Chapter 1 - Shattered Illusions
“Hannah! Don't you dare!”
Vanessa Bellini’s shrill shriek cut through the symphonic hum of the string quartet like broken glass. Across the double-tiered, gilded ballroom of the Moretti estate, thirty-six high-profile guests—crime syndicate elders, city commissioners, and foreign investors—froze mid-toast. Crystal flutes halted halfway to parted lips.
I didn't care about their polished reputations or their tailored tuxedos. I couldn't afford to.
I was dragging my right leg across the pristine Carrara marble, leaving a jagged, smeared trail of crimson in my wake. The heavy steel sledgehammer in my hands trembled violently, its weight threatening to pull my exhausted, twenty-five-year-old frame to the floor. My black housekeeping uniform was ripped at the seam, the fabric of my right thigh soaked through with hot, steady-flowing blood. With every staggering step, agony shot up my spine, a burning fire ignited by the utility blade Vanessa had plunged into my leg in the dark of the service corridor just ten minutes earlier.
“If you tell Luca, you’ll never work in this city again,” she had hissed into my ear.
She thought pain would make me crawl away. She thought fear would keep me silent. But she didn't hear what I heard.
Behind the towering, gilded frame of the nine-foot family portrait hanging above the marble fireplace, a muffled, suffocating whimper had reached my ears through the ductwork.
“Please, Miss Hannah! Daddy! It’s dark!”
It was Lily. Three years old. Luca Moretti’s only child, the gentle, golden-haired orphan of the woman who had died giving her life.
“Stop her!” Vanessa screamed, her emerald silk gown swirling around her heels as she pointed a French-manicured finger at me. Her porcelain face twisted with frantic panic. “She’s insane! Luca, your maid has lost her mind! Guards, shoot her!”
None of the armed men stationed at the perimeter moved. Their eyes flicked toward the head of the banquet table, where Luca Moretti had just slowly, deliberate as a descending storm, set his silver fork against fine china.
Thirty-six years old. Imposing, broad-shouldered, with raven hair swept back from a jawline carved out of Sicilian granite. Luca was the undisputed sovereign of Chicago’s underbelly, a man whose quietest whisper could empty city blocks. His piercing gray eyes shifted from the screaming woman at his side to the sledgehammer in my trembling grip, and then to the blood pooling around my sneakers.
I didn't give him time to speak. If I waited, my knees would buckle.
I gripped the rubber handle with blood-slicked palms, planted my uninjured heel, pivoted my entire torso, and swung.
CRAAAAASH!
The heavy glass case protecting the heirloom oil painting exploded into ten thousand glittering daggers. Shockwaves ripped through the canvas, tearing the painted face of Luca’s grandfather in half. The violent recoil blasted shards backward; sharp splinters sliced across my bare forearms and opened a clean, stinging line along my left cheekbone.
Hot blood trickled down my chin, mingling with salt and sweat. Gasps erupted across the room. Several socialites shrieked, shielding their faces with silk napkins.
I cried out from the strain on my severed thigh muscle, but before the security guards could cross the floor, I choked down the agony, hoisted the iron head a second time, and smashed the splintered mahogany backing.
CRACK!
The portrait buckled, snapping free of its brass hinges and crashing down onto the hearth.
Behind the ruined canvas, recessed six inches into the load-bearing stone of the chimney wall, lay a flush-mounted brushed titanium security door. A small digital console glowed beside it, blinking with a steady, cruel crimson light.
From within the reinforced steel cavity came a terrified, muffled scream:
“DADDY! PLEASE LET ME OUT! IT’S COLD!”
The ballroom went dead silent. The string quartet lowered their bows.
Luca Moretti’s chair overturned, striking the floor with a hollow thud as he rose to his full height. His broad chest rose and fell in shallow, violent breaths. The aristocratic mask of supreme control shattered, replaced by the feral, unhinged fury of a father whose cub had just cried out from a cage.
“Lily?” Luca whispered. The sound tore from his throat, fragile and broken.
“Luca, darling, don't listen to this!” Vanessa rushed to his arm, her voice rising into a breathless, shrill plea. “The maid is setting this up! She staged this! She’s trying to sabotage our engagement!”
Luca didn't look at her. He didn't even brush her away; he simply stepped forward, and the sheer inertia of his movement sent her stumbling back against the table, rattling the crystal.
May you like
His eyes locked onto the narrow seam of the steel vault, then dropped to me. I was on my knees now, the sledgehammer clattering against the marble, my breath coming in ragged wheezes as the blood continued to pool beneath my ruined leg.
“Daniel,” Luca roared, the sound vibrating the chandelier crystals overhead. “Open that door right now, or I swear on my mother’s soul I will burn this city to ash with everyone in it.”
