Chapter 4 - Luca Moretti’s RulesI had never seen Luca frightened before.
Two attorneys occupied the dining room.
Three security specialists moved through the house.
Detective Monroe called twice.
And Luca had slept exactly seventeen minutes.
I knew because I had watched him.
At 3:14 a.m., he finally sat on the edge of the bed.
At 3:18, his head lowered.
At 3:31, his phone vibrated and his eyes opened immediately.
He thought I was asleep.
I wasn’t.
At breakfast, I put a cup of coffee in front of him.
He stared at it.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m pregnant. I’m always angry at something.”
His mouth twitched.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then pretend.”
He took a piece of toast.
Small victories.
The police confirmed Raymond had remained in custody all night.
His attorney was pushing for bail.
The package had no usable prints.
The anonymous call came through a masked number.
Worst of all, someone at St. Catherine Women’s Center had accessed my medical records without authorization.
The hospital launched an internal investigation.
Luca wanted to move me to his family estate outside the city.
I refused.
“I’m not disappearing.”
“It’s temporary.”
“No.”
“Norah—”
“Raymond spent two years teaching me that the world got smaller every time I made him angry. I stopped seeing friends. Stopped going out alone. Stopped wearing things he didn’t like. I will not build another small world because he came back.”
Luca went silent.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
That was one of the reasons I loved him.
He protected fiercely.
But unlike Raymond, when I said no, Luca heard it.
“We adjust security,” he said. “You keep your life.”
“Reasonable security.”
“Define reasonable.”
“Not six men following me into a grocery store.”
“Four?”
“Luca.”
“Two.”
I sighed.
“Two.”
At eleven, Detective Monroe arrived.
She had news.
“The court granted Cross bail.”
Luca’s expression became lethal.
“Of course.”
“Electronic monitoring. No contact with Norah. Five-hundred-yard protective perimeter.”
“He already had someone send a threat.”
“We’re investigating.”
“Then he shouldn’t be out.”
Monroe didn’t argue.
“We’re also looking at a woman named Melissa Grant.”
The name meant nothing.
“Who?”
“She visited Cross twice during the month before the assault.”
She showed us a photograph.
A woman in her early thirties.
Dark hair.
Hospital scrubs.
My stomach tightened.
“I’ve seen her.”
“Where?”
I stared at the photo.
Then remembered.
“My clinic.”
Luca looked at me.
“She works there?”
“I don’t know. But she was in the hallway after my ultrasound.”
Monroe sat straighter.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
I remembered because she had stared at me.
Not rudely.
Just too long.
Then she smiled and said, Beautiful day for good news.
I had thought nothing of it.
Until now.
Monroe immediately called her team.
Within an hour, St. Catherine confirmed Melissa Grant worked in billing.
She had access to patient records.
And she had disappeared that morning.
Her apartment was empty.
Phone off.
Car missing.
Luca walked to the window.
“Raymond recruited her.”
“Maybe.”
“He knew Norah’s appointments.”
Monroe nodded.
“That’s our theory.”
“Why would she help him?”
“We don’t know.”
I did.
Or at least I thought I might.
“Raymond is good at finding lonely people.”
Both of them looked at me.
“He doesn’t start by asking for crimes,” I said. “He starts by making you feel special.”
I remembered the beginning.
Flowers at work.
Surprise dinners.
Messages telling me I was the only person who understood him.
Then the questions.
Why did I need so many friends?
Why did I wear that dress?
Why hadn’t I answered immediately?
Control never introduced itself honestly.
It arrived disguised as devotion.
“Melissa may believe she loves him,” I said.
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Then she’s dangerous.”
That afternoon, I insisted on attending a scheduled charity board meeting at the Moretti Family Foundation.
Luca objected.
I won.
Barely.
Our foundation funded domestic violence shelters, which had once struck me as an ironic project for a man born into a family with such a violent reputation.
Until I learned why.
Luca’s mother, Elena, had spent years hiding abuse from Luca’s father’s older brother.
Not Luca’s father.
His uncle.
A man who controlled the family before Luca eventually forced him out.
Luca never spoke publicly about it.
But the shelters mattered to him.
The board meeting was held in a restored brick building downtown.
Two security officers waited outside.
I sat between attorney Maya Chen and foundation director Evelyn Price.
For ninety minutes, I felt almost normal.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo appeared.
It showed me sitting inside the meeting.
Taken through the conference room window.
My blood went cold.
Beneath it:
PINK LOOKS GOOD ON YOU.
