Chapter 3 - The Secret Hidden Behind the Moretti Alliance
I called my attorney, Giulia Conti, the next morning.
She arrived at the lakeside house carrying a leather briefcase and an expression I had learned to recognize.
Something was wrong.
"Where did you get this photograph?" she asked.
"It was under the watch box."
"Did Alessandro give it to you?"
"I don't know."
Giulia examined the back.
"Serena, someone wants you asking questions."
"Then perhaps I should."
She sat beside me.
"Before you do, there's something about your father's business you need to know."
My father, Enrico Bellini, had spent decades restoring historic buildings across Italy.
After his death, I inherited a modest collection of properties and a minority interest in his architectural company.
I had never paid much attention to the company's older contracts.
Giulia opened a folder.
"Twenty years ago, your father designed a warehouse complex outside Venice. The original client was a holding company connected to the Moretti family."
I frowned.
"What does that have to do with Alessandro?"
"Your father discovered irregularities in the ownership records. He refused to certify certain documents."
"What happened?"
"He lost the contract. Shortly afterward, someone threatened him."
I stared at her.
"My father never told me."
"He wanted to protect you."
I was beginning to hate that sentence.
Everyone seemed to believe protection meant keeping me ignorant.
Giulia slid a copy of a letter across the table.
It was dated thirteen years earlier.
The year I met Alessandro.
The letter was from my father to Vittorio Vitale.
It contained a warning about Carlo Moretti and a series of concealed property transfers.
At the bottom, my father had written:
"If anything happens to me, the originals remain where you cannot reach them."
I read the sentence twice.
"What originals?"
"We don't know."
That afternoon, I called Alessandro.
He answered immediately.
"Serena?"
"Did your father know mine?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"How well?"
"Why?"
"Answer me."
"They worked together briefly."
"Did you know when we met?"
"No."
I wanted to believe him.
But thirteen years of loving Alessandro had taught me that his most dangerous lies were often omissions.
"Someone sent me a photograph from Venice."
His voice sharpened.
"What photograph?"
I described it.
"Don't show it to anyone else," he said.
"Why?"
"Because Carlo Moretti has been trying to locate something your father left behind."
I gripped the phone.
"And you didn't think I deserved to know?"
"I only learned about it recently."
"How recently?"
He hesitated.
"Before the wedding."
My chest tightened.
"Before or after you started sleeping with Bianca?"
"Serena—"
"Tell me."
"After."
I closed my eyes.
For months, Alessandro had been involved with a woman whose father was connected to my family's past.
And he had never told me.
"Was your affair part of some arrangement?"
"No. My affair was my mistake. Don't give me an excuse I don't deserve."
It was the first answer that sounded completely true.
That night, someone tried to enter the lakeside house.
I heard a window break downstairs.
I locked my bedroom door and called the police.
By the time officers arrived, the intruder had fled.
Nothing valuable was missing.
But my father's old leather document case, which Giulia had brought that afternoon, had been opened.
Inside, one page had been removed.
The page contained a handwritten reference to a property called Villa San Michele.
May you like
I realized someone wasn't looking for money.
They were looking for the truth.
Related Stories
