Chapter 2 - The Dark Below
The archive room beneath the Moretti mansion smelled of old leather, damp stone, and forgotten history. It was windowless, lit only by a single, buzzing fluorescent bulb hanging from a frayed cord in the center of a vaulted ceiling.
Naomi sat on the edge of a stiff wooden chair, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. The torn fabric of her uniform sleeve brushed against her skin, a raw reminder of how viciously Vivian had clawed at her own clothes to manufacture the illusion of a struggle.
She's going to steal everything, Naomi thought, staring at a stack of leather-bound ledgers from the nineteen-eighties. If Vivian gets control of Isabella’s medical proxy, she can legally declare her incompetent, drain the estate, and force Luca into a corporate marriage that hands the entire syndicate over to the Bellini family.
Naomi knew secrets she shouldn't have known. Working closely with Isabella for five months meant listening to whispered warnings, piecing together phone calls intercepted in the hallway, and realizing that Vivian wasn't just a gold-digging socialite—she was an operative for their most bitter rivals.
The heavy steel door clicked.
The lock turned with a brutal, metallic snap, and heavy footsteps echoed across the stone floor.
It wasn't Rocco.
Luca Moretti pulled up a folding chair, set it backward directly in front of Naomi, and straddled it. He rested his forearms on the metal backrest, his dark eyes studying her with an intensity that felt like a physical weight pressing down on her shoulders.
"You broke my door," Luca began quietly.
"Your fiancée was about to break your mother’s hand," Naomi countered, her voice shaking despite her desperate attempt to keep it steady. "She had a stamp pad, Luca. She was forcing a fingerprint on a document that hands over medical and financial control of the entire household."
"You used my first name," Luca noted, his lips twitching into a humorless, dangerous line. "The staff call me Mr. Moretti. Even the capos hesitate before they drop the title."
"I don't care about your titles," Naomi snapped, the adrenaline finally overriding her terror. "Your mother hasn't spoken a real sentence in two years, but her mind is sharper than yours right now. She trusted me enough to teach me how to listen. If you cared to look past your own shadow, you’d realize she communicates through the piano keys."
Luca’s expression didn't change, but his fingers tightened around the metal rail of the chair. "Explain."
"One low note for yes. One high note for no," Naomi said, leaning forward, her eyes locked onto his. "Every afternoon at three o'clock, she plays a sequence when Vivian leaves the room. She’s been trying to warn you for weeks that Vivian is documents from your private study. Today, the music stopped abruptly. I heard a crash. I went to the door, and Vivian told me to go away. So I called you."
"And you smashed the lock," Luca added softly.
"I saved your mother."
"Or," Luca murmured, his voice dipping into a silky, threatening whisper, "you walked in on a private family dispute and tried to cover your tracks by accusing my future wife."
Naomi let out a bitter, disbelieving laugh. "Open your eyes! Look at the ink on Isabella's thumb. Look at the paper! Read the title of the declaration—it wasn't even notarized properly; the seal is from an office downtown that was shut down six months ago for tax fraud!"
Luca fell silent. He leaned back, his gaze wandering over Naomi’s face, tracing the tear tracks dried on her cheeks, lingering on the fierce, unyielding spark in her dark eyes. Most people wept, begged, or soiled themselves when they were locked in this room. Naomi Carter sat before him like a general analyzing a battlefield.
"You're very brave, Naomi," Luca said slowly. "Or very stupid."
"Which one do you think keeps your mother alive while you're busy running half the shipping ports on the East Coast?" she shot back.
For a long, terrifying moment, neither of them breathed. Then, Luca reached into his inner suit pocket, pulled out a silver metal object, and tossed it onto the wooden table between them.
It was a small, encrypted flash drive.
"What is this?" Naomi whispered.
"My private study's backup drive," Luca said evenly. "Vivian has been asking for the master encryption code for three days under the guise of organizing my home office schedule. I gave her a dummy code yesterday morning." He stood up, towering over the small chair. "By noon today, my security system logged an unauthorized download attempt originating from the guest wing—the exact suite where Vivian sleeps."
Naomi looked from the flash drive up to Luca, her breath catching in her throat. "You already knew."
"I knew something was rotten," Luca corrected, his voice hardening. "I just didn't know how deep the rot went. My mother pointed at you because Vivian whispered in her ear right before I walked into the room, threatening to institutionalize her in a state-run facility if she didn't blame the maid."
May you like
A cold shudder ran down Naomi’s spine. "The monster..."
"She leaves tonight," Luca said, his eyes turning to absolute flint. "But before she goes, she’s going to learn a very expensive lesson about what happens when someone touches a Moretti." He leaned down, bringing his face inches from Naomi’s. "And you... you are going to help me set the trap."
