Chapter 6 - THE BLOOD ON HER HANDS
The collective gasp from the remaining guests sounded like all the oxygen being sucked out of the room.
I stared at the heavy brass key resting in the hollowed-out Bible, my eyes instantly drawn to the scrap of blood-stained red silk tied to the ring. I looked up at Vanessa. She was still on the floor, surrounded by the broken pieces of the wooden bird, her face devoid of all color.
The fabric tied to the key was identical to her engagement dress. But the dress she was wearing right now wasn't torn.
“I don't understand,” Luca said, his voice hard, his dark eyes snapping from the Bible to my father. “Thomas, what is this?”
My father walked slowly toward the table, keeping a cautious eye on Arthur, who still had the steak knife pressed to Teresa's throat. Arthur was trembling so violently now that a thin line of blood trickled down Teresa's collarbone, staining her pearls.
“That scrap of silk isn't from tonight, Mr. Luca,” my father said, his voice ringing out clearly in the dead silent room. “That fabric was torn twenty-seven years ago. The night of the warehouse fire.”
Vincent Bellini let out a desperate, panicked laugh. “He’s insane! He’s making up stories to confuse you! Arthur, kill the old woman, right now!”
“No!” Vanessa shrieked, scrambling backward on the floor until her back hit the wainscoting. “Dad, don't let him talk! Shut him up!”
My father didn't look at Vincent. He looked down at Vanessa.
“You were nine years old, Vanessa,” my father said quietly. The pity in his voice was far more devastating than anger. “You used to sneak down to the waterfront to play in the warehouses. You thought nobody saw you.”
Vanessa pressed her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“Thomas, speak clearly,” Luca demanded. “What happened that night?”
“Vincent didn't start the fire, Mr. Luca,” my father revealed, the words dropping like lead weights onto the dining table. “He ordered Arthur to do it. But Arthur got drunk. He botched the timing. And he didn't realize that little Vanessa was playing hide-and-seek inside the warehouse when he threw the gasoline.”
I gasped, looking at the scarred, ruined face of Arthur Bellini.
Arthur let out a ragged, agonizing sob. “I didn't know she was in there!” he cried, the hand holding the knife shaking violently. “I swear to God, Vincent, I didn't know!”
“I was the chauffeur,” my father continued, his hazel eyes locking onto me. “I was waiting in the car for Vincent. I saw the flames. I heard the screaming. I ran inside.”
Tears streamed down my father's face as the memories dragged him back twenty-seven years.
“The heat was unimaginable,” he whispered. “I found Arthur trapped under a burning beam. I pulled him out. Half his face was already gone. But then I heard another scream. It was Vanessa. She was trapped in the office, surrounded by fire. I broke the glass, but the door was jammed.”
My father pointed to the bloody scrap of red silk attached to the brass key in Luca’s hand.
“She was wearing her favorite red silk Sunday dress. She tried to squeeze through the broken window, but she got caught on the glass. It sliced her arm open. I reached in, grabbed her by her dress, and pulled her through. The fabric ripped. When I pulled her out, she fell against the office desk, knocking over Vincent’s private lockbox.”
Vincent’s chest heaved. “You stole my money!”
“I saw what was in the box, Vincent!” my father roared, his quiet demeanor finally shattering into explosive rage. “I saw the ledgers! I saw the Swiss bank key! I grabbed them, and I carried your bleeding daughter out of the fire! I saved her life!”
The room was deathly quiet, save for Vanessa’s hyperventilating sobs.
“I brought her to you, Vincent,” my father said, his voice dropping back to a trembling whisper. “I handed you your daughter. And what did you do? You saw that I had the key. You realized I knew you were stealing from the Morettis. So you took Vanessa, you put a gun to my head, and you told me to run. You told me that if I ever showed my face again, you would kill my wife and my baby girl.”
I felt the tears hot and heavy on my cheeks. I had spent my entire life thinking my father was a coward, an arsonist, a thief who abandoned his family.
He was a hero. He had sacrificed his name, his life, and his family to protect me from a monster.
“And then you killed my wife anyway,” my father sobbed, looking at me with unbearable grief. “You cut her brakes. You killed my Mary.”
“She was asking too many questions!” Vincent yelled, completely losing his mind as the walls closed in. He looked wildly at Luca. “Luca, you can't believe this garbage! The Bellinis and the Morettis are blood! We are family!”
“We were never family,” Luca said coldly.
Luca turned to Arthur.
“Arthur,” Luca said, his voice strangely calm. “Look at your brother. Look at the man who ordered you to burn a building with his own daughter inside. Look at the man who let you suffer for twenty-seven years, hiding your face like a monster, while he lived in luxury.”
Arthur slowly turned his scarred face toward Vincent.
“He was going to leave me,” Arthur whispered, tears cutting clean lines through the soot and sweat on his ruined cheeks. “Vanessa said he was going to take the money and leave us to the cartel.”
“He is,” Luca confirmed. “Let my mother go, Arthur. You didn't mean to start that fire with a child inside. You were a pawn. Let her go, and I give you my word, you will walk out of this house alive.”
Arthur’s hand trembled. The steak knife wavered.
“Don't listen to him, Arthur!” Vincent barked, pulling a hidden silver revolver from a holster at his ankle with shocking speed. He aimed it directly at his brother’s head. “Kill the old bat and get the key, or I put a bullet in your brain right now!”
Arthur looked at the gun in his brother’s hand. Then he looked at the brass key in the Bible.
With a ragged sigh, Arthur lowered the steak knife. He stepped away from Teresa, raising his hands in surrender.
Teresa gasped, falling forward into Luca’s waiting arms.
“Traitor!” Vincent screamed.
Vincent pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed dining room. The flash illuminated the crystal chandeliers like lightning.
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But Arthur didn't fall.
Because Vanessa had lunged upward from the floor, driving the heavy silver serving tray directly into her father’s knees, sending his shot wild—and the bullet shattered the massive chandelier hanging directly over Teresa’s head.