I stood so quickly my chair rolled backward.
Maya looked at me.
“Norah?”
Security rushed in.
Luca called thirty seconds later.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Stay there.”
“I’m staying.”
“We’re locking the building.”
My eyes moved toward the window.
Across the street, people walked beneath umbrellas.
Cars passed.
A delivery cyclist turned the corner.
Whoever had taken the picture could already be gone.
Then another message appeared.
YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE MARRIED HIM.
A third.
HE DOESN’T KNOW YOU LIKE I DO.
I handed the phone to security.
Luca arrived eight minutes later.
He crossed the room and took my face in both hands.
“Look at me.”
“I’m okay.”
“Look at me.”
I did.
His eyes searched mine.
Then he hugged me.
Not elegantly.
Not carefully.
Like a man who had spent the drive imagining the worst.
Detective Monroe arrived soon after.
Camera footage showed a woman standing across the street twenty minutes earlier.
Baseball cap.
Raincoat.
Dark hair visible beneath it.
Melissa.
Police distributed her photograph.
We left through the underground garage.
That should have been the end of the day.
It wasn’t.
At 7:40 p.m., Dr. Kendall called.
Her voice sounded wrong.
“Norah?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to come to the hospital.”
My pulse jumped.
“Is something wrong with the baby?”
“No. This isn’t medical.”
Luca took the phone.
“What happened?”
Dr. Kendall hesitated.
“Someone broke into my office.”
We were there within half an hour.
Police tape covered the clinic doorway.
The desk drawers had been emptied.
Files lay scattered across the floor.
But whoever entered hadn’t taken medication.
Or money.
Or computers.
They had taken one thing.
My complete prenatal chart.
Dr. Kendall looked sick.
“We keep digital backups, obviously. But your printed file is gone.”
Luca turned to Monroe.
“What can someone learn from it?”
“Medical history,” Dr. Kendall said quietly. “Emergency contacts. Prior addresses. Insurance information.”
My skin prickled.
“Prior addresses?”
“Yes.”
Then I remembered something.
One address Raymond knew very well.
My mother’s house in Connecticut.
I pulled out my phone.
Called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
“Mom.”
Luca was already moving.
“Call local police.”
I tried a third time.
This time someone answered.
But nobody spoke.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then breathing.
“Mom?”
A man laughed softly.
Raymond.
My entire body froze.
“Hello, Norah.”
Luca took the phone from my hand.
“Where is she?”
Raymond laughed again.
“You should ask your wife what happened the last time she tried to leave me.”
“Where is her mother?”
“You married something that belonged to me, Moretti.”
Luca’s voice became terrifyingly calm.
“People are not possessions.”
“She was mine first.”
“No.”
A pause.
Then Raymond said:
“Come get her.”
The line went dead.
I grabbed Luca’s arm.
“My mother.”
He turned toward Monroe.
She was already calling Connecticut authorities.
Within minutes, patrol cars were dispatched to my mother’s property.
The drive would take us almost two hours.
Police helicopters could move faster.
Luca wanted me to stay.
I refused.
Again.
We raced north through pouring rain.
I called my mother nineteen times.
No answer.
Twenty.
Twenty-one.
At 9:16 p.m., Detective Monroe’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“They found your mother.”
My breath stopped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Luca caught me.
“She’s alive,” Monroe repeated. “Shaken. Minor injuries.”
I covered my mouth.
“Where was Raymond?”
“He wasn’t there.”
My relief vanished.
“What?”
“They found evidence he’d been inside.”
“Then where is he?”
Monroe’s expression hardened.
“That’s the problem.”
Her radio crackled.
A state trooper reported a car stolen ten miles from my mother’s house.
The description matched Raymond.
Luca looked at me.
“He wanted us out of the city.”
I stared at him.
Realization arrived like ice water.
“What?”
“He didn’t go after your mother because she was the target.”
My hand went to my stomach.
“He wanted us to leave Chicago.”
Monroe immediately called city police.
“Check the Moretti townhouse. Foundation offices. All known properties.”
Luca’s phone rang.
His head of security.
He answered.
Then his face drained of color.
“What happened?”
A long silence.
“Luca?”
He lowered the phone.
“Someone entered our house twenty minutes ago.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“What did they take?”
He looked at me.
“Nothing.”
“Then why—”
“They left something.”
“What?”
Luca swallowed.
“A crib.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“Pink.”
May you like
And painted across the side in red letters were four words:
SHE WILL NEVER USE IT.
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