Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Beneath the Bandages
Elena took one step backward.
Luca moved in front of her.
Matteo’s smile disappeared.
“You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
Luca stared at the man who had been bleeding in the chapel hours earlier.
“You were never dying.”
“I was hurt.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
Sofia whispered, “Matteo.”
He looked at her.
“You should have told him years ago.”
Enzo stood beside Matteo.
His missing cufflink was visible in Matteo’s hand.
Elena understood first.
“You planted it.”
Matteo nodded.
“Eventually.”
“You chased me?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Matteo glanced at Enzo.
Enzo’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t touch you.”
Elena remembered the black sleeve.
The hand.
The cufflink.
She had assumed the person was male.
She had never actually seen a face.
Luca said, “Who chased her?”
Matteo ignored the question.
“You have the ledger.”
“You wanted me to find it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because some truths are useful only after the right person sees them.”
Sofia stepped forward.
“Your mother would be ashamed.”
Matteo’s face hardened.
“Do not speak for my mother.”
Luca finally understood the anger beneath everything.
Adriana Serra.
Matteo’s mother.
A woman connected to Isabella and Carlo.
“What happened to Adriana?”
Sofia answered.
“She disappeared.”
Matteo laughed without humor.
“She was murdered.”
“By whom?” Elena asked.
Matteo looked at Luca.
“His father.”
Luca did not react.
Sofia did.
“That is a lie.”
“Is it?”
“Vittorio tried to save her.”
“Vittorio saved himself.”
Matteo took out a small recorder.
“My mother spent years helping Isabella Valenti and Carlo Russo collect evidence. When Isabella discovered the network, she wanted to expose everyone.”
“Who ran it?” Luca asked.
Matteo looked at Sofia.
“Ask her.”
Sofia’s face tightened.
“I didn’t run anything.”
“But you knew.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Too late.”
Enzo shifted impatiently.
“This reunion is touching, but we have a problem.”
Luca looked at him.
“You.”
Enzo smiled.
“You always did enjoy reducing complicated things.”
“You helped attack Matteo.”
“I helped him disappear.”
“You shut down my cameras.”
“Yes.”
“You forged my authorization.”
“Yes.”
“And you chased Elena.”
“No.”
That answer came immediately.
Luca believed it.
Which meant another person remained.
Elena realized the same thing.
“The woman.”
Matteo looked toward her.
“She’s the reason we brought you here.”
Luca stepped closer.
“You brought nobody.”
Matteo smiled faintly.
“You came exactly where we wanted.”
A vehicle approached outside.
Headlights swept across broken depot windows.
Sofia looked frightened.
“No.”
Matteo turned toward the entrance.
The doors opened.
A woman walked inside.
She was perhaps fifty.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
Elegant coat.
Calm expression.
Elena recognized her immediately.
“Dr. Bellandi?”
The woman smiled.
“Hello, Elena.”
Luca looked at Elena.
“Who is she?”
“My father’s attorney.”
“Former attorney,” the woman corrected.
Cecilia Bellandi had handled Carlo Russo’s estate after his death.
She had comforted Elena at the funeral.
She had helped her sell her father’s house.
She had spent years telling Elena there was nothing suspicious about the accident.
Elena’s stomach turned.
“You lied to me.”
“For your protection.”
“You always say that when you mean control,” Sofia said.
Cecilia looked at her.
“And you always confuse guilt with virtue.”
Luca’s voice cut through them.
“Who killed my mother?”
Cecilia met his eyes.
“I know.”
“Then speak.”
“Your mother discovered that the network wasn’t controlled by one family. It existed between families. Politicians paid for information. Police sold investigations. Businessmen purchased silence. Your father benefited from parts of it before realizing it had become something he couldn’t control.”
“And Isabella?”
“She wanted it destroyed.”
“Carlo?”
“Helped her.”
“Adriana?”
“Helped them both.”
“And you?”
Cecilia smiled sadly.
“I helped myself.”
Elena stared.
“You killed my father.”
“No.”
“Did you arrange his accident?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Cecilia looked at Sofia.
Sofia shook her head.
“Don’t.”
Luca turned toward his aunt.
“What?”
Sofia’s eyes filled with tears.
“Your father.”
Elena went still.
Luca did not.
Perhaps because some part of him had expected it.
“Vittorio killed Carlo?”
“He ordered Carlo stopped.”
“Stopped how?”
“He never said killed.”
“That distinction probably mattered tremendously to Carlo.”
