THE INK ON THE PAPER WAS STILL WET

“I’m here to take everything Luca owns.”

The silence in the library was suffocating.

Luca closed the black file. His hands were remarkably steady, but a muscle feathered in his jaw.

“Blackmail,” Luca said. “You faked your death, abandoned your daughter, and hid for five years just to come back and extort me over my father’s sins.”

“Your father got my husband killed,” Eleanor shot back, her composure cracking for a second. “Thomas was innocent! He was a number cruncher. Antonio dragged him into the dirt, and when the Bellinis found out, Antonio let Thomas take the fall!”

“That’s a lie!” Luca shouted, slamming his hand on the desk. “My father died trying to protect your family!”

“Your father died of a guilty conscience!”

“Stop it!” I screamed.

Both of them looked at me.

I backed away from my mother, revulsion churning in my stomach.

“You let me mourn you,” I cried, the betrayal slicing deeper than any knife. “I dropped out of college. I worked three jobs to pay off the medical debt of a woman I thought was you! I grieved for you!”

Eleanor’s face softened slightly, a flicker of genuine regret crossing her eyes.

“Claire, you have to understand. I had nothing. When Thomas died, the accounts were frozen. I did what I had to do to survive, to make sure one day we could get what we are owed.”

“Owed?” I spat. “You think money makes up for five years of thinking I was an orphan?”

“It’s not just money, Claire. It’s control. If I give this file to the feds, Luca loses the company, the mansion, everything. The Moretti name is destroyed.”

She turned to Luca.

“Sign over the commercial real estate on the South Side. Fifty million dollars in assets. Do that, and I burn this file today.”

Luca didn’t look at her. He looked at me.

He was waiting to see what I wanted him to do.

He was willing to give up half his empire if it meant saving me from further pain.

“No,” I said.

Eleanor frowned. “Claire—”

“I said no!” I stepped forward, grabbing the black file off the desk.

“What are you doing?” my mother demanded.

I walked over to the grand stone fireplace. The embers from yesterday’s fire—the same fire where I had rescued Matteo’s box—were still glowing.

“Claire, don’t be stupid!” Eleanor rushed forward.

Marco stepped in front of her, easily blocking her path.

I held the file over the embers.

“My father died doing the right thing,” I said, looking at the woman who gave birth to me. “Antonio died trying to fix his mistakes. You are the only one standing here trying to profit off their blood.”

“That file is our future!” she screamed.

“I don’t want your future,” I said softly.

I dropped the file into the fireplace.

The dry paper caught instantly. Bright orange flames licked up the sides of the documents, consuming the blackmail, consuming the sins of Antonio Moretti, and severing the last tie I had to my mother.

Eleanor fell to her knees, watching her fifty-million-dollar extortion plan turn to ash.

“You fool,” she wept. “You have nothing now.”

“You’re wrong,” I said, walking back toward Luca.

Luca reached out and took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine.

“Marco,” Luca said softly. “Escort the lady off my property. If she ever comes back to Chicago, she’ll find out exactly how much like my father I can be.”

Marco hauled my mother to her feet.

She looked at me one last time, her eyes full of venom and regret. But I didn’t look away.

As the front door closed behind her, a small voice called out from the hallway.

“Claire?”

Matteo walked in, holding a small plate with two slightly burnt chocolate chip cookies.

“I tried to bake,” he said proudly.