Chapter 3 - THE BROTHER NOBODY WAS ALLOWED TO REMEMBER
“My father had a brother?”
Luca stood motionless beside the banquet table.
For thirty-eight years, he'd believed he was the only son of Anthony and Rosa Moretti, and that his father had grown up without surviving siblings.
Now Victor Bellini was telling him that a stranger who looked exactly like Anthony had stood outside a federal building the day after Anthony supposedly died.
Rosa gripped the photograph so tightly that its corners bent.
“Mom,” Luca said gently, “look at me.”
She raised her eyes.
“Is this true?”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
She nodded.
Luca took one step backward.
“You let me believe Dad had no brother?”
Rosa's expression crumpled.
I had spent six months helping her relearn words after her stroke. I knew the terrible frustration that came when a clear thought refused to become a sentence.
And I knew what she looked like when she was frightened.
This was worse.
This was shame.
“Sir,” I said quietly, “please give her a moment.”
Luca rubbed his forehead.
“She had fourteen years.”
The words wounded her.
I saw it immediately.
So did he.
He knelt beside her wheelchair.
“I'm sorry, Mom.”
Rosa touched his face.
“Protect.”
“I know you were protecting me. But from whom?”
Samuel Pierce answered.
“From your father's twin brother, Dominic.”
The name seemed to change the air in the room.
Victor looked away.
Vanessa sat down heavily.
Luca stared at Samuel.
“Twins?”
“Identical twins,” Samuel said. “Dominic Moretti left Chicago when you were a child. Your father spent years trying to separate his legitimate businesses from Dominic's operations.”
Luca's voice hardened.
“Why wasn't that in any family record?”
“Your grandfather had Dominic legally removed from several business interests after a fraud investigation. The family stopped speaking about him.”
Rosa shook her head.
“Not... stopped.”
Samuel looked at her.
“No, Rosa. You're right.”
He turned back toward Luca.
“Anthony didn't stop speaking to Dominic. He continued trying to bring him home.”
Luca looked down at the photograph.
The man beside Samuel wore Anthony's dinner jacket.
And his father's face.
“Why would Dominic be photographed with my mother and me after Dad died?”
Samuel swallowed.
“Because you were taken there to identify him.”
Luca frowned.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It wasn't supposed to make sense to you. You were twenty-four, grieving, and heavily sedated after collapsing at the funeral home.”
Luca closed his eyes.
I watched the realization move across his face.
“You told me I had dreamed that day.”
Rosa nodded miserably.
“Sorry.”
Luca looked toward Samuel.
“What was I identifying?”
Samuel answered softly.
“The man who had threatened your father.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Victor rose again.
“This conversation needs to stop until counsel is present.”
Luca didn't even turn.
“You're welcome to remain silent, Victor.”
Then he looked at Daniel.
“Have the authorities been contacted?”
“Yes, sir. They're arranging for an evidence team. Your attorney is on the way.”
Luca nodded.
“Good.”
He placed Anthony's photograph beside the gold watch.
“Samuel, explain why you were wearing my mother's anniversary gift.”
Samuel looked older than he had an hour earlier.
“Anthony gave it to me to deliver to an independent examiner.”
Rosa struck her wheelchair armrest.
“No!”
Samuel flinched.
“He gave me the watch,” he insisted. “But I failed to deliver it.”
“Why?” Luca asked.
“Because I was afraid.”
It was the first answer that sounded entirely truthful.
Samuel looked toward Victor.
“Dominic had people inside the foundation and among the contractors. He knew where our witnesses lived. He knew which children were sick and which parents were desperate for help.”
Rosa began nodding.
I remembered the words she'd written earlier.
PARENTS NEVER GOT THE MONEY.
Samuel continued.
“The foundation was paying certain families on paper while someone else collected the funds. Anthony believed Dominic was using those families' private information to pressure witnesses and disguise kickbacks.”
Luca's eyes narrowed.
“And Victor?”
Victor straightened his jacket.
“I funded the organization. I did not personally approve every transaction.”
Samuel looked at him.
“You approved the accounts Anthony challenged.”
“That does not mean I knew they were fraudulent.”
For the first time, Victor sounded less arrogant than frightened.
And I wondered whether some of his fear was genuine.
Vanessa stood.
“Enough. You're talking about people who received medical care because of that foundation.”
She faced Luca.
“My mother helped establish those programs. She worked herself sick visiting hospitals and raising money. You can't erase everything good because someone abused the accounts.”
Luca looked at her.
“No one is erasing the good.”
