*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 hob die Karte auf. Seine Augen huschten über die geschwungene Schrift, und während er las, wich das Blut aus seinem Gesicht und wurde durch eine reine, glühende Wut ersetzt, die die Raumtemperatur um zwanzig Grad sinken ließ.
“Was steht da?”, flüsterte ich zitternd.
Luca antwortete nicht. Er reichte Marco die Karte, aber ich erhaschte noch einen Blick auf Vanessas makellose Handschrift, bevor Marco sie zusammenfaltete.
Der Zettel enthielt nur fünf Wörter:
Vielleicht gefällt es Ihnen
*Sprechende Hände können bluten.*
***
