Chapter 3 - THE NAME MY MOTHER BURIED
“That's impossible,” Dominic whispered.
He stared at the signature beneath my mother's warning.
I had never heard a man sound so frightened by a name.
I looked at the paper again.
Elena Rinaldi.
My mother was Elena Bennett.
She had been Elena Bennett for as long as I could remember.
She raised two children in Queens, worked thirty years as a hospital records clerk, and cried whenever our rent increased.
She wasn't connected to Manhattan billionaires.
She certainly wasn't a Rinaldi.
“Where is my brother?” I demanded.
The elderly woman flinched.
“I don't know.”
“Then why are you wearing my mother's coat?”
She glanced toward Dominic.
“Because Elena told me you would recognize it.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Teresa Bellini.”
At the surname, something flickered across his face.
Behind us, the elevator doors closed.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Teresa looked at me.
“Your mother made me promise not to tell you anything until you were in danger.”
I gripped the rosary.
“My brother is missing. I think we've passed that point.”
She nodded.
“Twenty-nine years ago, your mother worked for Dominic's father.”
Dominic stiffened.
“My father?”
“Not as an employee,” Teresa said. “As a legal translator.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
My mother had never mentioned knowing Italian.
She barely spoke about her life before I was born.
She told us that our father died in a construction accident and that she'd moved to New York for a fresh start.
I looked at Dominic.
“You know her?”
He shook his head.
But his eyes were fixed on the signature.
“I knew an Elena Rinaldi. She worked with my father when I was young.”
My heart began pounding.
“How young?”
“Fourteen.”
“And how old are you now?”
“Forty-six.”
The numbers didn't make sense.
Then Dominic said something that frightened me more than anything else.
“Elena disappeared after the fire.”
Teresa closed her eyes.
“Not disappeared. She escaped.”
I stared at her.
“What fire?”
“The one that killed Dominic's father.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“My father died in a warehouse accident.”
Teresa shook her head.
“That's what they told you.”
Before she could continue, Dominic's phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
A message from his head of security.
Samuel Voss has left the city. His private aircraft is being prepared.
Dominic stared at it.
Then he placed the phone away.
“First, we find Mara's family.”
I looked at him.
“Why should I trust you?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Finally, he said, “You shouldn't. Not yet.”
That honesty surprised me.
“I don't know what your mother has been hiding,” he continued. “But someone tried to poison me tonight, and someone is using your family to control you. Those two things are connected.”
Teresa took a shaky breath.
“It's the document.”
Dominic turned.
“What about it?”
“The Italian annotation isn't part of the original agreement.”
He frowned.
“Explain.”
“Your father kept a private trust. Not corporate shares. Something much older.”
Dominic's face darkened.
“The Bellmont Trust?”
Teresa nodded.
That name meant nothing to me.
But Dominic looked as though someone had struck him.
“The Bellmont Trust was dissolved decades ago.”
“No,” Teresa whispered. “It was hidden.”
“Hidden where?”
Teresa looked at the rosary in my hand.
“Ask Elena.”
I wanted to scream.
My mother was missing.
My brother had been taken.
And everyone kept speaking in riddles.
“Stop,” I said.
Both of them looked at me.
“I don't care about old trusts or family secrets. I want my brother back.”
Dominic nodded.
“Then that's where we start.”
He escorted us to a private office on the restaurant's second floor.
Inside, he called a woman named Nina Park, his chief of staff.
Unlike the men at dinner, Nina asked practical questions.
My brother's name.
His age.
His school.
His usual route home.
“Eli Bennett,” I told her. “Twenty-one. He studies engineering at City College.”
“Does he have any medical needs?”
“No.”
“Any reason someone would specifically target him?”
I looked toward Teresa.
“Apparently my mother has been keeping secrets.”
Nina didn't react.
She wrote everything down.
Then she showed me a security image sent by the university.
Eli was leaving the engineering building at 7:12 p.m.
He was carrying his backpack.
Beside him walked a woman in a gray coat.
I leaned forward.
“That's not someone I know.”
Nina enlarged the photograph.
The woman's face was partly hidden.
But I recognized her handbag.
A pale leather bag with a gold clasp shaped like a bird.
I'd seen it an hour earlier.
At the dinner table.
Beside Celeste Rinaldi.
I turned toward Dominic.
“Your wife.”
His expression hardened.
“Celeste isn't my wife.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“She's my cousin.”
The realization embarrassed me.
I'd assumed she was his wife because of the way she sat beside him.
But something else bothered me.
“Then why does she have your name?”
“Because my father and her father were brothers.”
Teresa made a small sound.
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
But her face had turned gray.
I pointed at the screen.
“That's her handbag.”
Nina studied it.
“It's distinctive. We can compare it to tonight's footage.”
Dominic reached for his phone.
“Bring Celeste downstairs.”
But Teresa suddenly caught his sleeve.
“Don't.”
He stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because she may not be the person you're looking for.”
I felt anger rise.
“Her bag is right there.”
“Look at the woman's wrist,” Teresa said.
Nina enlarged the image again.
The woman's sleeve had slipped slightly.
Beneath it was a narrow gold bracelet.
Three small red stones.
Teresa started crying.
Dominic noticed.
“Teresa?”
She covered her mouth.
“I haven't seen that bracelet in thirty years.”
“Whose is it?” I asked.
Teresa looked at Dominic.
“Your mother's.”
The room went silent.
Dominic's mother had died when he was sixteen.
At least, that's what every newspaper profile said.
He stared at the bracelet.
“That was buried with her.”
Teresa shook her head.
“No. It was taken off her wrist before the funeral.”
Nina lowered the tablet.
“By whom?”
Teresa hesitated.
Then she whispered a name.
“Samuel Voss.”
Dominic stepped back.
The name had already surfaced twice tonight.
And every time, the situation became more dangerous.
“What does Samuel want?” I asked.
Teresa looked at the rosary.
“Control of the trust.”
“Why now?”
“Because someone finally discovered the beneficiary was still alive.”
I frowned.
“Who?”
Teresa opened her mouth.
But before she could answer, Nina's computer chimed.
A new security file had arrived.
It was footage from the restaurant's service corridor.
The timestamp was 8:41 p.m.
Twenty minutes before Dominic almost drank the wine.
Nina pressed play.
I watched myself enter the corridor carrying a tray.
Then the screen showed Victor Hale approaching Dominic's private dining room.
And behind Victor walked a familiar figure in a blue winter coat.
My mother.
She was alive.
She wasn't being dragged or threatened.
She was walking freely.
Then she stopped outside the private dining room, took a small bottle from her handbag, and handed it to Victor.
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Victor took the bottle.
My mother said something.
Nina turned up the sound.
And I heard Elena Bennett speak perfect Italian.
“Assicurati che Dominic non esca vivo da quella stanza.”
Make sure Dominic doesn't leave that room alive.
Dominic slowly turned toward me.
And for the first time that night, I saw genuine fear in his eyes.
May you like
Not fear of death.
Fear that my mother had ordered it.
