Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE DEED
“Grandma, tell me exactly what you remember.”
Luca Moretti stood in the middle of his dining room, staring at the eighty-three-year-old woman he had spent the last six months believing was slowly losing her memory.
Eleanor Moretti held his gaze.
“Everything, Luca. I remember everything.”
Across the room, Vanessa Bellini stood beside her suitcase, her face pale beneath the chandelier light.
Anna Mitchell watched from the doorway.
She was still wearing her black housekeeping dress and white apron. A few hours earlier, Vanessa had called her useless for preparing an extra breakfast.
Now that breakfast had become evidence.
And the woman everyone called confused had just exposed a crime.
Luca turned toward his fiancée.
“How many properties?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Luca, please. This isn't what you think.”
“How many?”
“I didn't sell anything.”
Eleanor gave a quiet, bitter laugh.
“No, dear. You only signed the papers.”
Vanessa's eyes flashed.
“You have no idea what you're talking about.”
Eleanor reached into her cardigan pocket.
Then she placed a silver pocket watch on the dining table.
Luca recognized it immediately.
His grandfather's watch.
The one Eleanor had worn around her neck on a thin chain since the day her husband died.
“Your grandfather gave me this when we bought our first building,” Eleanor said. “He told me something I've never forgotten.”
She opened the watch.
Inside was a faded photograph of a younger Eleanor standing beside her husband.
“Never trust someone who asks you to sign away a home you haven't visited.”
Luca frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I visited the first property they claimed I'd sold.”
Vanessa stiffened.
Eleanor looked directly at her.
“And I found eleven families still living there.”
Anna felt a chill.
Luca pulled out a chair.
“Sit down, Grandma.”
“I've spent six months pretending I couldn't understand a conversation,” Eleanor answered. “I think I'd rather stand.”
His security chief, Marcus Hale, entered from the hallway.
“Police have Daniel Reeves secured. He's dehydrated, but the paramedics say he's conscious.”
“And Ben?”
“Being examined upstairs. A child protection officer is with him.”
Luca nodded.
“Good.”
Marcus hesitated.
“There's another problem.”
He placed a printed property record on the table.
“The first transfer happened four months before Miss Bellini moved into the mansion.”
Luca stared.
Vanessa had been living with him for eight months.
“That's impossible.”
Marcus pointed to the document.
“The buyer was Bellini Holdings.”
Vanessa whispered, “My father's company.”
Luca slowly looked at her.
“Your father died three years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Then who controls it?”
Vanessa said nothing.
Eleanor reached for the paper.
“Her brother does.”
Anna remembered Ben's frightened voice beneath the greenhouse.
Your fiancée's brother.
Luca exhaled.
“Adrian Bellini.”
Vanessa turned away.
“Adrian handles the family business. That doesn't make me responsible for everything he does.”
“Then explain your signature beside the foundation withdrawals.”
“I signed what he brought me.”
“Without reading it?”
Vanessa looked at him with genuine hurt.
“You've signed hundreds of documents Marcus handed you. Did you read every page?”
Luca went quiet.
The accusation landed because it was true.
He trusted the people around him to handle details.
And that trust had allowed someone to steal from his grandmother.
Perhaps from the children his foundation was supposed to help.
Eleanor placed the watch beside the document.
“There's more.”
She turned toward Anna.
“Would you bring me my brown cardigan from the sewing room?”
Anna blinked.
“The one with the missing button?”
“Yes, dear.”
Vanessa suddenly stepped forward.
“There's nothing in that cardigan.”
Everyone looked at her.
Eleanor smiled sadly.
“I didn't say there was.”
Vanessa stopped.
Luca's expression changed.
“Marcus, stay with her.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“You can't keep me prisoner.”
“No,” Luca answered. “But the police have questions, and I expect you'll remain available to answer them.”
Anna hurried upstairs.
The sewing room was small, filled with Eleanor's unfinished embroidery and old family photographs.
The brown cardigan hung behind the door.
Anna lifted it.
