Chapter 7
Lucas stopped breathing. The glass of whiskey in his hand shattered, raining crystal and amber liquid onto the Persian rug.
“Say that again,” Lucas whispered, drawing a gun from his shoulder holster and aiming it at the floor near the doctor’s feet.
“It’s the truth!” the doctor stammered. “She is a direct genetic match to the Moretti family. The family that died in the fire twenty-five years ago.”
Bella stood up, wrapping her arms protectively around her stomach. “What are you talking about? My name is Bella Carter. My mother was a hotel cleaner. I don't know any Morettis.”
Lucas turned to her, his face a mask of absolute horror and rage. “The Morettis were the original founders of the Chicago syndicate. They were slaughtered in a car bombing. The same bombing that killed my parents. I was twelve. I was in the car behind them.”
He took a step toward her. “Only one body was never recovered. The Moretti’s infant daughter. The heiress to the very empire I took over.”
Bella’s mind raced back to the night in the hotel. Olivia was the name my mother gave me when she first took me in.
“Helen Carter wasn't your biological mother, was she?” Lucas asked, his voice shaking with a dangerous realization.
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“She adopted me. It was a closed, off-the-books adoption. She found me.”
Lucas slowly lowered the gun. The woman carrying his child was the rightful owner of the criminal empire he had spent his life building. And if anyone else found out, the entire Chicago underworld would go to war.
