Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE HALLWAY
Vanessa didn’t wait for an answer. She turned and sprinted down the hallway, her emerald silk gown rustling wildly as she fled toward the back stairs.
I stood completely frozen, clutching my ribs, my mind spinning. Why was Vanessa suddenly terrified of a knock at the front door? And why had she just warned Luca not to let her own father answer it?
Luca didn’t hesitate. He dropped the auction card into his pocket and strode out of the cedar room.
“Stay here, Hannah,” he ordered, his voice tight.
I didn’t stay. The pain in my side was sharp, but the fear knotting in my stomach was sharper. I grabbed the doorframe, steadying myself, and followed him to the top of the grand staircase.
Down in the massive marble foyer, the engagement dinner guests were still gathered in the adjacent drawing room, drinking coffee and laughing. They hadn’t heard the heavy, rhythmic pounding echoing through the front hall.
Arthur Bellini had.
Vanessa’s father, a broad-shouldered man with silver hair and a tailored tuxedo, was already walking briskly toward the heavy oak double doors.
“I’ll get it, Mrs. Carter,” Arthur waved off the housekeeper, his voice carrying an odd, forced joviality. “Expecting a late courier for the firm.”
“Arthur, step away from the door!” Luca’s voice cracked like a whip over the marble railing.
Arthur froze, his hand inches from the brass handle. He looked up at the staircase, his smile faltering as he saw the absolute rage on Luca’s face.
“Luca, my boy,” Arthur said smoothly. “Is everything alright upstairs?”
“Don’t touch that handle,” Luca repeated, descending the stairs two at a time. He didn’t look like a welcoming host anymore. He looked like the head of the Moretti family about to throw a man onto the street.
Before Luca reached the bottom step, the heavy oak doors suddenly swung open from the outside.
Arthur hadn’t unlocked them. Whoever was on the porch had a key.
The wind from the storm outside whipped through the foyer, blowing rain onto the polished marble.
Standing in the doorway was an older man. He looked to be in his late sixties, leaning heavily on a polished wooden cane. He wore a damp charcoal trench coat over a dark suit, his silver hair slicked back against the rain. His face was weathered, deeply lined with age and something heavier.
When he looked up, his eyes locked immediately onto Luca.
They were exactly the same shape and color as Luca’s dark eyes.
“Who are you?” Luca demanded, stepping in front of Arthur Bellini to block the man from entering further.
The older man didn’t look at Arthur. He kept his gaze fixed solely on Luca.
“I was hoping your mother had kept her promise and told you before she passed,” the man said quietly, his voice a low, gravelly baritone carrying a faint Italian accent. “But seeing as you don’t recognize me, I suppose Teresa kept my secret until the end.”
Arthur Bellini let out a sharp, ragged breath. He took a stumbling step backward, his face draining of all color.
“It’s not possible,” Arthur whispered, staring at the man in the trench coat. “The police in Naples said the car burned completely. You’re dead.”
The man slowly turned his gaze to Arthur. “The driver’s body burned, Arthur. The man you paid to cut my brake lines burned. But I managed to crawl out before the tank exploded.”
My hands flew to my mouth.
The man standing in the foyer was Matteo Rossi.
The man Luca’s mother was supposed to marry forty-one years ago.
Luca stood absolutely rigid. The shock was visible, but the defensive instinct of the Moretti boss overrode it immediately.
“If you are Matteo Rossi,” Luca said, his voice dangerously low, “why are you standing in my foyer forty-one years later?”
Matteo leaned on his cane, water dripping onto the marble floor. “Because three days ago, I walked into an auction house in Chicago to buy back my mother’s silver evening bag—the bag I gave Teresa the night before my accident.”
Matteo slowly reached into the pocket of his trench coat. He pulled out the familiar hand-beaded silver mesh bag with the sapphire bird clasp.
“I left Italy because I knew whoever tried to kill me would come back to finish the job if they thought I survived,” Matteo continued, looking at Arthur Bellini with cold, calculating eyes. “I changed my name. I built a quiet life in Boston. I never intended to return to Chicago. Not until the auctioneer told me the silver bag had been brought in by a young woman claiming to be my niece.”
