Chapter 3 - The Cold Room
The walk up the sweeping marble staircase was agonizingly quiet.
Luca insisted on carrying Teresa himself. Despite her protests that she was "too heavy" and that she could walk with her cane, Luca gently gathered the seventy-eight-year-old woman into his arms as if she were made of spun glass. The pale-blue blanket trailed down over his tailored sleeve, a vivid reminder of her humiliation.
I walked half a step behind them, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Behind us, down in the main foyer, we could hear the muffled, frantic shouts of Vanessa barking orders at the private moving staff she had frantically called, along with Michael’s desperate phone calls to his associates. Luca had left two stone-faced guards stationed at the base of the stairs with simple instructions: *If anyone tries to come up, put them in the ground.*
We reached the third floor.
The third floor was the service wing. It was where the industrial washing machines rattled, where extra linens were stacked in plastic bins, and where the air was always thick with the scent of bleach and stale detergent. The floors here weren't polished hardwood or plush Italian carpet; they were cold, grey linoleum tiles that cracked around the corners.
I walked past the utility closet and stopped in front of a narrow, unmarked wooden door.
"Here, Mr. Moretti," I said quietly, pushing the door open.
The hinges groaned.
Luca stepped inside, and I watched his tall frame stiffen until he looked like a statue carved of granite.
The room was no bigger than eight feet by ten feet. There was no radiator in here, only a small, rusted space heater plugged into an overloaded wall socket that I had brought from my own home because I couldn't bear to see Teresa shivering. In the center of the room sat a narrow metal daybed—the kind used in cheap college dormitories. Her clothes were folded in cardboard fruit boxes stacked in the corner. Her late husband’s woolen sweater lay draped over the metal headboard, surrounded by three framed photographs of her boys as toddlers.
The room smelled of damp plaster and winter draft.
Luca didn't speak for a full sixty seconds. He stood in the middle of the cramped room, holding his mother, his jaw clenching so hard that I could hear the grinding of his teeth. The veins along his neck and temples bulged against his bronze skin.
"They put you here," Luca said, his voice cracking slightly on the last word. "In the laundry room."
"It has a window, sweetheart," Teresa murmured, trying to smooth Luca’s furrowed brow with her frail hand. "Look, I can see the garden when the sun comes up. Don't be mad at Michael. He said... he said with the wedding coming, the house needed to look modern. He said my old furniture smelled like the past."
"Your old furniture," Luca choked out, "was chosen by my father when he built this house for you. You gave thirty years of your life to this family, Mom. You took bullets during the turf wars in ninety-two. You starved so Michael and I could have shoes for school."
A single tear rolled down the hardened cheek of the Chicago Don.
He didn't wipe it away. He gently placed Teresa down on the narrow daybed, pulling the thin mattress cover over her knees, and wrapped the blue blanket tightly around her frail frame. Then, he sank onto his knees on the freezing linoleum floor, resting his forehead against his mother's lap.
"I am so sorry," Luca whispered, his shoulders shaking with silent, suppressed agony. "I was so focused on business. On the shipping docks. On negotiating the truce with the Bellinis. I thought Michael was taking care of you. I trusted them."
"You were protecting us, Luca," Teresa said softly, running her fingers through his thick, dark hair. "You always protected us. But you can't see the snakes in the grass when you're looking at the horizon."
Teresa looked up from her son’s head and caught my gaze. Her eyes were warm, full of an unspoken gratitude that made my chest ache.
"If it wasn't for Hannah, Luca," Teresa said, "I wouldn't have survived this week. She sneaked soup up here every night. She gave me her own sweater. She sat on the floor and read the Bible to me when the drafts made my bones ache so bad I couldn't close my eyes."
Luca slowly lifted his head.
He turned his dark, brooding eyes toward me. The intensity of his gaze was overwhelming. For nearly a year, I had kept my head down around him, slipping into rooms to change water carafes or empty wastebaskets, terrified of making eye contact with the man whose name made street gangs flee in terror.
Now, he was looking at me as if I were the only pure thing left in his world.
He stood up, towering over me in the tiny room.
"Hannah," he said.
"Yes, Mr. Moretti?"
"Your mother. What was her surgery?"
I blinked, taken aback by the question. "Her... her hip, sir. She had a severe fracture three months ago. She has limited mobility."
"And you work seventy hours a week here, then take the bus across town to change her dressings?"
I swallowed hard, looking at the floor. "I do what I have to do, Mr. Moretti. Family is family."
Luca reached out. His large, warm hand gently cupped my chin, lifting my face until our eyes met again. His touch was unexpectedly tender, devoid of the violence that defined his reputation.
"Starting tonight, Hannah, you are no longer a maid in this house."
Panic flared in my chest. "Mr. Moretti, please! I need this job. My mother's physical therapy bills—"
"You didn't let me finish," Luca interrupted, his thumb gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear. "You are not a maid anymore because you are now the Director of the Moretti Estate. Your salary is quadrupled, effective an hour ago. Tomorrow morning, my personal physician will be at your mother’s house. She will have full-time private nursing care, paid for by the family trust, for the rest of her life."
My knees literally buckled. I would have hit the floor if Luca’s arm hadn't shot out, catching me by the waist and pulling me steady against his chest.
"Mr. Moretti... I can't accept that," I gasped, my head spinning. "I only did what any decent human being would do."
"Decency is a rare commodity in this house, Hannah," Luca said, his voice dropping into a husky, solemn register. "And loyalty to my mother is the only currency that matters to me."
He released my waist, turning back to Teresa.
"Come on, Mom," Luca said, reaching down and sweeping her back into his arms.
"Where are we going, sweetheart?" Teresa asked.
May you like
Luca’s jaw set into an iron line. "To the master suite. Vanessa’s belongings are being thrown onto the front lawn as we speak. You are sleeping in your own bed tonight. And tomorrow, we go find Aunt Sofia."
***
