Chapter 6 - The Bellini Collateral
Luca pulled back with agonizing slowness. The warmth of his hands lingered on my cheeks like a brand. His eyes remained locked on mine for another second—a silent promise that this conversation was far from over—before the ruthless, calculating mafia don resumed control.
He walked over to the desk and lifted the red receiver. "Talk to me."
I watched his expression harden, transforming back into the impenetrable mask of stone that had commanded the dining room the previous night.
"Where?" Luca demanded. A pause. "How many men did he bring? ... I see. Have the northern perimeter sealed. Notify the docks that no vessel associated with the Bellini registry is to leave the slipway. If a single tugboat moves, sink it."
He slammed the receiver down and looked at me. "Salvatore Bellini didn't take my advice to leave the city."
A chill ran down my spine. "What is he doing?"
"He's panicking," Luca said, pulling open the top drawer of his desk and removing a heavy, black semi-automatic pistol, checking the magazine with practiced efficiency before sliding it into the leather shoulder holster beneath his cashmere sweater. "When Vanessa realized she was ruined, she didn't run to the airport. She went straight to the North Side syndicate—the Marcone family."
"The Marcones?" I asked, recognizing the name from hushed whispers among the estate staff. "Aren't they your rivals?"
"They have been trying to breach our southern supply corridor for a decade," Luca replied, walking toward the study door. "Salvatore offered them the Cortese shipping codes. The ones Elena left to Sofia."
"Can he do that?"
"Not legally," Luca sneered. "But in our world, possession is ten-tenths of the law. If Salvatore hands over the encryption keys to Marcone, Marcone will seize the Canadian ports by force before sundown. And Vanessa thinks that if she hands Marcone my territory, Marcone will protect her from me."
Luca stopped at the door, turning back to look at me. "Emily, I need you to stay with Sofia. Dante has placed twenty armed operatives throughout the house. The nursery windows are reinforced ballistic glass. You are entirely safe here."
"Luca, be careful," I said, the words slipping out with an urgency that surprised even me.
Luca’s eyes softened. He walked back across the room, closing the distance between us in two strides. He caught the nape of my neck with his hand, pulling me toward him, and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to my forehead.
"I have something to come home to now," he whispered against my skin. "I won't be careless."
Within fifteen minutes, the courtyard below rumbled with the throaty roar of armored SUVs. Luca and his primary strike team departed like a phantom army, leaving the mansion in an eerie, heavily guarded stillness.
Upstairs, Sofia slept soundly, exhausted by her physical therapy. Dr. Vargas remained in the guest wing, drafting a comprehensive three-month recovery schedule.
I sat in the armchair beside Sofia’s bed, trying to read a novel, but my eyes kept darting to the heavy oak door. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corridor sounded like a countdown.
At four in the afternoon, my private house phone buzzed. It was Mrs. Gable, the head housekeeper who had treated me with cold indifference for eleven months. Now, her voice trembled with frantic deference.
"Miss Carter... excuse me, Emily," Mrs. Gable stammered. "There is a courier at the service gate. He says he has an urgent personal delivery for you. From the Bellini estate."
My blood ran cold. "For me?"
"Yes. He says it contains personal items belonging to your mother."
My heart stopped. *My mother.*
My mother lived in a small, modest bungalow in Bridgeport, dependent on dialysis treatments three times a week—treatments paid for by the generous health insurance package Luca provided to his residential staff.
How did Vanessa know about my mother?
*Because Vanessa handled the domestic payroll until yesterday,* I realized with sickening clarity.
"Mrs. Gable, do not let that courier through the gate," I ordered, my voice snapping with an authority I hadn't known I possessed. "Send two of Dante’s men to detain him immediately."
"Yes, ma'am!"
I ran to the window overlooking the grand driveway. Down at the reinforced iron gates, three hundred yards away, I saw a black sedan idling. Two of Luca’s guards, dressed in black tactical gear with automatic rifles concealed beneath their long overcoats, approached the driver’s side window.
Suddenly, the sedan accelerated in reverse, tires screeching against the asphalt, smoke billowing from the wheel wells!
The guards raised their weapons, but the car whipped around in a violent J-turn and sped away down the tree-lined boulevard, vanishing into the gray Chicago afternoon.
My hands were shaking violently as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed Dante’s direct number.
"Dante," the enforcer answered on the first ring, the background noise filled with the roar of heavy industrial machinery and shouting men.
"Dante, it's Emily," I said, trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice. "A car just tried to breach the service gate. They claimed to have something belonging to my mother."
A sharp curse echoed through the line. "Emily, listen to me. Luca and I just raided Bellini’s primary warehouse on the river. Salvatore is in custody, but Vanessa wasn't here. She slipped out twenty minutes before we arrived."
"Dante, my mother—"
"I’m already dispatching an extraction team to Bridgeport," Dante barked over the line. "Luca anticipated this. He sent a squad to your mother’s house three hours ago. She is safe. She’s already being transported to a secure safe house under our perimeter."
A massive sob of relief tore through my throat. "She's safe?"
"She's fine, Emily. But listen to me carefully," Dante’s voice dropped, grave and urgent. "Vanessa isn't trying to run away. She's completely unhinged. She knows she's lost Luca, she knows her father gave up the financial fraud, and she knows Marcone won't protect her without those shipping keys. She's coming back to the estate."
"Why?"
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"Because the only leverage she has left in this world," Dante said, "is Sofia."
***
