Chapter 5 - The Doctor’s Office and the Midnight Offer
Dr. Harris, the Moretti family’s private physician, was packing his medical bag when Luca pushed open the door to the examination room.
Claire sat on the exam table, her left wrist wrapped tightly in a thick white splint and elastic bandage. Her face was pale, her dark hair slightly messy, but the fiery defiance in her eyes hadn't dimmed an inch.
"She’s got a severe hairline fracture in the radius and deep soft-tissue bruising from a crushing grip," Dr. Harris reported quietly, snapping his leather case shut. "I’ve given her a mild painkiller and an anti-inflammatory injection. She’ll need to wear the splint for at least four weeks."
"Thank you, Doctor," Luca said. "Leave us."
Dr. Harris packed his tools, nodded respectfully, and slipped out of the room, closing the heavy wooden door behind him.
The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Claire gripped the edge of the examination table with her uninjured right hand, her knuckles white. She looked up at the towering mob boss standing in the doorway, his dark suit jacket unbuttoned, his face carved from stone.
"Are you going to fire me now?" she asked, her voice steady despite the tremor in her chest. "Or are you going to throw me in the same warehouse with Vanessa?"
Luca didn't answer immediately. He walked slowly across the linoleum floor, his leather shoes clicking against the tile, until he stood two feet away from her. Up close, he was imposing—towering over her, radiating a dangerous, contained energy that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
"You broke into my private study," Luca said, his voice low and level. "You downloaded classified federal transport manifests. You risked your life to steal information about my organization."
Claire lifted her chin, staring defiantly into his dark eyes. "Your organization is running weapons and laundering money through municipal accounts that killed my brother. My name is Claire Dawson. My brother was Thomas Dawson. Three years ago, your associates made sure his car went off an icy overpass into Lake Michigan."
Luca didn't flinch. He didn't look away. He absorbed the name—Thomas Dawson—and turned it over in his mind like a heavy coin.
"Thomas Dawson," Luca repeated softly. "The accountant who found the discrepancy in the North Side construction funds."
"He didn't find a discrepancy," Claire spat, tears of suppressed rage finally spilling over her lashes. "He found a systematic assassination of city funds led by Marcus Vance—your best man. The man you trusted implicitly while he was selling your routes out from under you."
Luca stared at her for a long, agonizing moment. The irony hung in the air like smoke. The very housemaid he had almost dismissed for clumsiness at the dinner table was the only person in Chicago who had seen the truth about the betrayal rotting his empire from the inside out.
"You’re remarkably foolish, Claire," Luca said quietly. "Or remarkably brave."
"I’m alive," she retorted. "And I want justice for my brother."
Luca reached into his inner jacket pocket. Claire flinched, instinctively bracing herself, but Luca only pulled out a folded manila folder and laid it gently on the metal tray beside her arm.
"What is this?" she asked, looking down.
"That is the complete internal audit of the North Side construction funds," Luca said evenly. "Including the unredacted bank routing numbers, the shell company signatures, and the personal wire transfers authorized by Marcus Vance behind my back. It contains every single piece of evidence your brother died trying to protect."
Claire’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at the manila folder as if it were a ghost. "Why are you giving this to me?"
"Because I don't like being played," Luca said, his eyes narrowing into cold daggers. "And I especially don't like traitors sitting at my right hand. Marcus thought he could use Vanessa to blindside me before the wedding. He miscalculated."
Luca stepped closer, resting his hand on the edge of the table near her uninjured fingers.
"I need someone who knows how to read between the lines of a financial ledger," Luca continued, his voice dropping into a smooth, hypnotic register. "Someone who isn't afraid of fire. Stay in this house, Claire. Not as a housemaid. As my head of internal intelligence and financial oversight."
May you like
Claire stared at him in disbelief. "You want to hire me? After all of this?"
"I want to rebuild my house from the foundation up," Luca corrected softly. "And I start by surrounding myself with people who cannot be bought by a red silk dress or a false promise."
