Chapter 3 - The Bride Who Planned a Funeral
Vivian entered the library at 9:17 p.m. wearing the same diamond earrings Marco had given her on the night he proposed.
Her wrists were not restrained.
Marco had ordered it that way.
He wanted to know what she did when she still believed appearance mattered.
She walked in with her chin raised.
“You are humiliating me.”
Marco sat behind the desk.
The room was deliberately dark except for one lamp.
Sofia stood near the fireplace.
Luca remained by the door.
On the desk lay Rafael Ramirez’s ledger, the miniature camera, Dominic’s burner phone, and the earpiece taken from the attacker.
Marco pointed to the empty chair.
“Sit.”
Vivian did.
Her eyes moved immediately to the ledger.
That was mistake number one.
Then she saw the earpiece.
Mistake number two.
“You sent a man into my cellar,” Marco said.
“No.”
“Your voice was in his ear.”
“Someone could imitate me.”
“Do you know what innocent people usually do?”
Vivian folded her arms.
“What?”
“They ask if the guard survived.”
She blinked.
Marco leaned back.
“You did not.”
Her composure cracked.
Only slightly.
“Marco, listen to yourself. A month of painkillers, surgery, darkness, and paranoia has turned you into someone I barely recognize.”
“You removed the rail.”
“I told you why.”
“You told Dominic to keep me near the landing.”
“I never sent that message.”
“I have your voice on the recording.”
“Deepfakes exist.”
Sofia spoke.
“The recording was made inside Mr. Bellini’s bedroom system.”
Vivian turned on her.
“Nobody asked you.”
Marco’s voice dropped.
“I did.”
Vivian looked back at him.
For the first time, anger defeated strategy.
“You are choosing her.”
“No. I am choosing the truth.”
“You barely know her.”
“And I apparently never knew you.”
Vivian’s face hardened.
“So what now? You throw away three years because a maid found some dusty paperwork?”
Marco took off his sunglasses.
His left eye remained red around the iris.
Vivian looked away.
He noticed.
She had spent a month telling him the scar did not matter.
Now she could not look at it.
“How much did my blindness disappoint you?” he asked.
“That is disgusting.”
“Was the damage supposed to be worse?”
Her gaze snapped back.
Marco saw it.
There.
Fear.
Luca saw it too.
He placed a folder on the desk.
“We reopened the convoy ambush.”
Vivian’s breathing changed.
“The shooters knew Marco’s route eight minutes before the convoy left the private garage,” Luca said. “Only six people had that information.”
Marco finished for him.
“You were one.”
Vivian stood.
“This is insane.”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Sit.”
She did.
Luca opened the folder.
“Your phone connected to a cell tower near a Northstar-owned property twenty minutes before the attack.”
“I attend charity meetings all over Long Island.”
“Your foundation rented office space in that building.”
“That proves nothing.”
Luca placed another sheet down.
“Three days before the ambush, your foundation transferred four hundred thousand dollars to a private security consulting company.”
Vivian’s lips tightened.
“That was for an event.”
“The company dissolved two days after Marco was shot at.”
Silence.
Marco looked at her.
“Was I supposed to die?”
Vivian whispered, “No.”
The answer came too fast.
Marco’s face changed.
He had asked the question expecting denial.
Instead she had answered the hidden question.
Not whether she was involved.
Whether death had been the plan.
“Then what was supposed to happen?”
Vivian realized the mistake.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Marco…”
“What was supposed to happen?”
She began to cry.
For years, Marco had thought her tears made her vulnerable.
Now he saw how quickly they arrived when she needed them.
“I wanted you out of the way.”
Luca shifted.
Sofia’s fingers tightened around the back of a chair.
Marco remained still.
Vivian wiped her face.
“Not dead.”
“Then what?”
“Injured.”
“Why?”
“So Dominic could stay in control longer.”
The truth entered the room quietly.
Marco stared at her.
Vivian continued, words spilling faster now.
“Your recovery was supposed to take six months. Maybe a year. Dominic would run operations. Your doctors would recommend less stress. I would convince you to step away.”
“And then?”
“You would marry me.”
Marco almost laughed.