Sofia looked away.
Elena’s voice trembled.
“My father died because Luca’s father ordered it?”
Sofia nodded.
Elena stepped away from Luca.
He felt the distance instantly.
“Elena.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
But knowing did not make the truth painless.
Cecilia continued.
“Vittorio believed Carlo had copied the ledger and intended to expose everyone. He panicked.”
“And my mother?” Luca asked.
“Isabella learned what Vittorio had done.”
Sofia covered her face.
“She was leaving him.”
Luca felt something fracture inside him.
His childhood memory returned.
His mother pushing him behind the library wall.
Stay quiet.
Do not come out.
She had not been hiding him from an outside enemy.
She had been hiding him from his father’s house.
“What happened the night she died?”
Sofia answered.
“Isabella arranged to meet Adriana. She intended to take you and leave.”
“She never came back.”
“No.”
“Who stopped her?”
Sofia looked at Cecilia.
Cecilia’s composure finally cracked.
“Vittorio sent men after her.”
Luca stared.
“Did he order her killed?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Nobody.”
Cecilia swallowed.
“The crash was not supposed to happen.”
Sofia whispered, “But someone changed the route.”
Matteo stepped forward.
“My mother.”
Everyone looked at him.
Matteo’s eyes were wet.
“Adriana changed Isabella’s route because she believed Vittorio’s men were waiting on the main road. She sent her through the mountain pass.”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“And the brakes failed.”
Matteo nodded.
“My mother blamed herself.”
Elena understood.
“That’s why she disappeared.”
“No.”
Matteo looked at Cecilia.
“She disappeared because she discovered who tampered with the brakes.”
Silence.
Cecilia slowly reached into her coat.
Luca moved.
Marco appeared from the side entrance at the same instant.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Cecilia stopped.
Enzo cursed.
Luca looked at Marco.
“You followed.”
“You pay me to ignore bad orders.”
For the first time that night, Luca appreciated disobedience.
Cecilia removed her hand slowly.
Empty.
“I’m not armed.”
Marco checked.
She was telling the truth.
Luca returned his attention to Matteo.
“Who tampered with the brakes?”
Matteo shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You built all this and you don’t know?”
“I know the proof exists.”
“Where?”
“My mother left it with Carlo.”
Elena stared.
“My father?”
“Carlo had a second archive.”
“Where?”
Matteo looked at her.
“That’s why the message said ask Elena.”
“I don’t know anything about an archive.”
“You do.”
“No.”
“Your father left you the key years ago.”
Elena frowned.
Then remembered.
Her father’s watch.
After his funeral, Cecilia had given Elena a box containing Carlo’s personal belongings.
His watch had never worked.
Elena kept it anyway.
“It’s in my apartment.”
Cecilia’s expression changed.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But Luca saw it.
“So that’s what you wanted,” he said.
Cecilia remained silent.
Luca turned to Marco.
“Get the watch.”
Elena stopped him.
“No.”
Luca looked at her.
“If Cecilia wants it, we don’t send anyone she knows.”
“You’re not going.”
“I am.”
“So am I.”
“No.”
Elena’s voice hardened.
“My father died for whatever is inside that watch.”
Luca looked at her for a long moment.
Then nodded.
They left Matteo, Enzo, Sofia, and Cecilia under Marco’s guard.
Luca drove Elena himself.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Finally Elena said, “Your father killed mine.”
“He gave an order that caused his death.”
“That’s a very Valenti way to say it.”
Luca accepted the blow.
“You’re right.”
She looked out the window.
“I don’t blame you.”
“You’re allowed to.”
“No. I’m allowed to blame the man who did it.”
She turned.
“But don’t ask me to feel nothing.”
“I won’t.”
They reached her apartment building.
The front door was unlocked.
Elena stopped.
“I locked that.”
Luca moved ahead.
Her apartment door upstairs stood slightly open.
He pushed it.
Drawers had been emptied.
Cushions ripped open.
Boxes overturned.
Someone had searched everything.
Elena ran to her bedroom.
The wooden box containing her father’s belongings was gone.
“No.”
Luca checked the window.
Open.
Fresh marks on the sill.
Someone had been there recently.
Elena noticed something on the floor.
Carlo’s photograph.
She picked it up.
On the back was a message written in fresh black ink.
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING LUCA.
Elena looked up.
A floorboard creaked behind the bedroom door.
Luca turned.
May you like
The closet handle began to move.
Someone was still inside.
