Chapter 2 - SHADOWS OF THE CARRIAGE HOUSE
The answer I received three years ago had not come from a secretary or an automated foundation portal. It had come in a heavy cream envelope delivered to my cramped studio apartment three weeks after the crash at Ashwood Bridge. Inside was a cashier's check for fifty thousand dollars and a single printed sheet of paper bearing no signature.
The Moretti family acknowledges your assistance, the letter had read. Consider this matter closed. Do not attempt further contact, or legal measures will be taken to protect the child’s privacy.
I had ripped the check into four pieces and mailed it back to the return address.
Now, sitting in the private executive holding room on the third floor of the Harbor Lights Hotel, I told Luca Moretti about that letter.
The room was vast, lined with mahogany paneling and soundproofed against the muffled bass of the gala continuing two floors below. Sophia sat on a velvet sofa between us, her small hand firmly wrapped around my thumb. She refused to let go, even as Dr. Benton conducted a preliminary check on her leg reflexes.
Luca sat motionless in an armchair opposite us. His head of security, a broad-shouldered man named Julian, stood by the closed double doors.
"Fifty thousand dollars?" Luca’s voice was dangerously low. "A legal warning?"
"I still have the envelope," I said quietly, nursing a glass of water Dr. Benton had handed me. "I kept it because I couldn't understand why a father who spent weeks on local television pleading for the 'anonymous heroine' to step forward would send a gag order the moment I identified myself."
Luca turned his gaze toward Julian. The security chief’s face had gone completely pale.
"Julian," Luca said softly. Too softly. "Who handled the foundation mail after the Ashwood incident?"
Julian swallowed hard. "Sir... all correspondence regarding the accident was routed directly through Mr. Vance's office. Per your instructions, he was managing the public relations and the medical privacy clearances."
Arthur Vance. Luca’s chief legal counsel, business partner, and the man currently hosting the second half of the charity auction downstairs.
"Daddy," Sophia whispered, her eyelids drooping with exhaustion but her grip on my thumb remaining tight. "She sang the song about the green boat. When the water was coming into the car and it was cold... she told me if I stayed quiet, the boat would come."
Luca closed his eyes for three long seconds. When he opened them, the tears from the ballroom were entirely gone, replaced by an arctic fury.
"Three years," Luca murmured. "For three years, my daughter believed the woman who pulled her out of the icy river didn't care enough to visit her. For three years, I was told the woman was a ghost who took off before the paramedics arrived because she had warrants or didn't want involvement."
"I stayed until the ambulance doors closed," I told him. "My hands were cut up from breaking the rear windshield. The police took my statement, but when I called the hospital the next morning to check on her, they told me she had been transferred to a private facility and her records were sealed."
"Who sealed them?" Luca asked.
"A law firm called Vance, Sterling & Associates," I replied.
A heavy silence settled over the holding room. Outside, the rain beat violently against the glass.
Sophia’s head leaned against my waist, her breathing slowing as fatigue finally claimed her frail body. Her doctor had warned that standing, even for thirty seconds, was a massive strain on her damaged spine. Yet she had dragged herself across a ballroom floor just to touch my apron.
Luca stood up. He walked over to the sofa, towering over us, but his movements were deliberate, careful not to startle the child.
He reached down, his fingers lightly brushing against my wrist where my uniform sleeve had pulled up. Fresh red scratches from the shattered champagne flutes lined my arm. He hadn't noticed them until now.
"Julian," Luca commanded without taking his eyes off my arm. "Get the medical kit from the car. Now."
"Sir, Mr. Vance is coming upstairs to check on the auction receipts—"
"Get the kit," Luca repeated, his tone cutting through the air like a blade. "And bring Arthur Vance into the adjoining office. Do not tell him who is in this room."
Julian bowed his head. "Yes, Boss."
As Julian exited, Luca sank onto the edge of the coffee table directly in front of me. The terrifying mafia don who controlled Chicago’s transport docks and political backrooms looked at me not with hostility, but with an agonizing mix of remorse and intense curiosity.
"Why didn't you cash the check, Hannah?" he asked softly. "Fifty thousand dollars changes a life."
"I didn't pull a baby out of a freezing river for a bounty, Mr. Moretti," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline still racing through my veins. "I wanted to know if she survived. I wanted to know if her legs were going to be okay. When I got that letter, I thought..."
"What did you think?"
"I thought you were an arrogant, wealthy man who viewed a catering worker as a nuisance," I confessed. "So I stayed away. I worked my shifts. I saw her in the papers sometimes, in her wheelchair. And every time I saw her, my heart broke."
May you like
Luca reached out, his hand hovering over mine before softly resting on top of my fingers, right where Sophia’s small hand gripped my thumb.
"I am an arrogant man, Hannah," he admitted, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "And I have done terrible things in my life. But I would have given half my empire to the person who gave me back my daughter. Someone lied to both of us. And tonight, I am going to find out why."
