Chapter 12 - The Debt Beneath Chicago
Donna Caterina was waiting for us in the library when we returned to the estate.
She was sitting beneath the enormous portrait of Massimo’s grandfather, one hand resting on her silver cane and the other holding a cup of espresso.
She looked annoyed.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Massimo placed the black gardenia on the table.
His grandmother stared at it.
The color drained slowly from her face.
“You know what this means,” I said.
Donna Caterina looked at me.
“Where did you get it?”
“At the conservatory someone tried to burn down.”
Massimo remained standing.
“Grandmother.”
“Sit.”
“No.”
Her eyes sharpened.
Massimo did not move.
I sat instead.
“Someone called me,” I said. “He said the Romano family never owned the land beneath my original shop.”
Donna Caterina closed her eyes.
For several seconds, the room became so quiet I could hear the grandfather clock ticking across the hall.
Finally, she spoke.
“Your shop sits on land that once belonged to the Bellini Trust.”
I frowned.
“I bought the building.”
“You bought the structure and the commercial rights.”
Massimo stepped forward.
“What is the Bellini Trust?”
Donna Caterina gave him a sad smile.
“Something your father tried very hard to bury.”
Massimo’s father had been dead for nearly twelve years.
Nobody in the family spoke about him often. I knew only that Alessandro Romano had died after a long illness and that Massimo had inherited leadership far younger than anyone expected.
Donna Caterina opened a drawer beside her chair and removed a brass key.
“In 1998, the Romano companies were nearly bankrupt.”
Massimo stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It was hidden.”
She explained that a collapse in freight contracts had almost destroyed the legitimate side of the Romano organization. Alessandro had borrowed money from a group of private Chicago investors.
The agreement had supposedly been temporary.
But the investors had demanded unusual collateral.
Land.
Warehouses.
Rail access.
Dozens of properties scattered across Chicago.
Including the parcel where Miller Floral Design would eventually open years later.
“Who controlled the trust?” I asked.
Donna Caterina hesitated.
“A man named Dominic Moretti.”
Massimo’s expression hardened.
“I know the name.”
“His son Gabriel now runs Moretti Capital.”
I knew that name too.
Everyone in Chicago did.
Gabriel Moretti appeared on business magazines, charity boards, television interviews, and lists of the city’s wealthiest financiers.
He donated millions to hospitals.
He funded scholarships.
He smiled like a senator.
“What does he want?” I asked.
Donna Caterina looked at the black flower.
“Everything.”
Massimo laughed once without humor.
“He can try.”
“This is not Salvatore Vitali,” she snapped.
Massimo went silent.
“Salvatore fought with guns and smugglers. Moretti fights with judges, banks, debt instruments, regulators, and contracts. You cannot break his throat in a dining room and call the matter settled.”
Massimo’s jaw tightened.
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?”
She stood slowly.
“Because your father believed strength meant never admitting fear. Dominic Moretti used that arrogance against him for twenty years.”
I picked up the brass key.
“What does this open?”
“A private archive downtown.”
Massimo immediately reached for it.
Donna Caterina closed her fingers around mine.
“Not him.”
Massimo froze.
“Excuse me?”
“The archive belongs legally to Sophie’s company now.”
Mine?
Donna Caterina nodded.
“When Sophie purchased the flower-shop property, a dormant chain of custody transferred with it.”
“That makes no sense,” I said.
“It will.”
She released the key.
Massimo looked furious.
“You knew Sophie’s business was connected to this?”
“I suspected.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I wanted the past to stay buried.”
I stood.
“Then somebody just burned my greenhouse because your past refused to stay buried.”
Donna Caterina flinched.
I immediately regretted the sharpness in my voice.
But I didn’t apologize.
People had spent too much of my life deciding what I deserved to know.
Not anymore.
“Where is the archive?”
Donna Caterina gave me an address in the Loop.
An old private bank that had closed twenty years ago.
Massimo looked at the brass key.
“We go together.”
I nodded.
“For once, we agree.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked the message.
Then his face became stone.
“What?” I asked.
Massimo turned the screen toward us.
It was a photograph taken less than ten minutes earlier.
Claire was leaving Northwestern Memorial Hospital after a clinical rotation.
A black sedan was parked across the street.
Standing beside it was a tall man in a gray overcoat.
Gabriel Moretti.
Below the photograph were six words.
LET’S DISCUSS THE FAMILY DEBT, SOPHIE.
My hand tightened around the brass key.
Massimo’s voice became dangerously soft.
“He just made this personal.”
“No,” I whispered.
May you like
Looking at Gabriel’s smiling face, I finally understood.
“He made it personal before we were even born.”
