Chapter 7 - THE SECRET MY MOTHER CARRIED
For a moment, I couldn't hear anything.
The room felt distant.
As though the walls had moved several feet away.
“My mother worked for your father?”
Luca stared at me.
“I didn't know.”
Vanessa gave a tired nod.
“Margaret Carter used a different surname back then. Margaret Ellis.”
Ellis.
My mother's maiden name.
She had stopped using it after marrying my father.
I remembered old photographs of her in a pale uniform.
Whenever I asked where she worked before I was born, she said, “Office buildings downtown.”
Nothing more.
Detective Hayes looked toward me.
“Emily, is your mother able to speak with investigators?”
I swallowed.
“Yes. She's recovering from surgery, but she's alert.”
“Would you be willing to contact her?”
I looked down at Oliver.
He was watching me carefully.
I didn't want to frighten him.
But I was frightened myself.
My mother had spent years telling me to stay away from wealthy, powerful families.
She never liked that I worked for Luca Moretti.
She worried about the security guards.
The cameras.
The people who arrived after midnight.
Whenever I mentioned Luca's name, she changed the subject.
Now I understood there might be a reason.
“I need to speak to her first,” I said.
Detective Hayes agreed.
Luca approached.
“Emily, you don't owe me anything.”
I looked at him.
“My mother may know something about your father's death.”
“That doesn't make it your burden.”
For eleven months, I'd been the housekeeper who carried laundry, cleaned spilled juice, and reminded Oliver to brush his teeth.
Now I stood in front of one of Chicago's most feared men, and he was telling me I didn't have to help him.
It should have comforted me.
Instead, it made me want the truth even more.
“My mother always told me that silence doesn't protect people forever,” I said. “Maybe it's time we listened to her.”
Luca nodded.
Then he did something unexpected.
He asked Daniel to bring my coat.
“I'm taking you to the hospital.”
I looked toward Oliver.
“What about him?”
Luca crouched.
“Buddy, would you rather stay here with Daniel and the officers, or come with us?”
Oliver considered it.
Then took my hand.
“Emily.”
Luca smiled sadly.
“Okay. We stay together.”
Detective Hayes accompanied us.
The mansion remained under police control.
Richard Bellini was being held for questioning, while investigators documented the evidence and arranged formal interviews.
Vanessa remained with her attorney.
Anthony had agreed to cooperate.
But his missing daughter was still unaccounted for.
And Gabriel Moretti remained a mystery.
We drove through Chicago beneath a cold autumn sky.
Oliver sat between his father and me.
He held the drawing of the two brothers.
Every few minutes, he looked at Luca.
As though making sure his father was still there.
When we reached the hospital, my mother was sitting upright in bed, reading a paperback mystery.
She looked surprised.
Then frightened.
Not when she saw me.
When she saw Luca.
“Emily,” she whispered, “why is he here?”
I approached her bed.
“Mom, we need to talk.”
She looked past me toward Detective Hayes.
Then at Oliver.
The little boy offered a shy wave.
My mother tried to smile.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
Oliver lifted his drawing.
“House.”
“That's lovely,” she said.
Then she looked at Luca again.
“You look just like your father.”
He stood motionless.
“You knew him.”
My mother closed her book.
“Yes.”
“How well?”
She hesitated.
“Well enough to know he was frightened before he died.”
The room went quiet.
Detective Hayes introduced herself.
She explained that investigators were reopening questions surrounding Antonio Moretti's death and examining possible connections to Sofia's car crash.
My mother listened.
Then slowly placed her hands on the blanket.
“I wondered when this would happen.”
I stared at her.
“Mom, why didn't you tell me?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because your father made me promise.”
“My father?”
She nodded.
“He knew.”
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
My father had died when I was sixteen.
He'd spent his life working long hours to keep our family comfortable.
I remembered him coming home smelling of metal and machine oil.
I remembered the way he checked our apartment door twice every night.
I'd thought it was an ordinary habit.
Now I wasn't sure.
My mother turned toward Luca.
“Your father was trying to change things.”
Luca sat beside the bed.
“What things?”
“His business. The people around him. The way money was being moved through charitable organizations.”
“Richard Bellini?”
She nodded.
“And others.”
She explained that Antonio had discovered funds from his private businesses were being routed through legitimate charities and into companies he didn't control.
He suspected someone was using his name.
“He wanted to stop it,” she said.
“Then why didn't he go to the authorities?” Luca asked.
“Because he was afraid the people involved would hurt his sons.”
Luca looked down.
My mother continued.
“One afternoon, he asked me to lock a small metal box inside his office safe.”
“What was inside?”
“I never opened it.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the window.
“Richard Bellini arrived that evening. They argued.”
“About what?”
“About the Harbor House center. Your father believed someone was using children's medical records to move money.”
Detective Hayes leaned forward.
“Do you remember any specific records?”
My mother nodded.
“Payment authorizations. Insurance reimbursements. Children listed as receiving services they never received.”
A chill ran through me.
My mother had spent years struggling to pay medical bills.
Somewhere, people had been stealing from programs meant to help families like ours.
She reached toward the bedside drawer.
Inside was a small velvet pouch.
She pulled out a brass button.
I recognized it immediately.
The same kind we'd found inside the black coat.
“Your father gave this to my husband,” she told Luca.
“Why?”
“He said if anything happened to him, your brother Gabriel would understand.”
Luca took the button.
On the back was a tiny engraved number.
17\.
He stared at it.
“The old elevator.”
My mother nodded.
“Your father kept a private storage room on the seventeenth floor of his original office building.”
I thought of my father's job repairing elevators.
Suddenly his connection to the Morettis made sense.
“He helped Antonio hide something,” I whispered.
My mother began crying.
“Your father was a decent man, Emily. He didn't want anything to do with the Moretti family's conflicts.”
“Then why help?”
“Because Antonio showed him proof that someone was harming children to steal money.”
Luca turned the button over.
“Where is the storage room now?”
My mother looked troubled.
“The building was sold years ago.”
“Who bought it?”
She hesitated.
Then answered.
“Richard Bellini's foundation.”
Detective Hayes made a note.
Luca's expression hardened.
“We need a warrant for that building.”
But my mother reached for his sleeve.
“There's something else.”
He stopped.
“Your wife came to see me six months before she died.”
Luca stared.
“Sofia?”
My mother nodded.
“She knew about the storage room. She'd found Gabriel.”
“Did she tell you where he was?”
“No. But she gave me something to protect.”
My mother opened her paperback book.
Between two pages lay a photograph.
It showed Sofia standing beside a little girl in a hospital bed.
The child had dark curls.
A gap between her front teeth.
Grace Russo.
But the name written on the hospital wristband was not Grace.
It was Lily Bellini.
I looked at Luca.
“Why does Anthony's daughter have Vanessa's last name?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Because she wasn't Anthony's daughter when that photograph was taken.”
Luca's voice lowered.
“Whose daughter was she?”
My mother looked toward Oliver.
May you like
Then back at Luca.
“RICHARD BELLINI'S. AND SHE'S THE CHILD WHO SAW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER.”
