Chapter 8 - Unraveling the Web
The captured Russo operatives were dragged down to the secure holding cells on sublevel four without a single word of protest. They knew the rules of the Chicago underworld: when you play a high-stakes game against Luca Moretti and lose, the only thing you negotiate is how fast the lights go out.
Upstairs, the tension in the mansion had settled into a grim, purposeful quiet.
I sat at the mahogany desk in Luca’s private study, using a clean medical gauze roll and antiseptic wipes to tend to a shallow graze along Luca’s left knuckle where a piece of flying concrete shrapnel had clipped him during the shootout in the convoy bay.
"You should let Dr. Vance look at this properly," I murmured, pressing the gauze gently against his skin.
"It's a scratch, Sophie," Luca replied, not even flinching as the antiseptic bit into the raw tissue. His dark eyes were fixed on the open laptop screen in front of him, where thousands of encrypted financial transactions were scrolling down in green text.
"A scratch can get infected just as easily as a broken arm," I retorted softly, tying off the bandage with a neat, professional knot.
Luca looked down at my hands, then up into my face. A faint, genuine warmth softened the hard lines around his mouth.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "Down in the garage... when the charges blew... you didn't run."
"I told you, Mr. Moretti—"
"Luca," he corrected gently. "If you're going to be chief of domestic security and confidential operations for the Moretti estate, calling me 'Mr. Moretti' in private is going to get confusing."
I felt a sudden flutter in my chest, looking down at my hands where they rested against the edge of the desk. "Right. Luca."
"Good," he said, turning back to the laptop screen. "Now, look at this."
I leaned over the desk, my shoulder brushing against his arm as I stared at the lines of data. "What am I looking at?"
"This is the digital ledger we recovered from Vanessa’s private tablet down in her suite," Luca explained, pointing to a series of offshore wire transfers routed through accounts in Zurich and the Cayman Islands. "She wasn't just working with the Russos to get rid of my mother. She was systematically liquidating Paramount Holdings' real estate portfolio behind my back."
"To fund an escape?" I asked, frowning.
"To fund a hostile takeover," Luca corrected, his voice hardening. "She partnered with the Russos, promised them our shipping docks on the south side, and arranged to have me eliminated during the engagement party tonight while the federal prosecutors were distracted by a staged corruption probe she leaked to the press."
"She was going to kill you?" I whispered, a chill running down my spine.
"Tonight," Luca confirmed evenly. "Before midnight. The wedding cake was supposed to be the last thing I ever tasted."
I stared at the screen, the magnitude of the betrayal sinking in. For months, Vanessa had played the role of the devoted, sophisticated fiancée while quietly poisoning his mother, plotting his murder, and selling out his empire to his deadliest enemies.
"And what happens to her now?" I asked quietly.
Luca leaned back in his leather chair, his gaze drifting toward the high windows where the blizzard was still howling against the glass.
"She goes to a place where no one will ever find her," Luca said, his voice cold and final. "A quiet, secure estate in the Swiss Alps. No phone, no visitors, no money. She wanted to lock my mother away in a cage? She can spend the rest of her life discovering what a real cage feels like."
He stood up, walking over to the fireplace and resting his arm against the carved stone mantelpiece.
"The storm has cut off the downtown bridges," Luca said, turning back to look at me. "The guests are gone, the house is secure, and my mother is resting comfortably upstairs with Dr. Vance. It's past three in the morning, Sophie. You should go up to the master suite on the top floor and get some proper rest."
May you like
I blinked, staring at him. "The master suite? Sir—Luca... that's your floor."
"It's the safest room in the mansion," Luca replied simply, walking over to the study door and holding it open for me. "And after the day you've had, you've earned a secure bed."
