Chapter 6 - Isabella Bellandi’s Confession
Adrian stared at the woman he had buried eight years earlier.
Isabella Bellandi looked older but unmistakably herself.
Matteo raised his weapon.
She smiled at him.
“You always were dramatic.”
“You had Dad killed.”
“No.”
Adrian’s voice cut through the crypt.
“Then explain.”
Isabella’s smile disappeared.
“I came because Alessio is already moving against you.”
“You expect us to believe you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But you should listen.”
Elena watched the family confrontation with growing unease.
Isabella looked toward her.
“Salvatore’s daughter.”
Elena stiffened.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was going to die?”
Isabella hesitated.
That was enough.
Elena’s voice sharpened.
“You knew.”
“I knew Alessio considered him dangerous.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I tried to move Salvatore out of the country.”
“You helped my mother disappear.”
Isabella looked at Lucia.
“Yes.”
Elena turned toward her mother.
Lucia nodded reluctantly.
“So you two worked together.”
“For a time,” Isabella said.
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Everybody worked together except me.”
Isabella looked at him with something like regret.
“That was intentional.”
“Why?”
“Because your father wanted one son untouched.”
Matteo scoffed.
“And I was expendable?”
“You chose involvement.”
“I was twenty-four.”
“You were already stealing my files.”
“To stop you.”
“Exactly.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“What is Alessio?”
Isabella looked at the ledger.
“The architect.”
Elena thought of Adrian admitting he had once wanted to become one.
The irony was cruel.
“Architect of what?” she asked.
“The Founders’ modern structure.”
Isabella explained.
The original network was informal.
Wealthy families hid assets.
Lawyers moved ownership.
Officials blocked investigations.
Then Alessio Grant transformed it.
He created layers of shell corporations and property trusts capable of moving billions without appearing connected.
“He understood something before anyone else,” Isabella said. “Money creates records. Land creates legitimacy.”
Adrian’s face remained cold.
“And you helped him.”
“Yes.”
“Dad found out.”
“Yes.”
“Then Dad died.”
Isabella looked away.
“I believed Alessio wanted to frighten him.”
“You believed?”
“I was wrong.”
Matteo’s voice cracked.
“You let him kill Dad.”
“I did not order it.”
“But you stayed with Alessio afterward.”
“To survive.”
Adrian shook his head.
“No. You stayed because you liked power.”
Isabella’s eyes hardened.
“Power kept you alive.”
“Don’t dress ambition as motherhood.”
The words landed.
Even Matteo looked away.
Elena understood Adrian differently in that moment.
His coldness was not absence of emotion.
It was armor built by people who repeatedly taught him love came with hidden conditions.
Isabella stepped toward the ledger.
“Give me that.”
Matteo raised his gun again.
“No.”
“Alessio cannot have it.”
“Neither can you.”
“He already controls your businesses.”
Adrian frowned.
“What?”
“While you flew here, he triggered emergency provisions in three Bellandi holding companies.”
Adrian pulled out his phone.
No signal underground.
Isabella continued.
“He filed documents claiming your disappearance created a leadership crisis. He’s attempting to freeze your accounts.”
“Impossible.”
“You signed those contingency provisions seven years ago.”
Adrian remembered.
Alessio had drafted them after an assassination attempt.
“If I was incapacitated.”
“He submitted testimony that you may be.”
“From whom?”
Isabella looked at Elena.
“A witness who claims the waitress working inside your home drugged you before removing confidential documents.”
Elena stared.
“What?”
“Alessio has made you the scapegoat.”
Lucia moved closer to her daughter.
“He’ll make it look like Elena manipulated Adrian.”
Adrian’s face turned dangerous.
“He picked the wrong woman.”
For the first time, Elena looked at him with surprise.
Isabella noticed.
“So that’s how it is.”
Adrian ignored her.
“What else?”
“Federal agents raided two of your offices an hour ago.”
Matteo cursed.
Isabella continued.
“If Alessio gets the master ledger, he can destroy evidence tying himself to the Founders while leaving enough to implicate you.”
Adrian looked at the book.
“Then we release everything.”
“No,” Isabella said sharply.
“Why?”
“Because innocent people appear in those records too.”
“What innocent people?”
“Companies extorted into participation. Families threatened into transfers. People who paid because they were protecting children.”
Elena thought of her father.
“You mean people like him.”
“Yes.”
“What do you suggest?”
Isabella looked at Adrian.
“We isolate Alessio’s direct records first.”
Nina could do that.
But Nina was at the villa.
Adrian finally checked his satellite phone.
Three missed encrypted alerts.
One from Marco.
He called.
Marco answered immediately.
“Boss.”
“Status.”
“Bad.”
“How bad?”
“Alessio’s people hit the Manhattan offices. We lost access to two accounts. Media is reporting you fled the country.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“What about Whitmore?”
“Gone.”
Adrian looked at Isabella.
“Again?”
Marco continued.
“He left willingly this time.”
“With whom?”
“Security footage shows him entering a vehicle belonging to Alessio Grant.”
Silence.
Whitmore had either betrayed them again or been working for Alessio all along.
Adrian ended the call.
“We leave.”
Isabella blocked the staircase.
“You can’t return to New York openly.”
“Watch me.”
“He’ll have you arrested.”
“Then he better make sure the cell is comfortable.”
Elena stepped beside Adrian.
“There’s another option.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My father kept duplicates.”
“How do you know?” Lucia asked.
“He never trusted a single archive.”
She pointed at the ledger.
“This is the master copy. But if Alessio was connected to Dad, Dad would have created evidence somewhere Alessio couldn’t reach.”
“Where?” Adrian asked.
Elena thought.
Her father distrusted banks.
Distrusted police.
Distrusted politicians.
But he trusted ordinary bureaucracy because nobody powerful paid attention to it.
Then she remembered something.
Every year, Salvatore mailed a package on Elena’s birthday.
She had assumed it contained tax documents.
“Queens.”
“What’s in Queens?” Matteo asked.
“My father’s old safe-deposit archive.”
Isabella shook her head.
“Alessio searched everything after the fire.”
“Not this.”
“How can you know?”
“Because it wasn’t under my father’s name.”
“Whose?”
Elena looked at her mother.
“Mine.”
Lucia’s face changed.
“You knew?”
“I knew there was an account. I thought it was savings.”
Adrian decided immediately.
“We go back.”
They left the crypt through an old passage behind the altar.
Before following, Isabella caught Adrian’s arm.
He pulled away.
“Don’t.”
She whispered, “I did love you.”
Adrian looked at her.
“That’s what makes it worse.”
Hours later, they boarded a charter flight using identities arranged by Matteo.
The master ledger stayed with Elena.
Adrian refused to let Isabella join them.
She accepted the decision too easily.
That worried Elena.
As the aircraft climbed over Sicily, Elena opened the sealed envelope her father had marked for her.
Inside was a note.
Only six words.
ELENA, TRUST THE MAN WHO REFUSES POWER.
She read it twice.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
She handed him the paper.
He looked confused.
“Who does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Across the cabin, Matteo stared out the window.
Then Adrian’s secure phone rang.
Marco.
Adrian answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“What happened?”
Elena asked.
Adrian put the call on speaker.
Marco’s voice was strained.
“They took Nina.”
Adrian stood.
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
A pause.
Then Marco added:
“They left something behind.”
“What?”
“A live video feed.”
Adrian’s phone received the file.
He opened it.
Nina sat tied to a chair in a dark room.
Behind her stood Alessio Grant.
He looked directly into the camera.
May you like
Then smiled.
“Bring me Salvatore Russo’s ledger,” he said, “or the next person Elena loses will die while she watches.”