Something heavy pressed against the lining.
She remembered noticing the crooked stitching weeks earlier.
Eleanor had asked her not to repair it.
Anna carefully opened the seam.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper and a small brass key.
The paper contained twelve handwritten addresses.
Beside four were red circles.
Beside one was a name.
St. Catherine's House.
Anna stared.
Her younger brother, Michael, had spent three months in rehabilitation at St. Catherine's House after a serious accident.
The bills were destroying what little savings she had.
She knew that address.
She knew it too well.
Anna hurried downstairs.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
Eleanor took one look at her face.
“What is it, dear?”
Anna showed her the list.
“My brother is at this facility.”
Eleanor's expression hardened.
“Then we have less time than I thought.”
Luca moved closer.
“What does Anna's brother have to do with this?”
Eleanor touched the red circle beside St. Catherine's House.
“The foundation purchased that property twenty years ago. Your grandfather insisted it remain a rehabilitation center for people who couldn't afford private treatment.”
Anna's throat tightened.
“My brother's treatment has been getting more expensive every month.”
“Because someone is stripping away the foundation's support,” Eleanor answered.
Luca stared at Vanessa.
She shook her head.
“I don't know anything about that facility.”
Eleanor looked exhausted for the first time.
“Perhaps not. But your brother does.”
Marcus approached.
“Mr. Moretti, Daniel Reeves wants to speak to you before the ambulance takes him.”
Luca turned toward the hallway.
Anna followed without being asked.
Daniel lay on a stretcher near the old servants' elevator, a blanket over his shoulders.
He looked thinner than the photograph Ben had shown them.
When he saw Anna, his eyes filled.
“My son?”
“He's safe,” Anna said. “He's upstairs.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Thank God.”
Luca crouched beside him.
“Daniel, why didn't you come to me?”
“I tried.”
The accountant's voice was barely audible.
“Three times.”
Luca frowned.
“I never received anything.”
“Someone intercepted my messages.”
Daniel glanced toward Marcus.
Marcus stiffened.
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“Not him. I don't know who.”
Then he grabbed Luca's wrist.
“The property transfers aren't complete.”
“What?”
“They're scheduled to close Friday.”
Luca felt his stomach tighten.
It was Wednesday.
“Which properties?”
Daniel looked toward Anna.
“St. Catherine's House is one of them.”
Anna gripped the stretcher.
“No.”
Daniel swallowed.
“The buyers plan to terminate the charitable lease. Patients will have to leave once the required notices run out.”
Anna thought of Michael.
His painful exercises.
His determination to walk independently again.
The way he apologized every time she paid another bill.
“Why would anyone do this?”
Daniel's eyes filled with shame.
“Because the land is worth more than the people living on it.”
Luca stood.
“Marcus, get me every document tied to Friday's closing.”
Daniel tightened his grip.
“There's something else.”
He pulled a folded child's drawing from beneath his blanket.
A crooked house.
A yellow sun.
Three stick figures holding hands.
Anna recognized a child's handwriting beneath it.
Me, Dad, and Grandma Eleanor.
Daniel whispered, “Ben drew that before Adrian found him. Eleanor promised him something.”
“What?” Luca asked.
Daniel looked directly at Eleanor, who had quietly approached.
“That she'd keep him safe until she could prove who was really buying the properties.”
Eleanor's face changed.
Luca noticed.
“Grandma?”
She closed her eyes.
“The buyer isn't Adrian.”
Vanessa suddenly whispered, “Don't.”
Eleanor ignored her.
“The company buying St. Catherine's House has a different owner.”
Luca looked at Daniel.
“Who?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then spoke the name.
“Moretti Family Preservation Trust.”
Luca stared.
“That trust belongs to my family.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Not anymore.”
She reached for her grandfather's silver watch.
Then looked at her grandson with an expression Anna would never forget.
“Luca, someone used my name to change who controls our family trust.”
Luca felt the room tilt.
“Who?”
May you like
Eleanor's voice broke.
“According to the papers Daniel found, you did.”
