Chapter 3 - The Man Luca Buried Eleven Years Ago
“Matteo?”
Mrs. Moretti said the name as though it had opened a grave.
Luca did not look at her.
He stared at the photograph on Marco's phone.
The signature was clear.
MATTEO MORETTI.
I knew almost nothing about Luca's extended family. The Morettis did not display family photographs the way ordinary people did. There were portraits, yes—men in dark suits, women wearing pearls, stern faces inside gold frames—but no casual snapshots on refrigerators. No crooked school pictures. No vacation photographs.
In the Moretti house, history was curated.
And some of it, apparently, had been erased.
Luca finally spoke.
“My uncle died eleven years ago.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Mrs. Moretti looked toward the fire.
“No,” she whispered.
Luca turned.
“What?”
She lifted her eyes.
“Your father told you Matteo died.”
“His car went into Lake Michigan.”
“They never recovered a body.”
Luca's voice sharpened.
“Because the car burned.”
“Because there was no body to recover.”
He stared at her.
I could almost see the years rearranging themselves behind his eyes.
“What are you saying?”
Mrs. Moretti closed both hands around the edge of her blanket.
“Matteo betrayed your father.”
Luca laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“My father gave the eulogy.”
“Because the alternative was admitting the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That his own brother tried to steal the family from him.”
Nobody moved.
Even Vanessa seemed stunned by how much Mrs. Moretti was willing to reveal.
Antonio Moretti had been dead for eleven years, yet suddenly he felt present in the room.
In the company name.
In the forged documents.
In every secret his wife had kept after his death.
Mrs. Moretti continued.
“Matteo was brilliant with money. Better than Antonio. Better than any accountant we ever hired. He created Vesper Holdings to move assets quietly during a federal investigation. It was supposed to protect us.”
Marco's expression darkened.
“And he used it against the family.”
She nodded.
“He redirected money. Bought loyalty. Tried to convince several captains that Antonio was weak.”
Luca's mouth tightened.
“What happened?”
“Your father confronted him.”
“And?”
“And Matteo disappeared.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“You knew him.”
She shook her head too quickly.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You knew him.”
“I was seventeen when your uncle disappeared.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Vanessa's mouth opened.
Then closed.
Mrs. Moretti watched her carefully.
“What was your mother's maiden name?” she asked.
Vanessa turned toward her.
“What?”
“Your mother. Isabella Bellini. What was her maiden name?”
Vanessa stared.
I saw the answer in her silence before anyone said it.
Mrs. Moretti whispered, “Rossi.”
Luca's face changed.
“Matteo's mistress.”
Vanessa snapped toward him.
“She was not his mistress.”
Too fast.
Too angry.
The room froze.
Vanessa realized what she had admitted.
Luca stepped closer.
“How do you know?”
Her eyes shone.
“She loved him.”
Mrs. Moretti inhaled sharply.
Vanessa's shoulders dropped.
For the first time that night, she stopped acting.
She sat down without being offered a chair.
For several seconds, she stared at the carpet as though she were no longer in Luca's office but somewhere years earlier.
"He came back into my life when I was eighteen," she said.
Mrs. Moretti's expression sharpened.
Vanessa continued before anyone could interrupt.
"My mother told me my father was dead. Then one night a man appeared outside my university apartment in Boston. He called himself Philip Arden. He knew what my first bicycle looked like. He knew I broke my wrist when I was nine. He knew the song my mother sang when I couldn't sleep."
Her eyes lifted.
"He told me he was Matteo Moretti. He told me he'd been forced into hiding because Antonio would kill both of us if anyone discovered the truth."
Luca's jaw tightened.
"And you believed him."
"He showed me photographs. Letters from my mother. Bank records. Things a stranger couldn't have had."
She laughed once, but it sounded broken.
"For years, he only called on birthdays. Then holidays. Then every month. He never asked me for anything at first. That's how he did it. He made himself the father I thought I'd lost before he ever asked me to hate you."
Mrs. Moretti looked down.
Vanessa's voice grew quieter.
"When my mother died, he told me Antonio's old network had denied her access to a specialist. He said your family let her die because she knew too much. By the time he suggested I meet you, I already believed the Moretti name had stolen everything from me."
Luca stared at her.
"So our first meeting wasn't an accident."
Vanessa shook her head.
The answer landed harder than another accusation.
Their entire relationship had begun inside Matteo's plan.
"At first," Vanessa whispered, "I was supposed to get close enough to learn what you knew about Vesper. Then you asked me to dinner. Then again. And somewhere in the middle, I stopped knowing which parts were the assignment and which parts were mine."
She looked at the ring on the desk.
"That is the ugliest truth I can give you. Some of it was real. Not enough to make what I did forgivable. But real."
“My mother loved Matteo for fifteen years,” she said. “Long before your father decided she was convenient to blame for everything.”
Luca stared at her.
“You are doing this for Matteo?”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“You still don't understand.”
“Then explain it.”
She looked at him.
“My father is Matteo Moretti.”
The words struck the room like a gunshot.
Mrs. Moretti went completely still.
Marco swore.
I couldn't breathe.
Luca took one step backward.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You're lying.”
“Ask your mother.”
Luca looked at Mrs. Moretti.
Her silence was enough.
“Ma?”
She closed her eyes.
“I suspected.”
His voice rose for the first time.
“You suspected?”
“Antonio suspected too.”
“And you let me get engaged to her?”
“I did not know for certain.”
“You knew enough to hide it.”
Mrs. Moretti flinched.
Luca turned away.
