Chapter 4 - The Guest Who Never Took Off His Gloves
Nobody spoke.
Luca's gaze moved toward the closed office door.
“Inside the house?”
Vanessa nodded.
The confidence was gone from her face.
“He came tonight.”
Marco's hand went to the weapon beneath his jacket.
“Under what name?”
Vanessa hesitated.
Luca stepped closer.
“Under what name?”
“Dr. Philip Arden.”
Mrs. Moretti sucked in a breath.
The neurologist.
The man whose letter declared her mentally incompetent even though she had never met him.
Marco was already calling security.
“Seal the interior. Nobody moves. Find Dr. Arden.”
He listened.
His expression darkened.
“What?” Luca asked.
Marco lowered the phone.
“He isn't on the guest list.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“He came with the transport team.”
My blood went cold.
The transport team had been inside the mansion.
They could have moved through the service corridor without passing the ballroom.
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“Why would Matteo come here himself?”
She stared at the floor.
“Because he doesn't trust anyone anymore.”
“Not even you?”
She laughed bitterly.
“Especially not me.”
The answer surprised everyone.
Luca studied her.
“You're afraid of him.”
Vanessa didn't respond.
Mrs. Moretti did.
“You should be.”
Vanessa snapped toward her.
“You don't know him now.”
“I knew him before you were born.”
“You knew the man your husband betrayed.”
Mrs. Moretti's voice remained steady.
“I knew a man who mistook resentment for destiny.”
Marco's phone buzzed again.
“East corridor camera caught someone entering the library eight minutes ago. Male. Gray hair. Medical coat.”
Luca walked toward the door.
“Stay here.”
“Luca,” his mother said.
He stopped.
“Do not go alone.”
He looked at Marco.
They left together with two guards.
The office door locked behind them.
That left me with Mrs. Moretti and Vanessa.
Not exactly the safest arrangement in Chicago.
Vanessa stood beside the desk, staring at her engagement ring.
For almost a minute, no one spoke.
Then she looked at me.
“You think he trusts you now?”
I tightened my good hand around the back of Mrs. Moretti's chair.
“I don't care what he thinks of me.”
She smiled faintly.
“That's a lie.”
“It isn't.”
“You notice him every time he enters a room.”
Heat rose into my face.
Mrs. Moretti's eyebrows lifted slightly.
I wanted the floor to open.
Vanessa stepped closer.
“Do you know what women like you always misunderstand about men like Luca?”
I said nothing.
“They may admire loyalty. They may even reward it. But they don't marry the maid.”
Mrs. Moretti spoke before I could.
“He was going to marry you.”
Vanessa turned.
Mrs. Moretti smiled.
“So perhaps his judgment isn't as class-conscious as you imagine.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
Vanessa's eyes flashed.
“You think this is funny?”
“No,” I said. “I think you've spent your entire life measuring people by what they can buy. And tonight the person you underestimated most ruined your plan.”
Her face went hard.
“You haven't ruined anything.”
“Then why are the gates locked?”
For a moment, I saw pure hatred in her eyes.
Then we heard a crash from the hallway.
Mrs. Moretti grabbed my wrist.
Another sound followed.
A shout.
Then a gunshot.
The office lights went out.
I froze.
Emergency lighting flickered on near the floor, washing the room in a dim red glow.
Vanessa moved instantly.
She grabbed the engagement ring from the desk and ran toward the side door leading into Luca's private study.
“Stop!”
I went after her.
My injured arm nearly gave way when I caught the doorframe.
Vanessa disappeared through the study.
I heard a panel slide.
A hidden passage.
Of course the Moretti mansion had hidden passages.
Mrs. Moretti called from behind me.
“Sophie, don't follow her!”
But I already had.
The panel was open just enough for me to squeeze through.
Beyond it was a narrow stone stairway descending into darkness.
I could hear Vanessa's heels below.
I followed carefully, using my phone flashlight.
“Sophie!” Mrs. Moretti shouted.
“I'll be back!”
That was a stupid promise.
I knew it even as I made it.
The stairs ended in a storage corridor beneath the mansion.
Old wine racks lined one wall. Heating pipes ran overhead.
