drained from his face, replaced by a pure, incandescent fury that made the room temperature seem to drop twenty degrees.

"What does it say?" I whispered, trembling.

Luca didn't answer. He handed the card to Marco, but I caught a glimpse of Vanessa’s immaculate handwriting before Marco folded it.

The note contained only five words: