Chapter 1 - THE BLANKET SHE WASN’T ALLOWED TO KEEP
“Take that blanket away, Hannah.”
Vanessa Bellini stood beside the dining table in a fitted red silk gown, staring at the pale-blue blanket wrapped around seventy-eight-year-old Teresa Moretti’s shoulders.
Thirty-six guests watched beneath the crystal chandeliers.
“Mrs. Moretti said she was cold,” I explained.
Vanessa laughed.
“Oh, sweetheart. It’s seventy-two degrees in here. She’s not freezing. She’s trying to get attention.”
Teresa lowered her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass anyone.”
“Then stop behaving like you need someone looking after you every minute.”
The old woman’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
I wanted to say something.
But I knew what would happen if I did.
My name is Hannah Collins. I’m twenty-five years old, and I’d worked at Luca Moretti’s Chicago mansion for eleven months.
I needed this job.
My mother was recovering from hip surgery, and every paycheck helped cover the woman who came each morning to help her bathe and prepare breakfast.
Vanessa knew that.
She had already warned me twice that I was becoming too attached to Teresa.
But I couldn’t take away that blanket.
Not after what I had discovered that afternoon.
For six nights, Teresa Moretti had not slept in her own bedroom.
And nobody had told her son.
“Hannah.”
Vanessa snapped her fingers.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then remove it.”
Teresa suddenly caught my wrist.
“Please, sweetheart. Just until dessert.”
Vanessa sighed.
“Teresa, you’re seventy-eight, not seven. Stop making the staff fuss over you.”
Several guests looked away.
The old woman’s cheeks turned pink.
“I’m sorry.”
Those two words hurt more than anything Vanessa had said.
Because Teresa Moretti had spent forty years making this house a home.
She had raised three boys.
Nursed her husband through his final illness.
Welcomed people to Sunday dinner even when there was barely enough food for her own family.
And now she was apologizing for being cold in the house she had helped build.
Vanessa reached for the blanket herself.
That was when Teresa’s hand shot out and grabbed mine.
Her fingers were freezing.
She leaned closer.
“I don’t have a bed anymore.”
The words were barely louder than breath.
But Luca Moretti heard them.
At the far end of the table, Chicago’s most feared man slowly lowered his whiskey glass.
Conversation died instantly.
His eyes moved from his mother to Vanessa.
Then to me.
“What did she just say?”
Vanessa laughed too quickly.
“She’s confused.”
Teresa flinched.
Luca stood.
He was thirty-eight, six-foot-three, dark-haired, and usually so controlled that even his anger looked quiet.
That night, quiet disappeared.
“Mother.”
Teresa looked at him.
“Where have you been sleeping?”
Vanessa answered first.
“Luca, this isn’t appropriate in front of guests.”
He didn’t even look at her.
“Mother.”
Teresa’s lips trembled.
“The sewing room.”
Every man at the table stopped moving.
Luca stared at Vanessa.
Then he said only one sentence.
“Everyone except my mother, Hannah, and Vanessa leaves this house now.”
Within four minutes, thirty-six guests were gone.
Luca walked upstairs.
I followed with Teresa.
When he opened his mother’s bedroom door, he stopped.
The room was empty.
Bed removed.
Clothes missing.
Family photographs gone.
Vanessa appeared behind us.
“We were renovating.”
Luca turned.
“Where are her things?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“In storage.”
Teresa whispered, “She said the room was needed.”
“For what?”
Nobody answered.
Luca opened the closet.
Empty.
Then he looked down.
Something white lay beneath the remaining dresser.
He picked it up.
A realtor’s brochure.
Across the front were photographs of the Moretti mansion.
May you like
And stamped diagonally across the first page were three words:
PRIVATE SALE PENDING.
