Chapter 5 - THE BRIDE’S INVITATIONVivien called at sunrise.
Not Luca.
Me.
My phone had been destroyed at my apartment, so the call came through the Moretti house line.
Teresa answered first.
Then found me in the library wearing yesterday’s clothes and drinking my fourth coffee.
“She says her name is Vivien Cross.”
Every person in the room froze.
Luca held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
I took the receiver first.
His eyes narrowed.
“Hello?”
Vivien laughed softly.
“Still brave, Miss Ward.”
“Still lying, Miss Cross.”
“I prefer Mrs. Moretti.”
“Optimistic.”
Her laugh disappeared.
“Put Luca on.”
“No.”
Luca slowly looked at me.
Gideon closed his eyes like a man praying for patience.
Vivien’s voice became sharp.
“You don’t understand what you’re involved in.”
“I understand enough.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. You’re working with my father.”
Silence.
That silence gave me more than any confession.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered.
“Why? Is he sensitive about abandonment?”
Luca’s mouth tightened.
I think he was trying not to smile.
Vivien recovered.
“Your father wants to see you.”
“No.”
“He has something that belonged to your mother.”
My grip tightened on the receiver.
“What?”
“The sewing box.”
My heart kicked.
Vivien knew she had me.
“Come to the wedding.”
“What?”
“St. Gabriel’s Cathedral. Four o’clock.”
I looked at Luca.
He was reading every change on my face.
Vivien continued.
“The ceremony will proceed.”
“You tried to put surveillance devices in his suit.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Then congratulations. You’re marrying into a very unlucky tailoring situation.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She inhaled.
“If you want your mother’s box, attend.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s something inside that only you can open.”
The false bottom.
“Where’s my father?”
“You’ll see him.”
“Alive?”
A pause.
“For now.”
The line went dead.
I put the receiver down.
Luca spoke first.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what she said.”
“You’re not attending.”
“She has the box.”
“No.”
“She has my father.”
His jaw tightened.
“Still no.”
I stared.
“You don’t control me.”
“I control security around anyone under threat from my enemies.”
“They’re my enemies now too.”
“Exactly.”
I stepped closer.
“If my father knows where the ledger is, I need to hear him.”
“He abandoned you.”
“That doesn’t mean I want him murdered.”
“Why not?”
Gideon coughed.
“Luca.”
“What?”
“You occasionally sound psychotic when you’re concerned.”
Luca turned.
“I’m not concerned.”
Everyone looked at him.
He sighed.
“I’m strategically invested.”
Camille muttered, “Much healthier.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“The wedding is at four.”
Luca’s face became stone.
“There is no wedding.”
“Vivien thinks there is.”
“Vivien is delusional.”
Camille looked up from her laptop.
“Actually, invitations have not been canceled.”
Luca turned sharply.
“What?”
“The Cross family sent confirmation to all guests thirty minutes ago. They’re claiming the security incident was a minor technical issue.”
Gideon’s expression darkened.
“They’re forcing public momentum.”
“Why?”
Camille looked at Luca.
“Because if you don’t appear, they control the story.”
I didn’t understand.
He did.
“Markets,” Luca said.
Gideon nodded.
“Moretti Maritime shares drop. Cross Capital starts rumors about instability. Competitors attack contracts.”
I stared.
“So this is a marriage and a hostile takeover.”
“In my world,” Luca said, “they’re often the same thing.”
I folded my arms.
“You were really going to marry her?”
He looked at me.
“It was strategic.”
“Romantic.”
“I didn’t require romance.”
Something about that answer irritated me.
I wasn’t sure why.
“What did you require?”
“Alliance. Stability. Access.”
“And she required your name.”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
Gideon abruptly became fascinated with a bookshelf.
Camille typed louder.
Luca’s gaze held mine.
“No.”
“Did she love you?”
“No.”
“That’s bleak.”
“It was efficient.”
“There’s that word again.”
He stepped closer.
“What would you prefer?”
“A marriage where neither person is actively installing tracking devices in the other’s clothes.”
A tiny smile appeared.
Real this time.
It transformed his face.
For half a second, Luca Moretti looked younger.
Human.
Then it vanished.
“I’ll attend the wedding.”
Everyone stared.
I blinked.
“You just said—”
“I’m attending.”
“Why?”
“Because Vivien wants me there.”
“That usually makes it a bad idea.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
He looked at me.
“If she wants the wedding, I want to know why.”
Gideon nodded slowly.
“Controlled exposure.”
Camille added, “We can flood the cathedral with our own people.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
“No.”
“You can keep saying that.”
“I can also lock your bedroom door.”
“That would be kidnapping.”
“We’ve established philosophical disagreement.”
I glared.
He stared back.
Gideon sighed.
“Perhaps we focus on solving the problem before you two get married out of spite.”
Silence.
