Chapter 3
David found me before Matteo’s people found him.
That was what terrified me.
Two days after the accident, I was still in the hospital, unable to lift my left arm without pain, when my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I should not have answered.
But poverty trains you to answer every call because one missed call might be a job, a bill, a warning.
“Hello?”
David laughed softly.
“There’s my girl.”
My blood turned to ice.
I looked toward the door.
Matteo’s guard, Enzo, stood outside.
Still, I felt alone.
“Don’t call me that.”
“You made the news,” David said. “Waitress saves crime boss’s son. Very dramatic.”
“How did you get this number?”
“You never changed enough, Ava.”
My chest tightened.
“What do you want?”
“What you owe me.”
I almost laughed.
“I owe you?”
“You embarrassed people I work for.”
“You mean people who tried to hurt a child?”
He sighed.
“You always make things moral. That’s your problem.”
I pressed the call button for the nurse.
My hand shook.
David’s voice lowered.
“You still have the ring?”
My breath stopped.
“My grandmother’s ring?”
“I need it back.”
“You sold it.”
“No,” he said. “I pawned it. Then someone bought it. Then someone realized it mattered.”
My skin prickled.
“What are you talking about?”
“Ask your new protector why an old sapphire ring with a Moretti crest is worth killing for.”
Moretti.
The name meant nothing and everything at once.
“My grandmother’s name was Lane.”
“No,” David said. “That’s what she called herself after she ran.”
The door opened.
Matteo entered with the nurse.
He saw my face and took the phone from my hand.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then David said, “Tell Ava the ring wasn’t hers to lose.”
Matteo’s expression changed.
“David Cross.”
David laughed.
“So you know me.”
“I know debt always smells the same.”
The line went dead.
I stared at Matteo.
“What is the Moretti crest?”
He did not answer fast enough.
My stomach dropped.
“You know.”
He pulled a chair beside my bed.
“Ava, your grandmother’s ring may have belonged to Sofia Moretti.”
“Who is that?”
His jaw tightened.
“The daughter of a family my father served. She disappeared forty years ago after testifying against a trafficking network tied to rival families.”
I stared at him.
“My grandmother cleaned houses in Ohio.”
“Maybe she survived by becoming someone no one looked at.”
Invisible.
The word hit too close.
Matteo continued.
“Julian was paid by a man named David Cross to stage a warning in my dining room. David works with the Varrano family, my enemies. But if he asked about your ring, this is bigger.”
“My ring is gone.”
“Where?”
“David sold it after he emptied my account. I never found it.”
Matteo’s eyes darkened.
“You may be the reason they chose Lumina.”
I felt sick.
“So Leo was almost hurt because of me?”
“No.”
His voice snapped so sharply I flinched.
He saw it.
Softened.
“No,” he repeated. “Because greedy men used you.”
That night, Matteo moved me from the hospital to a private safe apartment in one of his buildings.
I protested.
He ignored me.
“You cannot return to your studio.”
“I can’t pay for this.”
“You paid by bleeding over my son.”
“That’s not payment.”
“It is debt,” he said. “And I pay mine.”
Leo visited with a drawing.
It showed me flying over him with giant wings.
He had colored the glass purple.
“Because red is too scary,” he explained.
I cried.
He looked alarmed.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, sweetheart. It’s beautiful.”
Matteo watched from the doorway.
For a moment, he was not a crime lord.
He was just a father watching his son trust someone new.
Then Enzo entered, holding a small velvet box.
Matteo opened it.
Inside was my grandmother’s ring.
Blue sapphire.
Silver band.
The stone I had kissed after she died.
My breath vanished.
“You found it.”
Matteo’s voice was low.
“Yes.”
I reached for it.
He caught my wrist gently.
“Look first.”
He turned the ring over.
Inside the band was an engraving I had never seen.
S.M.
And beneath it, a tiny folded compartment.
Inside was a strip of paper.
Old.
Yellowed.
May you like
Written in a woman’s hand.
If my blood ever finds this, tell Lorenzo De Luca the child lived.