Luca slowly turned his head toward Arthur Bellini.
“Your daughter,” Luca said softly, the realization dawning with terrifying clarity, “brought this bag to the auction house under the name Matteo Rossi.”
Arthur swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool draft from the door. “Luca, listen to me. Vanessa didn’t know what she was doing. She found the bag in Teresa’s chest and thought it was junk.”
“She didn’t think it was junk, Arthur,” Matteo interrupted smoothly. “She knew exactly what it was. Because she found the key to the safety deposit box hidden inside it. And she needed my name to try and forge the authorization papers to open it in Rome.”
“What is in the box?” Luca demanded, turning back to Matteo.
Matteo’s dark eyes softened as he looked at the son of the woman he had loved.
“Proof,” Matteo said softly. “Proof of why Arthur Bellini needed me dead forty-one years ago. Proof of why he pushed your father, Enzo Moretti, to marry Teresa instead.”
The drawing room doors suddenly opened, and several guests stepped out into the foyer, drawn by the commotion. Among them was Luca’s private security chief, Daniel.
“Mr. Moretti? Is there a problem?” Daniel asked, assessing the tense scene.
“Clear the house, Daniel,” Luca ordered without taking his eyes off Arthur. “The engagement dinner is over.”
A shocked murmur rippled through the guests.
Arthur Bellini’s face flushed dark red with humiliation and panic. “Luca, you can’t do this! The wedding is in two weeks! My investors are expecting the merger!”
“There will be no merger, Arthur,” Luca said coldly. “And there will be no wedding. Get your daughter and get out of my house before I call the police and reopen a forty-one-year-old attempted murder investigation.”
Arthur stared at Luca, then at Matteo, realizing the absolute collapse of his entire world. He didn’t argue. He turned and practically ran toward the back stairs to find Vanessa.
As the guests filed out into the rainy night, Mrs. Carter quietly directed the staff to begin clearing the dining room. I stayed near the top of the stairs, my ribs throbbing, watching as the foyer finally emptied.
Only Luca and Matteo remained.
Luca stared at the older man, the anger slowly draining away, replaced by a profound, agonizing confusion.
“Why didn’t you come back for her?” Luca asked softly. “If you survived the crash, why didn’t you come back for my mother?”
Matteo leaned heavily on his cane, the years of hidden pain finally showing on his face.
“Because when I woke up in a private clinic three weeks after the crash, I received a letter from Teresa,” Matteo said, reaching into his inner breast pocket. He pulled out a fragile, yellowed piece of paper. “She begged me to stay away. She said Arthur Bellini had threatened to destroy her family if she didn’t marry Enzo Moretti.”
Luca took the yellowed letter with trembling hands.
“But there was something else in the letter,” Matteo whispered, looking up at the grand staircase. He saw me standing near the railing. His eyes locked onto the black uniform I was wearing.
Then, Matteo looked back at Luca.
“Teresa told me she had hidden something in the lining of her wedding gown,” Matteo said. “Something she sewed into the hem the morning of her wedding to your father. Something Arthur Bellini has been trying to find for forty-one years.”
My breath caught in my throat.
The wedding gown.
The box Vanessa had shoved at me upstairs.
Luca spun around and looked up the stairs at me. “Hannah. Where is the box I told you to leave on the side table in the dining room?”
My stomach plunged.
“I don’t know, sir,” I stammered, gripping the railing. “When Dr. Harris took me to the kitchen to wrap my ribs, the box was still on the table.”
Luca didn’t wait. He sprinted up the stairs, past me, and burst into the deserted dining room.
I followed as fast as I could, with Matteo limping slowly behind us.
The long mahogany table was empty. The crystal glasses were gone. The silver trays had been cleared.
And the small side table near the window was completely bare.
The preservation box holding Teresa Moretti’s forty-one-year-old wedding gown was gone.
May you like
But lying on the carpet where the table stood was a single, broken diamond earring.
The exact earring Vanessa had been wearing all night.
