Chapter 3 - A DEBT EIGHT YEARS OLD
By sunrise, the story had escaped the hospital.
Della watched it happen from her phone.
PREGNANT HOTEL WORKER IN ALTERCATION WITH HEIRESS.
MORETTI BILLIONAIRE INTERVENES AT PRIVATE GALA.
VANCE FAMILY DENIES ASSAULT CLAIM.
The language was careful.
Nobody called Cordelia a liar.
Nobody said Della had been shoved.
Nobody mentioned Cordelia grabbing her hair.
Della stared at the screen until Luca quietly took the phone from her hand.
"Stop reading."
She glared at him.
"Give it back."
He did immediately.
That surprised her again.
Most powerful men she had met treated boundaries like suggestions.
Luca Moretti seemed to understand them.
Usually.
"What happened eight years ago?" Della asked.
Luca sat across from her.
"Which part?"
"The part before I found you."
His expression became unreadable.
"You don't need to know."
Della almost laughed.
"You spent eight years looking for me, and now you're telling me I don't need to know?"
"Fair point."
He leaned back.
"I was twenty-nine."
"I remember."
"You remember my age?"
"You kept trying to tell me your birthday."
Luca looked genuinely embarrassed.
"I had lost a lot of blood."
"You also told me you hated olives."
"I still do."
For the first time since the mirror shattered, Della smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
"What happened?"
Luca looked toward the window.
"I had discovered that one of our shipping companies was being used for transactions I hadn't authorized."
"Illegal transactions?"
"Yes."
"Your family?"
"Possibly."
Della waited.
Luca continued.
"I arranged to meet someone on Fulton Street."
"Who?"
"A man who claimed he had financial records."
"And?"
"He never arrived."
Della remembered headlights in the rain.
Men shouting.
Footsteps entering the alley.
"You were shot."
"Yes."
"Who did it?"
"I never proved it."
Della's fingers tightened around the blanket.
"I heard them."
Luca turned sharply.
"What?"
"The men looking for you."
She closed her eyes.
The memory had been buried beneath eight years of ordinary life.
Rent.
Jobs.
Relationships.
Bills.
Now it returned with frightening clarity.
One man had shouted from the street.
Another had answered.
Della whispered the words she suddenly remembered.
"He said, 'Tell Vance it's finished.'"
Luca became completely still.
"Say that again."
Della opened her eyes.
"Vance."
The hospital room seemed to shrink.
"Are you sure?"
"No."
She pressed her palms against her temples.
"I was twenty-three and terrified."
Luca stood.
"Della."
"I said I'm not sure."
"That name matters."
She stared at him.
"Because of Cordelia?"
"Because eight years ago Conrad Vance controlled three companies operating beside our docks."
Cordelia's father.
Della felt cold.
Luca walked toward the window.
"I investigated him."
"What did you find?"
"Nothing I could prove."
"And now his daughter pushes me into a mirror."
"That could be coincidence."
Della studied his face.
"You don't believe that."
"No."
Neither did she.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Della looked down.
One message.
DON'T LET MORETTI CONNECT YOU TO FULTON STREET.
Her skin went cold.
May you like
A second message appeared.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FORGOTTEN.
