Chapter 5 - The Mark of Protection
A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. The acrid, sulfurous smell of cordite burned my nostrils.
I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting pain, but felt none.
When I opened them, Vincent Bellini was on his knees three feet in front of me, clutching a shattered right knee that was spurting dark blood onto the Persian rug. He was screaming, curling into a fetal ball of agony.
Standing directly over him was Luca Moretti.
His gun was still smoking, aimed steadily at the center of Vincent’s forehead. Luca hadn’t even blinked. He stood like an ancient bronze statue, radiating a murderous aura so suffocating that even Bellini’s hardened bodyguards backed against the bookshelves with their hands raised in total surrender.
“Take one more step toward her,” Luca whispered, the quietness of his voice far more terrifying than any roar, “and I will put the next round between your eyes. Drag him out of here.”
Marco and three guards grabbed the screaming Don by the collar of his expensive coat and hauled him out of the room, leaving a smear of dark red across the parquet floor. The bodyguards were disarmed and marched out under heavy guard, leaving only Luca, Elena, and me in the vast, echoing library.
Luca lowered his weapon, clicking the safety back on with an effortless flick of his thumb. He turned to his mother.
“Go back to bed, Mama. Dr. Chen is waiting for you.”
Elena looked at her son, then looked at me. She stepped over to my chair, reached out with both hands, and gently cupped my cheeks. Her touch was warm, loving, and entirely steady.
“You have the heart of a lion, little one,” the old matriarch whispered softly, kissing my forehead. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“You don't have to thank me, Mrs. Moretti,” I said, tears burning the back of my eyes.
“Call me Elena,” she smiled gently, before turning and allowing two trusted bodyguards to escort her out into the hall.
The heavy library doors clicked shut.
Silence fell over the room like a heavy velvet curtain.
I sat in the oversized armchair, trembling so violently that my teeth clicked together. The reality of what had just unfolded—the gunshots, the mafia Dons, the sheer brutality of this world I had suddenly been dragged into—slammed into my chest with the force of a freight train.
Luca stood by the desk, watching me. Slowly, deliberately, he placed his gun on the mahogany surface, walked over, and crouched down on one knee right in front of my chair, bringing himself to my eye level.
“Breathe, Sophie,” he said softly.
“He… you shot him,” I whispered, staring at the floor where the bloodstains darkened the wood. “Right in front of me.”
“He threatened you,” Luca said simply, as if that explained everything in the universe. “No one threatens anyone under my roof. Especially not you.”
“I’m just a maid, Mr. Moretti,” I said, my voice breaking as a single tear escaped down my cheek. “Yesterday I was scrubbing toilets and worrying about whether I had enough gas in my ten-year-old Honda to make it to the pharmacy. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in a world where people shoot each other over microchips and shipping docks!”
Luca reached up and caught the falling tear on the back of his thumb. His skin was rough against mine, but his touch was unbelievably gentle.
“You’re wrong,” he murmured, his dark eyes searching mine with a hunger that made my pulse race wildly. “You think belonging to this world is about bloodlines or money? Vanessa had all the bloodlines in the world, and she was a coward who preyed on an old woman. Vincent had hundreds of millions of dollars, and he groveled on his knees like a dog.”
He leaned closer, resting his hand on the arm of my chair, effectively caging me in.
“True strength is walking into danger with nothing to gain and everything to lose, simply because it’s the right thing to do. That is who you are, Sophie. And that is why, from this night on, you will never scrub another floor. You will never count your pennies. And you will never live in fear again.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat.
“Tomorrow night is the Syndicate Council Gala at the Drake Hotel,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a low, smoky register. “Every major crime family in the Midwest will be there. Vincent thought he was going to announce the merging of our empires. Instead, I am going to present the evidence of his treason to the High Council.”
He paused, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that made the room feel devoid of oxygen.
“And I want you at my side.”
I stared at him in utter disbelief. “At your side? At a mafia gala? Luca, they’ll eat me alive! I don’t know how to act in front of those people. I don’t have gowns, I don’t have diamonds—I’m a twenty-nine-year-old nobody from the South Side!”
“You are the woman who saved the Moretti family,” he said, rising to his feet and offering me his hand. “And tomorrow night, Chicago will see you as exactly what you are.”
“And what is that?” I whispered, looking up at him.
Luca smiled—a rare, breathtaking smile that transformed his rugged, intimidating face into something devastatingly handsome.
May you like
“Untouchable.”
***