Vivian looked offended.
“You think that is funny?”
“I think you are telling me the version that keeps you alive.”
She went pale.
Marco leaned forward.
“You wanted access to my companies.”
“My father wanted a partnership.”
“Your father wanted control.”
“He said the Bellinis were unstable. Old-fashioned. Too dependent on blood loyalty.”
“So he sent his daughter to marry me.”
Her face twisted.
“I loved you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to have my convoy attacked?”
“I told you, you were not supposed to be hurt that badly!”
Sofia closed her eyes.
Marco’s voice became colder.
“The glass entered my eye because the vehicle swerved after the first shot.”
“I did not know where they would fire.”
“You gave them the route.”
Vivian said nothing.
That was the confession.
Marco sat back.
Three years.
Three years of dinners, vacations, promises, whispered plans for children.
Three years of her sleeping beside him.
And she had sold his route.
Vivian noticed the change in his face.
She stood.
“Marco, please.”
He did not answer.
“I panicked after the accident.”
“Ambush.”
“What?”
“It was not an accident.”
She swallowed.
He continued.
“It was an ambush you helped create.”
Vivian stepped toward him.
Luca moved between them.
She stopped.
“Dominic promised nobody would die.”
Marco looked toward Sofia.
“Your father believed Dominic was involved with Northstar at twenty-two.”
Vivian’s gaze darted toward the ledger.
Again.
Marco noticed.
“You knew about Rafael Ramirez.”
“No.”
“You knew his name.”
“No.”
Sofia spoke softly.
“Then why did you search my room?”
Vivian turned.
“What?”
“My mattress was moved last week. My father’s photograph was missing for two days, then returned.”
Vivian scoffed.
“You think I search maids’ bedrooms?”
Sofia took something from her pocket.
A tiny plastic fragment.
“I found this under my bed.”
Luca recognized it.
“Microphone casing.”
Vivian stared.
Sofia continued.
“I thought I had broken something while cleaning. I kept it because the serial number looked strange.”
Marco asked, “Why were they watching you?”
Sofia looked at the hidden-room key around her neck.
“They knew my father left something.”
Vivian laughed.
“You came here looking for evidence. You lied to this household from the day you were hired.”
Sofia’s face reddened.
“Yes.”
Marco turned toward her.
She met his gaze.
“I lied about why I wanted the job. I did not lie about who I am.”
Vivian pointed at her.
“She infiltrated your home!”
“So did you.”
Vivian froze.
Marco stood.
His vision wavered when he moved too quickly.
Sofia instinctively stepped forward.
He raised one hand.
He was steady.
He wanted Vivian to see that.
“The engagement is over.”
Vivian stared at him.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“You cannot humiliate my family like this.”
“Your family tried to cripple me.”
Her face transformed.
The grieving fiancée vanished.
Something uglier appeared.
“You have no idea what my father will do.”
Marco’s mouth curved without humor.
“There you are.”
Vivian realized she had exposed herself.
But it was too late.
Marco placed the engagement ring she had removed earlier during the party on the desk between them.
“Take it.”
She looked at the diamond.
Then at him.
“I will destroy you before I let that maid replace me.”
Sofia’s eyes widened.
Marco’s voice sharpened.
“She is not replacing you.”
Vivian smiled cruelly.
“Not yet.”
Marco nodded toward Luca.
“Take her upstairs.”
As Luca moved, Vivian leaned toward Sofia.
“You think you saved him?”
Sofia did not answer.
Vivian whispered, “You just put yourself exactly where I needed you.”
The guards escorted her out.
Marco stared after her.
Sofia rubbed her arms.
“What did she mean?”
Marco looked toward Luca.
“Move Sofia to the secure guest wing.”
Sofia shook her head.
“I can go home.”
“No.”
“Mr. Bellini—”
“Someone just shot at you for a ledger your father hid.”
She stopped.
Marco continued.
“If you leave this property tonight, they will follow you.”
Sofia’s face tightened.
“I do not want to be trapped here.”
“You are not trapped.”
“It feels like it.”
Marco understood.
He had spent a month being told where he could walk, when he could remove his bandages, what light he could tolerate, how many stairs he could climb.
