Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
“You knew Vanessa's mother was buried beside Dad?”
Luca's question seemed to push the remaining air out of the dining room.
Michael looked at Vanessa with open frustration.
“I told you not to bring that necklace.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“You told me to forget it existed.”
“Because you don't understand what you're doing.”
“No,” she answered. “Because you never intended to tell me the truth.”
Maria pressed a hand against her chest.
I knelt beside her.
“Are you feeling all right?”
She nodded, though her breathing had become shallow.
“Just bring me some water, sweetheart.”
Luca was beside us immediately.
“Mom?”
“I'm all right.” She patted his hand. “Don't let them change the subject.”
Michael looked toward the doorway.
For a moment, I thought he would leave.
Instead, he sat down heavily.
“Elena Ward was Vanessa's mother,” he admitted.
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“And?”
“She worked for Dad.”
Luca frowned.
“At the grocery store?”
“For a while.”
“Then why did Dad bury her secretly?”
Michael hesitated.
“Because her death involved people who could have destroyed our family.”
Luca's expression hardened.
“Which people?”
“Our father's business associates.”
That answer changed the room.
Everyone in Chicago knew the Moretti family had money, power, and connections that extended far beyond the respectable shipping businesses Luca now controlled.
But Luca rarely discussed the years before he took over.
He had been determined to turn the family empire into something legitimate.
Michael had never shared that determination.
“Names,” Luca said.
Michael shook his head.
“Some are dead. Others are still dangerous.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Then start with someone living.”
Michael glanced at Vanessa.
“Victor Bellini.”
She stared.
“My father?”
“Your stepfather,” Michael corrected.
Vanessa's lips parted.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then she whispered, “My father raised me.”
“I know.”
“He took me to school. He sat beside my hospital bed when I had pneumonia. He taught me to drive.”
Michael lowered his eyes.
“That doesn't make him your biological father.”
Vanessa looked wounded in a way I'd never seen.
For months, she'd walked through the mansion as though nothing could touch her.
Now she looked like a woman standing in the ruins of her childhood.
Luca pulled out a chair.
“Vanessa, sit down.”
She shook her head.
“No. I want him to finish.”
Michael explained that Elena had worked as a bookkeeper for Victor Bellini before taking occasional work at the Moretti grocery store.
She was twenty-seven when she disappeared.
Victor told everyone she'd abandoned her daughter.
Years later, he announced that Elena had died in an accident out of state.
Vanessa had never questioned it.
“Why would he lie?” she asked.
Michael rubbed his forehead.
“Because Elena had discovered irregularities in his accounts.”
Luca's eyes narrowed.
“What accounts?”
“Shipping payments. Property transfers. Things nobody wanted examined.”
Luca glanced toward his father's photograph on the mantel.
“Dad knew?”
Michael nodded.
“He tried to help her.”
Maria whispered, “That's why he looked so frightened that October.”
I turned toward her.
“What happened?”
She held the music box against her chest.
“He came home with blood on his coat.”
Luca went completely still.
“Dad was hurt?”
“No. He said it wasn't his.”
The words lingered.
Maria stared toward the windows.
“He burned the coat in the fireplace. I asked what happened, and he told me some things were safer not knowing.”
Luca stood.
“Michael, are you saying our father was involved in Elena's death?”
“No,” Michael answered immediately.
“Then what are you saying?”
“That he was there when it happened.”
Vanessa gripped the table.
“And you knew?”
“I found out six years ago.”
“Six years?”
She sounded almost breathless.
“You sat across from me at Christmas dinners. You toasted my engagement. You smiled while I talked about my mother.”
Michael looked ashamed.
“I was trying to keep things from becoming worse.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“That's what men in this family always say.”
Luca didn't defend himself.
Perhaps because some part of that accusation was true.
He'd spent years making decisions for everyone around him, believing his protection was enough.
But Maria had been frightened in her own home.
And I'd been threatened with losing my livelihood.
Protection wasn't the same as listening.
I understood that before he did.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said quietly, “there's something else.”
Four pairs of eyes turned toward me.
I nearly lost my courage.
But Maria squeezed my wrist.
“Yesterday, when I took Mrs. Moretti to the cemetery office, the caretaker showed me a work order.”
Michael stiffened.
“What work order?”
“It wasn't just for replacing the headstone.”
Luca waited.
“The family burial records were scheduled for consolidation. Two plots would become one.”
Maria shook her head.
“But why?”
“Because the second burial was being classified as an administrative error.”
Luca looked at Michael.
“You were trying to make Elena's grave disappear.”
Michael answered slowly.
“I was trying to prevent an examination that could expose Dad.”
“Expose him for what?”
Michael didn't answer.
Vanessa reached for the photograph.
She studied her mother's face.
“Was she buried in that grave?”
Michael looked up.
“Of course.”
“Did you see her body?”
Silence.
Luca turned toward him.
“Michael?”
“No,” he admitted.
Vanessa gripped the picture.
“Then how do you know?”
“Because Dad arranged the burial.”
“But you were thirteen years old.”
“I know what the records say.”
Vanessa's expression sharpened.
“Records you were planning to replace?”
Nobody answered.
For the first time that night, I felt the mystery shift beneath our feet.
We had believed Michael wanted to hide a woman's identity.
Now I wondered whether he was hiding something about the burial itself.
Maria suddenly touched my sleeve.
“The envelope,” she whispered.
I leaned closer.
“What envelope?”
“The one your father left with Father Anthony.”
Luca turned.
“Father Anthony Russo?”
Maria nodded.
“He was our parish priest. Your father trusted him.”
“He retired years ago,” Michael said quickly.
“He lives at Saint Gabriel's residence,” Maria answered. “I saw him last Easter.”
Michael closed his eyes.
Luca noticed immediately.
“What's in the envelope?”
“I don't know, sweetheart.”
Maria looked embarrassed.
“Your father said I should ask for it if anyone ever tried to change the name on Elena's grave.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“Why didn't you tell us?”
Maria's face crumpled.
“Because I didn't know Elena was your mother.”
For once, Vanessa had no cruel answer.
Instead, she lowered herself into the chair beside Maria.
The two women sat inches apart.
One had lost her husband.
The other had spent most of her life believing her mother had abandoned her.
And both had been manipulated by people claiming to protect them.
I wanted that moment to mean something.
But Michael stood.
“Luca, don't involve Father Anthony.”
“Why?”
“Because he's an old man. Let him live in peace.”
Luca took out his phone.
“I'm taking Mom to the cemetery tomorrow morning. Then we're visiting Father Anthony.”
Michael's expression changed.
“You can't do that.”
Luca looked up.
“Watch me.”
Michael leaned across the table.
“Listen carefully. If you open that grave, you may discover something you cannot undo.”
Luca stepped closer.
“What did Dad do?”
Michael's eyes filled unexpectedly.
And that frightened me more than his anger.
“Luca,” he whispered, “there's a reason Dad never let you visit Elena's grave.”
Maria stared at him.
“What reason?”
Michael shook his head.
“Because he made a promise.”
“To whom?” Luca demanded.
Michael looked straight at Vanessa.
“To the person who watched Elena die.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
“Who?”
May you like
Michael's voice broke.
“Me.”
