Chapter 5 - THE LIE IN THE LIBRARY
Beneath the photograph on Luca’s phone screen, a second text message appeared:
Walk down into the library and sign the harbor transfer deeds with Richard, or the boy and his mother go into the river before sunrise.
My hand flew to my mouth to stifle a cry. “They have Leo. He’s only eleven, Luca. I met him once when Claire brought him by the back gate after school—he’s quiet and polite, and he draws boats all the time.”
Luca’s face had turned to carved granite, though I could see the pulse hammering violently in his throat. That eleven-year-old boy in the photograph had Marco’s dark, heavy-lidded eyes and the exact crooked shape of the Moretti chin.
Luca’s nephew. The last living piece of the brother he had mourned for twelve years.
“Why would Richard kidnap them now?” I asked, my mind racing. “Claire left four months ago!”
“Think about it, Emily,” Luca said, walking to his bedroom safe concealed behind an oil painting and punching in a six-digit code. “Why did Claire—Elena—risk coming back into this house as a maid after staying hidden in Milwaukee for over a decade?”
“To get the tin box from the attic,” I said slowly. “Because the hospital slip and the watch were inside it.”
“Why did she need them six months ago?” Luca asked, pulling a sleek black nine-millimeter pistol from the safe and checking the magazine before sliding it into the holster beneath his arm. “What happened six months ago?”
I blinked. “You announced your engagement to Vanessa.”
Luca turned to look at me, his dark eyes sharp. “Elena stayed silent for twelve years to protect Marco’s son because she believed I was part of the threat, or because Richard convinced her I would take the boy away. When she read in the papers that I was marrying Richard Bellini’s daughter and handing him half the Chicago waterfront, she came back to get the proof she’d hidden the night she was hurt—so she could warn me.”
“Wait,” I said, a sudden realization clicking into place. “If Richard has Elena and Leo right now to force you to sign the harbor deeds... why did Vanessa’s bodyguard just try to burn us alive in the attic?”
Luca stopped in his tracks.
If we died in the attic fire, Luca couldn’t sign the harbor transfer deeds downstairs.
“Because Richard and Vanessa aren’t working together tonight,” Luca said slowly, the reversal hanging heavy in the quiet bedroom. “One of them sent that text message. The other one tried to kill us in the attic before we could read it.”
He grabbed a clean cashmere sweater and a pair of dark trousers from his walk-in closet and tossed them onto the bed for me, along with a pair of thick socks.
“Put those on,” Luca said, turning his back to give me privacy while he texted Matteo on an encrypted channel. “You’re coming downstairs with me. If I leave you up here alone while my men are hunting Victor on the grounds, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
I stripped off my wine-stained apron and torn maid’s dress in thirty seconds, pulling on his soft black cashmere sweater and rolling up the cuffs of the trousers.
When we walked down the grand marble staircase two minutes later, the faint smell of smoke had just begun drifting down from the third floor.
Luca pushed open the heavy double doors to the library.
Richard Bellini was pacing near the fireplace with a glass of scotch in his hand. Vanessa sat on the leather chesterfield sofa, her manicured hands twisted tightly in her lap.
When Vanessa saw me walk in alive beside Luca—wearing his clothes—she gasped so loudly she dropped her clutch purse onto the Persian rug.
Richard, however, didn’t look surprised that we were alive. He just looked impatient.
“Did you check your phone, Luca?” Richard asked coldly, setting his scotch glass down on the desk beside a thick stack of legal contracts. “The harbor merger deeds are right here. Sign them now, wire the twenty-million-dollar escrow into the Cayman account, and the woman and her brat walk out of that warehouse untouched.”
Vanessa whipped her head toward her father, her face pale with genuine shock.
“What woman?” Vanessa demanded, standing up. “Dad, what are you talking about? What warehouse?”
Luca didn’t look at Richard. He watched Vanessa’s reaction with razor-sharp focus.
“Your father has Elena Rossi and my brother’s eleven-year-old son locked in a warehouse,” Luca said evenly. “He’s using them to extort my signature before the truth about Marco’s death comes out.”
“That’s impossible!” Vanessa blurted out, her voice rising in hysteria before she caught herself. “Elena told me the baby died before she left Chicago!”
The room went dead silent.
Richard slowly turned to stare at his daughter. “What did you just say, Vanessa?”
Vanessa froze, realizing the fatal mistake she had just made. Her diamond bracelet trembled against her wrist.
I took a step forward, looking from the father to the daughter.
“Twelve years ago, on the night Marco died,” I said, my voice clear in the quiet library, “Mr. Bellini took Elena to St. Jude’s Clinic at eleven-thirty at night with a broken collarbone. He paid her bill, gave her a bus ticket to Milwaukee, and told her never to come back.”
I turned to Richard. “You thought you were covering up your own assault on a housemaid so Luca’s father wouldn’t kill you and ruin your business. You didn’t kill Marco at two in the morning. You were still at the clinic across town until one-thirty.”
Richard stared at me, stunned. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I have the clinic discharge slip you signed,” Luca said, stepping up beside me. His eyes locked onto Vanessa, who was backing slowly toward the fireplace. “Richard broke Elena’s collarbone in the servants’ hall at ten o’clock that night and drove her to the clinic to buy her silence. So if Elena was across town, and your father was with her...”
Luca’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper.
“Who met my brother Marco in the boathouse at two in the morning, Vanessa? And why was his stopped pocket watch hidden in the attic of this house?”
Vanessa’s back hit the marble mantelpiece. Tears of fury and terror spilled over her eyelashes.
“He was supposed to marry me!” Vanessa screamed, the mask of the polished society fiancée shattering completely. “Our fathers arranged it when I was nineteen! Marco was supposed to be mine, and he threw me away for a pathetic little nobody who scrubbed floors!”
Suddenly, the library doors burst open.
Matteo, Luca’s head of security, walked in holding Victor by the collar of his soot-stained coat.
“Boss,” Matteo said, breathing hard. “We caught him coming down the exterior drainpipe from the third floor. And we already traced the warehouse photo on your phone.”
Matteo held up Victor’s cell phone.
“Richard didn’t take that kidnapping photo five minutes ago,” Matteo said grimly. “The metadata shows that picture of the woman and the boy was taken yesterday in an abandoned cannery in Milwaukee. Richard doesn’t even know where they are—Victor sent the text from a burner phone right before he lit the attic fire, just to trick you into shooting Richard for him.”
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Richard’s jaw dropped. “Victor works for me! Why would he want Luca to shoot me?”
Victor didn’t say a word. He just looked past Richard, straight at the third person who had been in the boathouse twelve years ago.
