Chapter 4 - Under Luca Moretti’s Protection
Emergency lights turned the vault red.
Hazel stared at Luca.
“My father died in a car accident.”
Daniel laughed through the speaker.
“No, sweetheart.”
Hazel hated the tenderness in his voice.
“Daniel, come out.”
“I’d rather not.”
Luca searched the vault.
Daniel was watching remotely.
Hazel stepped toward Luca.
“Answer me.”
Luca looked at her.
“Your father was murdered.”
Her stomach dropped.
“By whom?”
“My father ordered the meeting that night.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Luca’s silence became an answer Hazel did not want.
“You?”
“No.”
“Your father?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel laughed again.
“Still protecting the Moretti name.”
Luca fired once.
The speaker exploded.
Hazel jumped.
“That was helpful.”
“I was tired of hearing him.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve heard.”
They escaped through an emergency service hatch.
Back at Luca’s penthouse, Hazel met Sofia Moretti.
She expected another ruthless criminal.
Instead, Sofia was twenty-six, sarcastic, furious about being assigned six bodyguards, and immediately hugged Hazel.
“Sorry about the evil twin situation.”
Hazel blinked.
“Is everyone in your life insane?”
Sofia considered.
“Statistically? Yes.”
For the first time in hours, Hazel laughed.
Luca watched from across the room.
Something changed between them.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But something.
That night, Luca showed Hazel the Moretti family archives.
Her father’s name appeared everywhere.
Thomas Brooks had not merely been an accountant.
He had been Antonio Moretti’s closest financial adviser.
And later, secretly, his investigator.
Thomas had discovered Evelyn was working with Victor Salerno, head of a rival syndicate.
Daniel was Victor’s financial broker.
The eight million dollars had never been the real target.
The hidden ledger was.
Hazel rubbed her temples.
“So Daniel framed me because he thought my father gave me the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought me here because you thought the same thing.”
“Yes.”
“Did you plan to hurt me?”
Luca looked offended.
“No.”
“Kidnap?”
“No.”
“Threaten?”
“Possibly.”
Hazel stared.
He shrugged.
“I hadn’t decided.”
She laughed despite herself.
Luca smiled.
It transformed his face.
Hazel looked away too quickly.
Dangerous.
Very dangerous.
Not because Luca Moretti frightened her anymore.
Because part of her was beginning not to be frightened.
Later, she found him alone on the balcony.
“You never told me why you gave me your ring.”
“I did.”
“Protection.”
“Yes.”
“But Sofia looked at it differently.”
Luca said nothing.
“What does it really mean?”
“In my family, a Moretti ring isn’t lent.”
Hazel looked at him.
“Then what?”
“It’s given.”
Her pulse changed.
“Meaning?”
“Anyone wearing it is considered family.”
Hazel swallowed.
“You made me family after knowing me for an hour?”
“I made you untouchable.”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“To men like Salerno, they are.”
Hazel removed the ring.
Luca’s expression shifted.
She placed it in his palm.
“I don’t want protection based on pretending I belong to a man.”
Luca closed his fingers around it.
“Fair.”
Hazel expected anger.
There was none.
That surprised her.
“So what now?”
“Now you get protection because you asked for none.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
Her phone rang.
Daniel.
Hazel answered.
“Hello?”
His voice sounded broken.
“Hazel, I need you to listen.”
“Why?”
“Because Luca is lying about your father.”
“You’ve lied about everything.”
“I know.”
That stopped her.
Daniel continued.
“I did terrible things. But I didn’t kill Thomas.”
Hazel looked at Luca.
“Who did?”
Daniel whispered one name.
“Antonio Moretti.”
Luca’s father.
May you like
Then Daniel added:
“And I can prove Luca watched him do it.”
