Chapter 2 - The House of Broken Glass
The blacked-out Maybach SUV sped through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago under armed security escort.
Inside the quiet leather interior, the air was thick with unspoken grief and decades of accumulated pain.
Wren lay fast asleep across Maren’s lap, wrapped in Luca’s warm cashmere coat. The crimson stains on her skin had been gently wiped away by Maren with warm damp towels in the hotel's private dressing room, but her small chest still let out occasional, shuddering hitches as she dreamed.
Maren sat staring out the tinted window at the passing city lights, her hand resting protectively over Wren’s back.
Across from them sat Luca. His jacket was gone, his shirt rolled up at the sleeves, revealing forearm scars from his military service. His dark eyes were fixed entirely on Maren’s face, filled with a burning, tortured regret that he couldn't put into words.
"You shouldn't have done that," Maren whispered softly, her voice flat, devoid of anger, but heavy with exhaustion. "You just declared war on your own grandmother in front of every reporter in Illinois."
"Let them wage war," Luca replied, his voice rough and deep. "I spent eight years believing you left me because you hated me, Maren. I spent eight years in a hell of my own making while my family told me you took a payoff and moved to Europe."
Maren let out a bitter, dry laugh, looking at him with eyes that had cried too many tears in dark, cold apartments. "A payoff? Luca, I lived in a twelve-hundred-square-foot basement flat behind a laundromat in Pilsen. I worked sixteen-hour shifts at a medical billing company to afford Wren’s asthma inhalers! When your mother found out I was pregnant eight years ago, she had three lawyers stand in my hospital room while I was in labor, threatening to take my child away if I ever stepped foot in this city again!"
Luca’s fist slammed onto the leather armrest between them with the crack of a pistol shot.
"My mother told me you aborted the child," Luca rasped, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched violently in his cheek. "She brought me a forged medical release form signed with your name while I was recovering in the Landstuhl military hospital in Germany after my convoy took an IED."
Maren gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. She stared at him, the horrifying realization dawning on her like a wave of ice water.
"They... they told you she was dead?" Maren whispered.
"They told me there was no baby," Luca choked out, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his broad frame trembling with a profound, crushing sorrow. "They told me you took two hundred thousand dollars from the family trust to keep quiet about our summer in Maine, signed the papers, and vanished. I hated you for eight years, Maren. I hated myself even more for loving a ghost."
"Luca..." Maren reached out instinctively, her fingers trembling as she touched his forearm.
"Three months ago," Luca continued, his voice dropping into a rough whisper, "I saw a photograph taken at a children's charity park in North Chicago. A seven-year-old girl was wearing a faded grey hoodie with the insignia of my old Navy SEAL unit—a hoodie I left at your cabin in Maine in 2018. She had my father’s hazel eyes, Maren. Exactly his eyes."
The Maybach pulled to a smooth stop outside the iron gates of the DeLuca Estate in Lake Forest—a thirty-acre lakefront fortress surrounded by ten-foot stone walls and armed security patrols.
The heavy iron gates slowly swung open, revealing the grand limestone mansion gleaming under the floodlights.
"Why are we here?" Maren asked, her voice tight with sudden panic as she pulled Wren closer. "Luca, I won't take her inside that house. Your family tried to destroy her!"
"My family is leaving," Luca said, his voice flat, decisive, and cold as iron.
The Maybach door slid open.
Standing on the grand limestone portico under the pour of rain was Victoria DeLuca, accompanied by Luca’s younger brother, Julian DeLuca, and three senior corporate lawyers holding black leather briefcases.
Luca stepped out of the car, turned, and gently scooped the sleeping Wren into his arms, wrapping her tightly inside his coat. He extended his hand to Maren, guiding her out onto the wet driveway.
Victoria stepped forward, her silver cane thumping sharply against the wet stone steps.
"Luca!" Victoria demanded, her voice echoing with seventy years of unyielding aristocratic arrogance. "You have completely ruined the reputation of this family tonight! Dragging a common girl and an illegitimate bastard into the Drake Hotel—"
CLACK.
Luca didn't say a word. He pulled a thick Manila envelope from his coat pocket and tossed it onto the wet stone steps right at his grandmother's feet.
"What is this?" Victoria snapped, glaring down at the paper.
"That is a court injunction, an eviction notice, and a criminal subpoena for corporate fraud," Luca said, his voice ringing through the rainy courtyard. "Every account under the DeLuca Family Trust has been frozen by federal order. The forensic accountants spent forty-eight hours examining the 2018 offshore wire transfers. The two hundred thousand dollars you claimed Maren took? It was funneled into Julian’s private trading account in Grand Cayman."
Julian DeLuca’s face went chalk-white. "Luca... wait... Mother told me to—"
"Shut up, Julian," Luca barked, not even looking at his brother. "You have two hours to pack your personal belongings and clear out of this estate. By seven AM tomorrow, security will revoke your access to DeLuca Tower."
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"You can't do this!" Victoria hissed, her voice trembling with rage. "I built this empire! Your father died for this company!"
"My father died because you pushed him into an early grave with your poison, Grandmother," Luca said, stepping up the stairs until he stood towering over the elderly woman. "This house now belongs to my daughter. Leave."