“Then choose,” he said.
She frowned.
“Choose?”
“You can stay in the secure guest wing. You can leave with an escort to any location you name. Or I can have a hotel floor secured under another name.”
Sofia studied him.
“You would let me leave?”
“Yes.”
“Even with what I know?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Marco looked toward Rafael’s letter.
“Because your father wrote that a Bellini could only be trusted if he was willing to lose power for the truth.”
Sofia’s expression softened.
Marco put his sunglasses back on.
“I have spent my entire life believing power meant nobody could force me to do anything.”
He paused.
“Maybe your father understood that real power is being able to let someone say no.”
Sofia studied him.
The answer did not erase what his family had done.
It did not make him innocent.
But it was the first time she had heard a Bellini describe power without sounding proud of it.
Marco turned toward the engagement ring on the desk.
He picked it up.
Three years earlier, he had chosen the diamond after Vivian told him she wanted something “timeless, not vulgar.”
He had spent two months finding a stone she would love.
He remembered proposing on the terrace during a summer storm.
Vivian had cried.
She had kissed him before saying yes.
Had that been real?
The question angered him because he would never be able to prove an emotion.
Evidence had limits.
He set the ring down.
Sofia watched.
“My mother used to say betrayal makes you suspicious of the wrong memories.”
Marco looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“You start putting every good moment on trial.”
He was silent.
“She said it after my father disappeared,” Sofia continued. “People told her he had another woman. That he took money. That he abandoned us. For years she replayed every breakfast, every argument, every anniversary.”
“And what did she decide?”
“That if the memories were real to her, they were still hers.”
Marco looked at the ring again.
Sofia added, “Vivian does not get to retroactively own every happy day you had.”
He gave a humorless smile.
“You are defending my memories of the woman who slapped you.”
“I am defending your right not to let her steal more than she already did.”
The door opened.
Isabella Bellini entered without knocking.
She looked from Marco to Sofia and then to the ring.
“So it is true.”
Marco nodded.
“The engagement is over.”
Isabella crossed herself.
“Your mother would have broken every plate in the kitchen.”
Marco almost laughed.
“She liked Vivian.”
“She tolerated Vivian because you loved her.”
Isabella walked to Sofia.
Without warning, she took the younger woman’s face gently in both hands and examined the red mark from the slap.
Sofia stiffened.
Isabella’s eyes hardened.
“She did this?”
“Yes.”
Isabella turned to Marco.
“And you let her leave the room with both hands?”
“Aunt Isabella.”
“I am old. Allow me my disappointments.”
Despite everything, Sofia laughed.
Isabella released her.
Then the older woman became serious.
“Dominic’s room has been searched.”
Marco straightened.
“And?”
“Three passports under false names. Cash. A flight schedule for tomorrow morning.”
“Destination?”
“Montreal, then Zurich.”
Sofia frowned.
“He planned to leave whether Marco died or not.”
Isabella nodded.
“And there was this.”
She placed a photograph on the desk.
It showed Marco at the hospital after surgery.
His face was bandaged.
Vivian stood beside the bed.
Dominic stood in the hallway behind her.
On the back, someone had written:
PHASE ONE COMPLETE.
Marco’s blood cooled.
Isabella said, “Whoever printed it had access to the hospital’s internal cameras.”
Sofia whispered, “Northstar.”
Marco looked toward the dark window.
The conspiracy no longer felt like a plot around one staircase.
It felt like architecture.
Built around his life.
He turned to Luca.
“Double Dominic’s guard.”
Luca nodded and left.
Marco looked once more at the photograph.
Then at Sofia.
“Secure guest wing.”
She folded her arms.
“I already said yes.”
“I know.”
“Then stop ordering me like I am going to change my mind.”
His mouth twitched.
“You are going to be difficult.”
“I have been called worse.”
Marco almost answered.
Then his radio crackled.
For the first time that night, Sofia looked at him without fear.
“I’ll stay.”
Marco nodded.
Luca opened the door.
Then his radio crackled.
“Sir, we have a problem.”
Marco turned.
“What?”
May you like
The guard’s voice came through.
“Dominic is gone.”