“Then stop treating my entire family like criminals.”
“Your father may have covered up evidence. You searched my mother's wardrobe. Those are separate actions you still haven't explained.”
Vanessa pressed her lips together.
Then she turned toward me.
“Rachel, you were with Rosa yesterday afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Samuel enter her bedroom?”
“No. Mrs. Moretti took her afternoon rest while I was in the laundry room.”
“Exactly,” Vanessa said. “You don't actually know what happened.”
I felt forty-four guests' eyes return to me.
The old fear rose.
My job.
My mother's medication.
My sister's tuition.
I could lose everything because one wealthy woman decided I was inconvenient.
But Rosa reached for my hand.
And suddenly I remembered something.
“Mrs. Bellini, I did see you yesterday.”
Vanessa stiffened.
“At the wardrobe?”
“No. In the hallway outside the service entrance.”
She looked confused.
“You were carrying a small white box. You told the driver it belonged to a watch repair shop.”
Samuel stopped breathing normally.
I turned toward Luca.
“I didn't think much of it. But I remember the label.”
“What did it say?”
“Halpern & Sons. Jewelers.”
Luca looked at Samuel's watch.
“Daniel, can you contact that business?”
Daniel nodded.
Vanessa's expression changed.
“You're making this worse than it needs to be.”
“Then help me understand it,” Luca answered.
She stared at him.
Finally, she whispered, “I took the watch there.”
Samuel lowered his head.
Luca's face hardened.
“Why?”
“Because Samuel said the clasp contained something dangerous.”
“What?”
“He wouldn't tell me.”
Samuel looked at her.
“I told you enough.”
Vanessa's eyes filled with tears.
“You told me someone could hurt Luca if the watch was opened. You said the safest thing was to remove the component and return the watch.”
Luca stared at her.
“You knew it belonged to my mother?”
Vanessa nodded.
“And you never told me?”
“I thought I could solve it before you found out.”
That answer hurt him more than her defensiveness had.
“You were planning to marry me,” he said. “And you thought hiding evidence about my father was protecting me?”
Vanessa looked down.
“That's what my father taught me protection meant.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Rosa reached toward the photograph.
She pointed at Dominic's face.
“Not... father.”
“We know, Mom,” Luca said.
But Rosa shook her head.
She tapped the date.
Then pointed toward Luca.
“Not... you.”
Luca frowned.
“What?”
I leaned closer.
“Mrs. Moretti, are you saying the young man in the photograph isn't Luca?”
Rosa nodded.
My stomach tightened.
I studied the picture.
The young man standing beside her appeared about twenty-four.
He had Luca's dark hair.
Luca's height.
Even Luca's familiar serious expression.
But now that I looked carefully, something was wrong.
He wore a thick silver ring on his right hand.
Luca wore no such ring.
And the man was smiling.
Not a grieving son's strained smile.
A confident smile.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
Rosa pointed toward Dominic.
Then made a small motion between the two figures.
Samuel's face went gray.
Luca looked directly at him.
“Samuel?”
The retired investigator shook his head.
“Rosa, please. Not like this.”
But Rosa had already taken the pen.
Her letters were shaky, but the meaning was unmistakable.
DOMINIC'S SON.
Luca stared at the photograph.
“Dominic had a son?”
Rosa nodded.
“Where is he now?”
Samuel lowered his eyes.
“He disappeared from the investigation fourteen years ago.”
Luca leaned closer.
“What was his name?”
Before Samuel could answer, Victor said it.
“Ethan Moretti.”
Luca stood absolutely still.
Then he turned toward Daniel.
“Get me the guest list for tonight.”
Daniel opened the tablet he'd been carrying.
Luca scrolled through the names.
His finger stopped.
Because near the bottom of the list, under the name of Victor Bellini's business delegation, was a guest who had arrived less than an hour before dinner.
ETHAN MORETTI — REPRESENTATIVE, BELLINI FOUNDATION.
Luca looked toward the adjoining sitting room where several guests had already been escorted.
Then he turned to Daniel.
“Find Ethan.”
Daniel's expression tightened.
“Sir, he left through the service entrance twelve minutes ago.”
Luca looked down at the photograph again.
And suddenly I understood why the young man had looked so familiar.
I'd seen him before.
Not at dinner.
Not in Chicago society photographs.
But three days earlier, standing outside Rosa's bedroom.
He had introduced himself to me as a maintenance inspector.
May you like
And he'd asked one question.
“DOES THE OLD LADY STILL KEEP HER HUSBAND'S SEWING BOX?”
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