Chapter 4 - The Sister on the Other End of the Line
The heavy steel safe behind the false bookcase opened with a muted mechanical click.
From the bottom shelf, I retrieved the matte-black satellite handset.
It was an encrypted device known only to four individuals in the entire Midwest.
My father had given it to me ten years ago during the turf disputes with the Detroit syndicate.
I sat back behind my desk and placed the heavy device beside Rebecca’s unopened letters.
Hannah sat quietly in her chair, watching with wide, nervous eyes.
I took a silver letter opener from the drawer.
Carefully, without tearing the sender's address, I slit open the purple envelope postmarked five months ago.
A single sheet of lavender stationary slid out.
The handwriting was rushed, uneven, and marked with faint water stains where tears had dried on the fibers.
Luca, the letter began.
They won't let me past the guardhouse at the main gate.
A man named Marco told me you gave explicit orders to treat me as a hostile trespasser.
I don't believe him, Luca.
You promised Papa before he passed that you would always protect me.
I am staying at the old flat on Hermitage Avenue.
I haven't had heat for three weeks because the utility accounts were shut down.
If you truly hate me because I questioned Vanessa’s background, tell me to my face.
Do not let your hired thugs discard me like street trash.
Please call the old number.
Your sister, Becca.
A deep, agonizing pain tightened around my chest.
Marco was one of the security guards Vanessa had personally brought onto the payroll six months ago.
She had claimed he was the son of her family’s longtime gardener in Palermo.
In reality, Marco was an enforcer working for Michael Dawson.
I picked up the satellite phone and tapped out the eleven-digit private number I had memorized over a decade ago.
I held the receiver to my ear, listening to the hollow electronic rings.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
My jaw tightened so hard my teeth ached.
What if she had changed the number?
What if something had happened to her in that unheated flat on Hermitage Avenue?
On the fifth ring, the connection clicked open.
A faint, trembling breath came through the tiny speaker.
"Hello?" a voice whispered.
It was thin, exhausted, and hoarse, but it was unmistakably the voice of my little sister.
I closed my eyes, a single heavy breath escaping my chest.
"Becca," I said.
There was an immediate sharp intake of air on the other end of the line.
Then came a long, suffocating silence.
"Who is this?" she demanded, her voice hardening with defensive panic.
"Is this another one of Dawson's men playing sick games on my line?"
My eyes snapped open, blazing with renewed fury.
"Did Michael Dawson send men to your apartment, Becca?"
The phone dropped on the other end, clattering against a hard floor.
I could hear muffled weeping, followed by the sound of someone scrambling to pick up the plastic receiver.
"Luca?" she sobbed, completely breaking down.
"Is that really you?"
"It is me, little bird," I said, using the childhood nickname our father had given her.
"I am at the desk in the study."
"I am holding your letter from five months ago."
"The one you wrote on the lavender paper."
A violent wail echoed through the handset.
"Why did you throw me away, Luca?" she wept uncontrollably.
"I sat in this freezing apartment for six months waiting for you to come."
"I thought you traded me for that Bellini viper."
"Listen to me very carefully, Rebecca," I said, my voice steady, firm, and filled with iron certainty.
"I never gave orders to lock you out of the estate."
"I never shut down your utility accounts."
"I never instructed Marco or any other guard to turn you away."
Hannah sat across from me, her own eyes brimming with tears as she listened to the raw pain in my voice.
"Vanessa intercepted every single letter you sent to this house," I explained.
"She took control of my private communication lines while I was dealing with the port negotiations in Cleveland."
"She told me you had taken two million dollars from the family trust and fled to Europe."
"What?" Rebecca gasped, her voice trembling with sheer outrage.
"I haven't had enough money to buy fresh milk for three weeks, Luca."
"Michael Dawson came to my door two months ago."
"He offered me twenty thousand dollars in cash if I signed a formal renunciation of the Moretti bloodline trust."
My knuckles turned dead white around the handset.
"Did you sign it, Becca?"
"I threw hot coffee in his face and locked the deadbolt," she snapped, a flash of the old Moretti fire returning to her tone.
A faint, cold smile crossed my face.
"That is my sister."
"Luca, what is happening?" she asked, fear creeping back into her voice.
"Why is Michael acting like he owns our family's shipping terminals?"
"Because he and Vanessa are trying to stage a quiet coup," I answered.
"They planned to marry me to Vanessa, eliminate me during our honeymoon, and use her legal standing to seize the family empire."
"Oh, God," Rebecca breathed.
"Where are you right now, Becca?"
"I am in the apartment on Hermitage."
"The locks are rusted, and I keep a kitchen knife under my pillow every night."
"Lock the inner security chain right now," I commanded.
"I am sending an armored transport with three men you can trust."
"Frankie and Sal will be inside."
"You remember Frankie, he taught you how to ride a bicycle behind the stables."
"I remember Frankie," she whispered, relief flooding her voice.
"They will be at your door in twenty minutes."
"They will bring you directly to our private safehouse in Lake Geneva."
"Do not bring any luggage, do not touch your computer, and leave your mobile phone on the kitchen counter."
"Luca, are you safe in that house with her?" Rebecca asked, panic rising again.
I looked at the photograph of Vanessa smiling on the courthouse steps with my best friend.
I looked at Hannah Miller, whose bruised knee was the physical receipt of their treachery.
"She is sleeping in the master suite on the second floor right now," I said calmly.
"She believes she is three weeks away from owning everything my father built."
"She believes I am a blind fool who trusts her completely."
"What are you going to do to them, Luca?"
"I am going to let them walk directly into the snare they set for me," I said, each word falling like an iron anvil.
"Get your coat, Becca."
"Your big brother is taking the city back tonight."
I pressed the disconnect button and set the satellite phone on the desk.
The room returned to its eerie, quiet stillness.
Hannah looked at me, her shoulders trembling slightly.
"What happens to me now, Mr. Moretti?"
I stood up, walked over to the cabinet beside the fireplace, and pulled out a heavy wool blanket.
I draped it gently over her lap, tucking it around her injured knee.
"You are going to rest in the secure guest room right next to this office, Hannah."
"There is a locked adjoining door that connects directly to my desk."
"Two armed guards will stand outside your window until sunrise."
"Tomorrow morning, you will be on the private payroll as my personal administrative assistant."
Her jaw dropped, her eyes wide with shock.
"Mr. Moretti, I am just a maid."
"You are the woman who stood between my family and complete annihilation," I corrected her firmly.
"Tomorrow, the game begins."
"And I need someone in this house whose eyes see everything."
I opened the adjoining door and signaled for Mrs. Carter to assist Hannah into the secure suite.
Once the door clicked shut, I pulled my Glock 19 from the hidden desk holster.
I checked the magazine, chambered a nine-millimeter round, and slid it back beneath the mahogany edge.
May you like
Upstairs, Vanessa Bellini was sleeping peacefully beneath Egyptian cotton sheets.
She had no idea that the ground beneath her feet was already soaked in gasoline.
