« Les fiançailles sont rompues », déclara froidement Luca. Il fit signe aux deux imposants gardes du corps postés près des grandes portes doubles. « Escortez Mlle Bellini jusqu’au portail. Ne la laissez pas faire ses valises. Faites emballer ses affaires et jetez-les dans la rue. »
« Vous allez le regretter ! » hurla Vanessa tandis que les gardes lui saisissaient les bras. « Dominic vous prendra tout ! »
Les lourdes portes en chêne se refermèrent brusquement derrière elle, étouffant ses cris.
Un silence de mort régnait dans la salle à manger.
Luca se tourna vers ses invités. « Le dîner est terminé. Rentrez chez vous. »
En cinq minutes, la maison était vide, à l’exception du service de sécurité.
J’étais assise avec Oliver sur le grand escalier, le serrant contre moi. Il tremblait, l’adrénaline de la confrontation retombant enfin.
Luca s’approcha de nous, serrant toujours fermement dans sa main le pince-billets en or. Il s’assit lourdement sur la marche en contrebas et leva les yeux vers son fils.
« Oliver, dit Luca doucement, toute colère ayant disparu de sa voix. Pourquoi ne m’as-tu pas dit que tu étais dans la voiture ? »
Oliver baissa les yeux sur ses chaussures. « Parce que maman m’a dit de me cacher. »
J’ai eu un blocage à la gorge.
« Me cacher ? » demanda Luca en fronçant les sourcils. « Me cacher où ? »
« Dans le coffre », murmura Oliver. « On jouait à un jeu. Elle a dit qu’on allait te faire une surprise au bureau. Je suis monté à l’arrière par les sièges rabattables. »
Luca closed his eyes, the agonizing image of his wife’s final moments playing out in his mind. “And then what happened, buddy?”
“We stopped at a red light,” Oliver said, his voice tiny. “And Vanessa got in.”
Luca’s eyes snapped open. “Vanessa got into the car?”
“She was yelling,” Oliver explained. “She was telling Mommy that she needed to leave you alone. She said Mommy didn’t belong in the family anymore.”
I tightened my arm around Oliver. The poor boy had been carrying this horrific secret for two years.
“Mommy told her to get out,” Oliver continued. “But Vanessa wouldn’t. She grabbed the steering wheel. They were fighting, Daddy. And then… then we went off the road.”
Luca buried his face in his hands. A ragged, broken sob escaped his throat.
For two years, the police had called it a tragic accident. A slick road, a lost patch of traction.
It was murder.
I reached out, tentatively placing a hand on Luca’s broad shoulder. He didn’t pull away.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly. “If Vanessa caused the crash… why did Dominic come here last night? Why give Oliver the money clip now?”
Luca looked up, his dark eyes filled with a terrifying realization.
“Because Dominic isn’t trying to help me,” Luca whispered. “He’s blackmailing Vanessa. He must have known she was in the car. He let her get engaged to me so she would have access to my accounts.”
Suddenly, the front doors burst open.
A security guard rushed in, his face pale, bleeding from a cut on his forehead.
“Boss!” the guard shouted. “They ambushed us at the gate!”
Luca was on his feet in a second, pulling a gun from a shoulder holster hidden beneath his jacket. “Who?”
“Dominic’s men,” the guard gasped. “They hit our transport vehicle. Vanessa is gone. But sir… they didn’t just take her.”
The guard looked directly at me.
“They took the maid’s mother.”
The world tilted on its axis.
“My mother?” I choked out, my hands going completely numb. “No… no, she’s at home. She’s asleep.”
Luca grabbed my shoulders, steadying me as my knees threatened to give out.
“Emma, look at me,” he commanded, his voice a solid anchor in the middle of my panic. “We will get her back. I swear to you on my life.”
He turned to the bleeding guard. “How did they get to Emma’s mother? She lives in the suburbs. It takes forty minutes to drive there.”
“They didn’t go to her house, sir,” the guard explained, wiping blood from his eyes. “Her mother was here. At the service gate. She was dropping off a package for Emily.”
My heart stopped.
The package.
Tomorrow was my birthday. My mother always brought me homemade muffins the night before.
“They grabbed her when they ambushed Vanessa’s escort,” the guard continued. “Dominic’s right-hand man called the gate phone a minute ago. He said if you want the old woman alive, you bring the ledgers to the abandoned rail yard by midnight.”
