"THE MAFIA BOSS FOUND HIS MAID KNEELING AT HIS FIANCÉE’S FEET WITH A BANDAGED HAND—THEN HE NOTICED THE BURN MARK SHE WAS DESPERATELY TRYING TO HIDE.

The doorknob turned.

Luca didn't panic. With a swift movement, he slipped the charred letter inside his suit jacket, right over his heart. By the time Vanessa pushed open the door of the servants' sitting room, he was standing near the window, his back turned to her, staring out into the dark courtyard.

“Luca?” Vanessa’s voice was dripping with artificial concern. She stepped into the room, her red dress trailing slightly on the floor. She looked at me, her eyes narrowing into cold daggers, before turning her gaze to Luca. “The guests are asking for you downstairs. What are you doing in the servants' quarters?”

Luca slowly turned around. His face was a mask of cold, unreadable stone. “Emma’s hand needed medical attention, Vanessa.”

“We have staff to handle staff injuries, darling,” Vanessa said, walking over to him and resting her hand on his forearm. Her diamond ring sparkled under the harsh fluorescent lights of the sitting room. “You don't need to play savior to a careless maid.”

I kept my head down, my breath caught in my throat. My burned palm throbbed in time with my frantic heartbeat.

Luca looked down at Vanessa’s hand on his arm, then looked her straight in the eye. “She didn't burn her hand on an iron.”

Vanessa’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. “What?”

“The black residue on her nails. The smell of ash,” Luca said softly, his voice dangerously smooth. “She reached into a fire.”

Vanessa let out a small, breathless laugh. “A fire? Luca, that's absurd. Why would she do that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Luca replied.

Vanessa’s eyes flicked to me, sharp and venomous, before returning to Luca. “I have no idea what she’s been telling you, but Emma has been acting strangely all day. In fact, I came up here because I realized a set of pearl earrings was missing from your mother's suite after we cleared it out.”

My head snapped up. “I didn't take anything!”

“Quiet, Emma,” Vanessa snapped, her voice dropping the sweet act for a split second. She turned back to Luca, her expression shifting back to victimhood. “Darling, she’s setting a narrative to protect herself. She knows I caught her stealing, so now she's inventing wild stories to discredit me.”

Luca didn't flinch. He didn't yell. He simply reached out and took Vanessa’s wrist, removing her hand from his arm. “Go back to the party, Vanessa.”

“Luca—”

“I said, go back to the party.”

Vanessa bit her lip, rage flaring behind her eyes. She glanced at me one last time, a clear promise of destruction in her gaze, before sweeping out of the room, her red heels clicking sharply down the corridor.

The moment the door clicked shut, the silence in the room became suffocating.

Luca pulled the letter out from his jacket. He sat back down across from me. “She mentioned my mother's writing desk. What else was in there, Emma?”

“There were three pages, sir,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “The envelope was sealed when she opened it. I was holding the trash bag near the door while she went through the drawers. She read the first page out loud to herself... then her face changed. She looked terrified.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘She knew.’ That’s all she whispered. ‘She knew.’ Then she crumpled all three pages back into the envelope and threw it into the roaring fireplace in the library.”

Luca frowned, scanning the paper in his hand. “There is only one page here.”

“The other two pages burned instantly,” I said, tears brimming in my eyes. “I rushed forward to grab it before she realized what I was doing. That’s how I burned my hand—I snatched the envelope directly out of the embers. But the flame caught the bottom two pages. They turned to ash in my palm.”

Luca closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, the grief in his hazel eyes was devastating. For seven months, he had carried the crushing weight of believing his mother, Sofia Moretti, had died hating him—that she had refused his visits, sent back his flowers, and died alone in that hospital wing because she blamed him for his father's death.

Now, holding a single charred sheet of paper, he realized it had all been an elaborate, cruel illusion.

“She told me my mother didn't want to see my face,” Luca said quietly, his voice cracking slightly. “Every afternoon for three weeks, I stood outside room 412 at St. Anthony’s. Vanessa would go inside, come back out ten minutes later, and tell me my mother had turned her head away and asked me to leave.”

“Your mother wrote that she begged for you every night, Mr. Moretti,” I blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. “Page one says... it says she wrote letters to you every single day, but Vanessa promised to hand-deliver them to your office.”

Luca’s fist clenched around the edge of the wooden table so hard his knuckles turned white. “None of those letters ever reached me.”

“Because Vanessa was burning them,” I whispered.

Luca stood up. The air in the room seemed to freeze. The grief in his face hardened into something terrifyingly absolute—the shadow of the Moretti legacy, the ruthless boss who ruled Chicago's underground with iron authority.

“Emma,” he said, looking down at me. “You are no longer a maid in this house.”

Panic seized my chest. “Mr. Moretti, please... I need the money for my mother—”

“You are moving into the east guest suite tonight,” he interrupted firmly. “You will have a private physician tend to your hand. You will be protected. Because starting right now, you are the only witness to my mother’s true final words.”