He walked to the window and planted both hands on the sill.
Outside, snow had started falling over the estate, fine white specks drifting through the floodlights.
Vanessa watched him.
“Now you know why your mother hated me.”
Mrs. Moretti's voice sharpened.
“I hated what you were doing, not whose blood you carry.”
Vanessa laughed.
“Convenient.”
“You tried to have me declared incompetent.”
“You helped bury my father.”
“I protected my son.”
“And I protected mine.”
The sentence hung there.
Luca turned.
“What son?”
Vanessa's face drained of color.
Mrs. Moretti stared.
I felt goosebumps rise along my arms.
Luca moved away from the window.
“What son, Vanessa?”
She looked toward the door.
Marco stepped in front of it.
“Answer him.”
Vanessa's eyes filled with tears.
This time they looked real.
“Not yours,” she whispered.
Luca's expression hardened.
“Whose?”
She shook her head.
“You don't get to ask me that after tonight.”
“I absolutely do.”
She said nothing.
Then my injured arm gave a sudden pulse of pain so strong that I gasped.
Everyone turned toward me.
Blood had begun soaking through the fresh layer of cloth again.
Luca's anger vanished behind immediate concern.
“Sophie needs a doctor.”
“I'm fine.”
“No, you're not.”
Vanessa laughed softly.
Of all the things that happened that night, that laugh was the moment I truly began to fear her.
Luca turned.
“What is funny?”
She looked at my bandage.
“Ask Sophie why she didn't go to a hospital when she got hurt.”
I frowned.
“I didn't have time.”
Vanessa's smile widened.
“No. Ask her why she was afraid to leave the estate.”
My stomach tightened.
“I wasn't.”
“Weren't you?”
She looked at Luca.
“Check her coat pocket.”
I froze.
“What?”
Vanessa nodded toward me.
“The brown coat she wears to work. Check the inside pocket.”
I stared at her.
I hadn't worn that coat since morning.
It was hanging in the staff room.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Get it.”
Marco left.
My mind raced.
I had nothing in that coat except bus fare, a lip balm, and the folded receipt from the pharmacy where I had bought Mrs. Moretti's arthritis cream two days earlier.
Vanessa looked almost calm again.
Mrs. Moretti watched her with a sadness that surprised me.
"You always do this when you are cornered," she said.
Vanessa turned sharply.
"Do what?"
"Find someone with less power and push the danger onto them."
Vanessa's mouth tightened.
Mrs. Moretti went on.
"You did it this afternoon when you ordered Sophie to move my chair after she was hurt. You did it when you told the transport men she could be dealt with. And now, because Luca is questioning you, you are reaching for the easiest person in the room to blame."
Vanessa's eyes flashed.
"You don't know anything about being powerless."
Mrs. Moretti looked toward her wheelchair.
"At seventy-three years old, after a stroke, I assure you I know exactly how quickly people begin speaking around you instead of to you."
The words silenced Vanessa.
Mrs. Moretti rested one hand on the arm of her chair.
"That is why Sophie's choice mattered. When those men tried to take me, everyone else saw an old woman who could be moved. Sophie asked me what I wanted."
I looked down, unexpectedly emotional.
Mrs. Moretti's voice softened.
"Never confuse service with weakness, Vanessa. The people who care for a house usually know more about what happens inside it than the people who own it."
Vanessa's gaze shifted toward me.
For the first time, there was something other than contempt in it.
Not respect.
Not yet.
But uncertainty.
Five minutes later, Marco returned carrying my coat.
He reached into the inside pocket.
His hand stopped.
“What is it?” Luca asked.
Marco pulled out a small plastic vial.
My heart dropped.
I had never seen it before.
There was no prescription label.
Only a white sticker printed with a single word.
DIGOXIN.
Mrs. Moretti's face went pale.
Luca looked at me.
I stepped backward.
“No.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
I could hear the trap closing.
“That medication,” she said quietly, “can be dangerous in the wrong dose.”
Luca did not take his eyes off me.
“Sophie?”
“I swear I've never seen that vial.”
Vanessa turned toward Mrs. Moretti.
“Your tea tasted bitter yesterday, didn't it?”
Mrs. Moretti stared at me.
My chest hurt.
“Mrs. Moretti, please.”
Vanessa continued.
“And who prepares your tea every afternoon?”
No one answered.
Because everyone knew.
I did.
My forty-six dollars suddenly felt like the least dangerous thing in my life.
Luca held out his hand.
Marco placed the vial in it.
For one awful second, Luca looked at me exactly the way I had feared he would from the beginning.
Like I was nobody.
Like I could be guilty because I was easy to accuse.
Then he looked at Vanessa.
“You knew exactly where it was.”
Her face changed.
Luca turned the vial slowly between his fingers.
“You didn't say check Sophie's coat. You said check the inside pocket.”
Vanessa's eyes widened.
Marco smiled without humor.
Luca stepped closer to her.
“You planted it.”
“No.”
“You planted it before I came home.”
“That's insane.”
“And now you just told me precisely where to find it.”
Vanessa backed away.
I almost collapsed with relief.
But Luca wasn't finished.
“Marco, send the vial to the lab. Fingerprints. Residue. Everything.”
Vanessa's voice shook.
“You think that proves anything?”
“No.”
He looked at her with chilling calm.
“But this might.”
He held up her prepaid phone.
“And if your father is alive, Vanessa, I'm going to find him.”
Her expression changed completely.
Not anger.
Terror.
“Don't.”
Luca's eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
May you like
She stared at him.
Then whispered, “Because he's already inside the house.”