I almost choked.
Luca’s face went completely blank.
Camille slowly lowered her laptop screen.
Gideon looked suddenly interested in death.
“I meant—”
“Leave,” Luca said.
“Yes.”
Gideon left immediately.
Camille followed, smiling.
I stared at Luca.
“Your people are strange.”
“They weren’t before you arrived.”
“Blaming me already?”
“Considering it.”
I turned away.
Then something occurred to me.
“The book.”
“What?”
“The tailoring book Vivien checked out.”
“What about it?”
“She may not have understood it.”
“Explain.”
“My mother didn’t encode things with numbers alone.”
I walked to the table and drew a sleeve pattern.
“She used garment construction.”
Luca watched.
“A tailoring manual can contain diagrams, stitch counts, seam allowances.”
I marked points along the pattern.
“Numbers could tell you which pages. But the instructions on those pages might describe folds.”
“Like a map.”
“Exactly.”
“And Vivien needs you to interpret it.”
“Yes.”
Luca stared at the pattern.
“Then attending makes you bait.”
“I prefer indispensable consultant.”
“You’re bait.”
“Very expensive bait.”
“You charge seventy dollars for hemming.”
“Ninety.”
He looked offended.
“Your atelier charged me eighteen thousand for alterations.”
“I see none of that.”
His face darkened.
“That seems criminal.”
I laughed.
The sound surprised both of us.
For one brief moment, none of this felt deadly.
Then Camille returned.
“Problem.”
Luca’s expression cooled.
“What?”
“St. Gabriel’s security system was updated yesterday.”
“By whom?”
“Cross Foundation paid for renovations last year.”
Of course.
Gideon appeared behind her.
“And there’s more.”
He held up a tablet.
Cathedral floor plans.
Underneath the church ran tunnels.
Old utility passages from Prohibition.
One connected to a private parking structure owned by Cross Capital.
Luca stared.
“Extraction route.”
“For Vivien.”
“Or Mercer.”
My stomach tightened.
Camille zoomed farther.
“There’s a chamber beneath the sacristy.”
“What kind?”
“Old crypt.”
I shivered.
Then Teresa entered holding a package.
“No courier,” she said. “It was left at the gate.”
Every guard stiffened.
The package was scanned.
No explosives.
Inside was a wedding invitation.
Cream card stock.
Embossed gold.
My name handwritten.
ELEANOR WARD — SPECIAL GUEST OF THE BRIDE
Beneath it was a small piece of fabric.
White silk.
Old.
Yellowed.
I recognized it instantly.
My mother’s wedding dress.
I touched it with shaking fingers.
She had kept scraps in the walnut sewing box.
Pinned to it was another message.
SHE LIED TO YOU ABOUT EVERYTHING. ASK LUCA WHAT HIS FATHER DID TO HER.
I looked up.
Luca’s face had changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You know something.”
He said nothing.
My stomach dropped.
“Luca.”
He looked at Gideon.
Gideon looked away.
Anger flooded me.
“You know.”
Luca spoke carefully.
“I know a story.”
“What story?”
“One my father told me once.”
“About my mother?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“He ordered her killed.”
The room vanished around me.
I heard nothing for several seconds.
Then my own voice.
“What?”
“He believed Margaret stole the ledger.”
“Did he kill her?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my father canceled the order.”
“Why?”
Luca’s eyes stayed on mine.
“Because she saved my life.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“I was sixteen.”
He stepped closer.
“My father’s car was bombed outside a restaurant.”
I remembered a newspaper clipping.
Antonio Moretti assassination attempt.
Luca continued.
“Your mother discovered the payment trail. She warned him twenty minutes before the explosion.”
“Why?”
“No one knew.”
“And your father let her live?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after?”
“She disappeared.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
My chest hurt.
“So my mother saved you.”
“She saved both of us.”
“What?”
Luca’s voice dropped.
“My father’s men were ordered to eliminate everyone connected to Mercer.”
He looked at me.
“That included his wife and daughter.”
Cold spread through me.
“You?”
“I convinced him not to.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I had influence.”
I stepped back.
“My mother never told me.”
“She was protecting you.”
“From your family.”
“Yes.”
“And now I’m supposed to trust you?”
Luca didn’t move.
“No.”
That stopped me.
“I wouldn’t.”
His answer was quiet.
“Not yet.”
Something inside my anger shifted.
He wasn’t asking forgiveness for his father.
He wasn’t pretending.
He simply stood there and accepted that the truth made him dangerous to me.
Camille’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed instantly.
“What?”
Everyone turned.
She lowered the phone.
“Rafael woke again.”
Luca stepped forward.
“What did he say?”
“Three words.”
Camille looked at me.
“Bride kills groom.”
The room froze.
May you like
Then she added the part that turned the warning into something far worse.
“He said it happens during the vows.”
