Chapter 6 - THE LETTER SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO READ
“Where's the envelope?”
Luca's voice was dangerously quiet.
Vanessa stared at her hands.
“In a locked jewelry box at my apartment.”
Margaret immediately asked whether she would consent to investigators collecting it.
Vanessa nodded.
“I'll show them exactly where it is.”
Luca leaned against the table.
Two years.
For two years, the woman he'd intended to marry had kept a letter from his dead mother.
He looked at her as if he were seeing a stranger.
“Did you read it?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Then you knew.”
“I knew Gianna suspected something was wrong.”
“And you said nothing?”
Vanessa's expression hardened defensively.
“Luca, you don't understand what Salvatore had on Victor.”
“Then explain it.”
Her brother's shipping company had borrowed heavily from private lenders after a failed expansion.
Salvatore had arranged temporary financial support.
When Victor couldn't repay the money, Salvatore proposed using foundation reserves until a pending business sale closed.
Vanessa claimed she'd believed the arrangement would last less than a month.
But the sale collapsed.
More transfers followed.
And eventually, the money couldn't be replaced.
“I told Salvatore we had to stop,” she whispered.
“He said the family would lose everything.”
Luca's expression didn't change.
“So you helped him steal.”
“Yes.”
“And when my mother confronted you?”
“I told her the truth about the money.”
Vanessa covered her face.
“She was furious. But she said she'd help me tell you if I promised not to touch another dollar.”
I felt an unexpected sadness.
Gianna had offered Vanessa a way out.
Not because Vanessa deserved protection from consequences.
Because Gianna still believed people could choose to do the right thing.
Vanessa had been given that chance.
And she hadn't taken it.
“Then why threaten Nicholas?” Luca asked.
Vanessa looked toward the empty chair where the little boy had sat earlier.
“Because when he started carrying that tie, I thought he'd found the things Gianna hid.”
“You knew he might have evidence?”
“I was afraid he did.”
Luca stepped away.
“You frightened a child because you were frightened of being caught.”
Vanessa began to cry again.
This time, Luca didn't comfort her.
“You're going to tell the investigators everything,” he said. “And you'll never make Nicholas responsible for your choices again.”
The envelope arrived later that night.
It was cream-colored, with Gianna's familiar handwriting across the front.
For Luca. Only when I'm no longer able to explain.
Luca held it for a long moment before opening it.
Inside were three handwritten pages.
The first described the missing foundation funds.
The second listed troubling changes to her medical care.
The third contained a warning.
Arthur says my condition is worsening. Yet the independent examination I requested has never been arranged.
Salvatore insists I am confused. He has begun speaking for me at meetings I never authorized him to attend.
I am not confused, Luca.
Luca stopped reading.
His eyes filled.
I turned away to give him privacy.
He continued.
If anything happens, ask Miriam Harlow what she saw.
Miriam Harlow.
Gianna's former private nurse.
The woman who had worked inside the mansion during the final months of her life.
Luca looked at Margaret.
“Find her.”
By the following afternoon, the investigators had located Miriam living in a quiet suburb outside Chicago.
She was fifty-nine, retired from private nursing, and reluctant to discuss her time with the Morettis.
She initially refused to meet.
Then Margaret arranged for a detective to explain that Gianna's death was being reviewed.
Miriam agreed to give a formal statement.
Luca asked to attend with his attorney.
I remained at the mansion with Nicholas.
But when Luca returned that evening, I knew something had changed.
His face looked drained.
He sat beside Nicholas on the library couch.
For nearly ten minutes, he said nothing.
Then he asked me to stay while Margaret explained what Miriam had reported.
Gianna had not been receiving end-of-life care when Miriam began working for her.
She had occasional blood-pressure concerns and fatigue.
Nothing that prevented her from walking, reading, managing meetings, or making decisions.
In the final week, however, Dr. Keene had ordered changes to her treatment.
Miriam questioned those changes.
She was told that Luca had approved them.
When she asked to confirm directly with Luca, Salvatore informed her that Luca didn't want to be disturbed.
“I should have insisted,” Miriam told the detective.
Her voice reportedly broke when she described her final shift.
Gianna was frightened.
She kept asking to speak to her son.
And she had begun refusing medication until an independent physician examined her.
On the evening she died, Miriam was instructed to leave early.
The order came through Dr. Keene's office.
At approximately 8:40, she saw Dante approaching the medical wing with a package.
Shortly afterward, she heard raised voices behind Gianna's bedroom door.
She couldn't identify every word.
But she remembered Gianna saying something unmistakable.
“I am not signing anything else.”
Miriam had wanted to check on her.
Salvatore intercepted her in the hallway.
He told her Gianna needed rest.
Then he dismissed her for the evening.
She left the mansion at 8:49.
At that moment, Gianna was alive.
Alert.
And speaking clearly.
Margaret then revealed that Miriam had preserved a copy of her shift notes.
Not because she suspected murder at the time.
Because she feared being blamed for a medical decision she hadn't made.
Her notes recorded Gianna's condition shortly before leaving.
Patient awake, responsive, refusing additional treatment pending independent review.
Luca looked down at his hands.
“I wasn't there.”
Margaret spoke gently.
“You were being deliberately kept away.”
“I still should have called her.”
Nobody contradicted him.
That evening, he went upstairs and sat beside Nicholas.
I watched from the doorway as he opened the old silver pocket watch.
“Grandma gave you this because she wanted you to remember something,” he said.
Nicholas nodded.
“Do you remember why she stopped it?”
The boy thought carefully.
“She was mad about the medicine.”
Luca swallowed.
“Did she tell you anything else?”
Nicholas looked at the watch.
“She said grown-ups were changing the time.”
Margaret, who had followed Luca upstairs, immediately looked up.
“Changing what time?”
Nicholas shrugged.
“I don't know.”
She took out the medical report again.
Then compared it with Miriam's notes.
Her face changed.
“Luca.”
He turned.
“The death certificate says Gianna died at 8:15 p.m.”
Luca frowned.
“Miriam left at 8:49.”
“Yes.”
“She said Mom was alive.”
“Yes.”
Margaret turned the document around.
“The original electronic certificate wasn't created until later that night. The earlier time was entered afterward.”
Luca stared at the screen.
Then at his mother's watch.
Its hands still showed 8:42.
The exact time Dante had delivered the envelope.
The exact period when Gianna had been trying to challenge the doctor.
And almost half an hour after she was officially recorded as dead.
Margaret's voice became very quiet.
“Luca, somebody didn't just falsify your mother's condition.”
May you like
She pointed to the certificate.
“SOMEBODY RECORDED HER DEATH BEFORE SHE WAS DEAD.”
