Chapter 3 - THE TORN POCKET
Sophia collapsed to her knees on the stone pathway, clutching Emma so tightly the little girl began to cry. The silver wedding band gleamed maliciously in the afternoon sun.
I held up my hand, keeping my men from firing at my brother. “Take Lorenzo alive,” I ordered Marco.
But my brother had anticipated this. As Marco and three guards lunged toward the chapel doors, a blinding flash of light and thick white smoke erupted from the side exit—a tactical smoke grenade. The crowd screamed in panic, coughing and stumbling over the expensive mahogany chairs. By the time the smoke cleared a few seconds later, the side door was wide open, and Lorenzo was gone.
“Lock down the perimeter! Hunt him down!” Marco barked into his earpiece, drawing his weapon and running into the chapel.
I didn’t chase him. My empire was bleeding, my family was shattered, but my eyes were fixed on the housekeeper crying on the ground.
I walked slowly through the chaotic crowd. Carmine Romano was shouting at his men to surround Isabella, forming a protective wall of tailored suits around my disgraced bride.
“You don't touch her, Moretti!” Carmine bellowed, pointing his cane at my chest. “My daughter is coming home with me until we sort out this mess!”
“Your daughter,” I said coldly, stopping a few feet from the Romano barricade, “is an accomplice to treason and, apparently, murder. She stays here. If you want a war, Carmine, step off my property and declare it. But if you try to take her through those gates, none of you will make it to the street.”
Carmine’s jaw tightened. He looked at his daughter, who was trembling, mascara running down her cheeks, staring at the bloody silver ring on the ground. Carmine was a businessman above all else. He calculated the odds, looked at the sheer number of my men flanking the courtyard, and slowly lowered his cane.
“You have 24 hours to prove she had a hand in a murder,” Carmine growled. He turned his back on Isabella. “Let’s go.”
“Papa, no! You can't leave me here!” Isabella screamed, reaching for him.
Her own father didn't look back. The Romano soldiers marched out, leaving Isabella kneeling alone in her ruined dress. Two of my men hauled her up by her arms and dragged her toward the estate’s holding rooms.
I ignored her screams and knelt beside Sophia.
She was hyperventilating, staring at the ring. Emma was wiping her mother's tears with a tiny thumb. “Don't cry, Mommy. The bad lady is gone.”
I gently reached down and picked up the heavy silver band. I held it out to Sophia on my palm.
“Is this his?” I asked gently, making sure to keep my voice soft so I wouldn't frighten Emma further.
Sophia looked up at me, her brown eyes hollowed out by a grief she had clearly been hiding for years. She nodded slowly.
“His name was David,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “He was an accountant. A normal man. He drove off a bridge on his way home from work. The police said he fell asleep at the wheel. They never gave me his ring back. They said it was lost in the river.”
“Why would my brother and Isabella want a normal accountant dead?” I asked, my mind racing to connect the pieces.
Sophia’s breath hitched. She looked around the clearing courtyard, terrified. “Because two years ago, David audited a shell company. He found money missing. Millions. He brought the file home because he was scared. He said he found out who was stealing from the Moretti family.”
My blood ran cold. Two years ago was precisely when my father’s health had begun to decline, and Lorenzo had taken over the estate’s finances. David had found Lorenzo’s embezzlement.
“Isabella found out David knew,” my mother’s voice came from behind me.
I turned to see my mother standing there, her face lined with a sorrow I had never seen before.
“You knew about this?” I demanded, standing up to face her. “You knew my fiancée murdered this woman’s husband, and you let me walk to the altar?”
“No!” my mother cried, stepping forward and grabbing my hands. “Alessandro, I swear on my life, I only found the bank transfers yesterday! I didn't know about the murder until Lorenzo threw that ring. I swear it.”
“Then why did you hire her?” I pointed at Sophia. “Why bring the widow of a murdered accountant into our home to clean our floors?”
“Because I was trying to hide her!” my mother pleaded, tears spilling over her cheeks.
Suddenly, Emma tugged on my mother’s expensive silk skirt. In the child's small hand was a folded piece of white construction paper.
“I drawed a picture for the pretty lady, but she yelled at me,” Emma said innocently, holding it up.
My mother’s breath hitched as she took the drawing. She unfolded it, and her eyes went wide with absolute horror.
“Alessandro…” my mother whispered, her hands shaking so badly the paper rattled.
I took the drawing from her. It was a child’s crayon scribble. A drawing of a black car pushing a smaller blue car off a bridge into blue water. But it wasn’t just a random doodle.
Drawn perfectly on the side of the big black car, rendered in clumsy but unmistakable yellow and red crayon, was the Moretti family crest.
“Emma,” I said, dropping to my knees so I was eye-level with the three-year-old. “Where did you see this big car?”
Emma pointed a tiny finger toward the estate’s main garage.
“In the big house where the cars sleep,” Emma said. “The man with the shiny star on his coat was washing it. He told me it was a secret.”
Marco.
My security chief. The man I trusted with my life. He was the only one on the estate who wore a silver star lapel pin.
May you like
I slowly stood up, turning to look for Marco. But he was no longer hunting my brother in the chapel.
He was standing ten feet away, and his gun was pointed directly at my chest.
