Chapter 4 - A Forced Confession
The master bedroom on the third floor of the Moretti mansion was a fortress within a palace. Reinforced steel lined the mahogany doors; bulletproof glass covered the expansive windows overlooking the dark woods of the private estate.
Luca dragged Elena into the suite, releasing her hand only after the heavy door latched shut with an ominous click.
"Sit," he commanded, pointing to the dark leather chesterfield sofa facing the unlit fireplace.
Elena rubbed her wrist, trembling. She looked around the cavernous room—the king-sized bed draped in charcoal silk, the smell of sandalwood, bourbon, and expensive cigars that permeated the air. It was overwhelmingly masculine, intensely intimidating.
"I can't stay here," she said, her voice thin. "If he sees me coming out of your room—"
"Nobody enters this floor without my permission," Luca interrupted, shucking his suit jacket and tossing it onto an armchair. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his white dress shirt, rolling them up to reveal forearms covered in intricate black-and-grey tattoos—symbols of his family's crest, scars from blades, and tallies of survival.
He walked into the adjoining bathroom and returned a moment later carrying a first-aid kit and a bowl of warm water with a clean washcloth.
Elena watched him, baffled and unnerved. The Don of the Moretti family—a man whose name made hardened criminals empty their pockets and run—was kneeling on the floor in front of her.
"Give me your arm," he said.
"Luca, you don't have to—"
"Give me your arm, Elena. Or Giuliana. Whichever one isn't lying to me right now."
Hesitantly, she extended her left arm. Luca’s large, calloused fingers caught her wrist with surprising gentleness. His touch was warm, sending a strange, electric tremor through her skin that made her breath catch.
He soaked the cloth, wringing it out, and carefully pressed it against the dark hematomas circling her flesh. Elena winced, her body tensing.
"Easy," Luca murmured, his voice softer than she thought possible. His thumb stroked the side of her palm, an instinctive, protective gesture that seemed to bypass his conscious mind. "Who touched you?"
Elena looked down at the top of his dark head, at the slight wave in his black hair, the hard angle of his cheekbones, the faint scar running along his jawline. He was magnificent and terrifying all at once.
"It was Capo Don Franco," she whispered.
Luca’s hand stopped moving. His entire frame locked into pure stone.
"Franco," Luca repeated. The name tasted like ash in his mouth. Don Franco was an elder in the Moretti family, a man who had served Luca’s father for thirty years. A man who controlled the shipping docks and the distribution routes across the northern ports.
"Two weeks ago, he came to the estate for the monthly council meeting," Elena explained, her voice cracking with the memory. "I was serving the scotch. I kept my head down, but he caught my reflection in the silver tray. He didn't say anything then. But tonight... I went to the laundry annex behind the gardens. He was waiting in the shadows."
"What did he say to you?" Luca asked, his voice deceptively calm. It was the calm before a hurricane.
"He told me he knew who I was. He said he had spent five years looking for Arturo’s little songbird. He..." Elena choked back a sob, closing her eyes tightly. "He grabbed me. He pushed me against the brick wall. He said if I screamed, he would tell you that I was an undercover operative sent to poison your water. He said you would slaughter me before I could utter a single word in my defense."
"And what did he want?" Luca pressed, his dark eyes rising to meet hers, blazing with an infernal fury.
"He wants the vault keys," she said. "Before my father died, he hid thirty million dollars in bearer bonds and diamonds in an offshore account. The authentication codes were split into two parts. Arturo gave the cipher to me on a microchip inside a locket. Franco wants the cipher. He said if I give it to him by tomorrow night, he will help me flee to South America. If I don't... he said he’d make sure I died screaming in your torture cellar, and you would thank him for doing it."
Luca stared at her. The puzzle pieces, scattered across five years of silence, suddenly slammed together into a horrifying portrait of treachery.
Franco hadn't just murdered Arturo Bellandi. He had embezzled from the Moretti family under the guise of war losses, and now he was hunting the final spoils of a dead empire.
Luca reached into his pocket, pulled out an ointment, and gently smeared it over the bruised skin of her wrist. He wrapped a soft white bandage around the marks, securing it with medical tape.
When he finished, he didn't let go of her hand. He brought it up to his lips, his gaze locked onto hers, and pressed a light, burning kiss to the pulse point on her wrist.
Elena’s breath hitched. A dark blush surged across her cheeks.
"Franco lied to you," Luca whispered, his thumb caressing the back of her hand.
"About what?"
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"About me." Luca rose to his full height, looking down at her with eyes that promised war. "I don't kill ghosts, Giuliana. I kill the bastards who try to make them."
***