Vanessa was gone.
Then I heard voices ahead.
A man's voice.
Low.
Cold.
“You failed me.”
Vanessa answered, breathless.
“I did exactly what you told me.”
“You let the old woman talk.”
“Luca came home early.”
“And the maid?”
A pause.
“She became a problem.”
My heart hammered.
I turned off my phone light and moved closer.
Through a gap between wine crates, I saw them.
Vanessa stood beside a gray-haired man wearing a medical coat.
He was perhaps sixty-five, tall and thin, with deep lines around his mouth.
His hands were covered in black leather gloves.
Matteo Moretti.
Alive.
He did not look like Luca.
Not at first.
Then he turned slightly.
The same eyes.
The same stillness.
The same unsettling ability to make silence feel like a weapon.
Vanessa held out the engagement ring.
“I got it.”
Matteo looked at the diamond.
“Good.”
I frowned.
Why would he care about the ring?
Vanessa asked the same thing.
“Tell me what's inside it.”
Matteo smiled.
“Insurance.”
“What kind?”
“The kind your mother died trying to find.”
Vanessa went pale.
“My mother died of cancer.”
Matteo's expression did not change.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“She died because Antonio discovered she had copied the Vesper ledger.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
“I warned her to stop.”
“You told me Uncle Antonio refused her treatment.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
Her face collapsed.
I watched years of anger turn into confusion.
“You lied to me.”
Matteo took the ring from her.
“I raised you to finish what your mother started.”
“You raised me to hate them.”
“Yes.”
“Because of a lie?”
“Because hate is useful.”
Vanessa stepped back.
Matteo looked almost bored.
Then his eyes shifted toward the wine crates.
Toward me.
“Unlike fear,” he said, “which makes people careless.”
My entire body went cold.
He had heard me.
I ran.
A hand caught the back of my uniform before I reached the stairs.
I screamed.
Matteo pulled me backward with surprising strength.
My injured elbow struck the wall.
White pain exploded through my arm.
Vanessa shouted, “Stop!”
Matteo spun me around.
Up close, his eyes were emptier than Luca's had ever been.
“So,” he said. “The maid.”
I tried to pull away.
He tightened his grip.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Let her go.”
Matteo looked at his daughter.
“You wanted her gone thirty minutes ago.”
“I said let her go.”
Something changed between them.
Vanessa had just realized she was not his partner.
She was another tool.
Matteo reached inside his coat.
Vanessa moved first.
She slammed into him.
His hand released me.
I staggered backward.
The engagement ring fell to the floor.
It struck the stone and rolled beneath a wine rack.
Matteo shoved Vanessa away.
“You stupid girl.”
Then footsteps thundered above us.
“Luca!” I screamed.
Matteo turned toward the far end of the corridor.
A second exit.
He ran.
Vanessa collapsed against the wall.
I dropped to my knees and reached beneath the wine rack.
My fingers found the ring.
It felt heavier than it should.
Luca and Marco appeared at the bottom of the stairs seconds later.
Luca saw me on the floor.
“Sophie.”
He crossed the corridor in three strides.
“Are you hurt?”
“My arm.”
He looked at Vanessa.
She was crying.
Not elegantly.
Not strategically.
Really crying.
“He lied to me,” she whispered.
Luca's face hardened.
“Where did he go?”
I pointed toward the far exit.
Marco and the guards ran after him.
Luca stayed.
He crouched beside me.
“What are you holding?”
I opened my hand.
The engagement ring gleamed under the emergency light.
Vanessa stared at it.
“My father said something was inside.”
Luca took the ring.
He examined the antique setting.
Then his thumb pressed a tiny notch beneath the diamond.
The base opened.
Inside was a microSD card.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Luca stared at it.
Then at the passage where Matteo had disappeared.
“What did he say was on this?”
I swallowed.
“Insurance.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“No,” she whispered. “He said my mother died trying to find it.”
Luca looked at her.
For the first time, Vanessa looked less like the villain of the evening and more like a woman discovering that her entire life had been built inside someone else's lie.
Luca stood.
May you like
He held the tiny memory card between two fingers.
“Then we find out what she died for.”
