Chapter 3 - ELENA’S COAT
Adrian Vale did not run.
That frightened Becca more than if he had.
An innocent man might have shouted.
A guilty man might have panicked.
Adrian simply stood beneath the chandelier and looked wounded.
“Elena hated me near the end,” he said.
Valentino’s expression did not change.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“No. Apparently I know almost nothing.”
Adrian glanced toward Becca.
“This should be family.”
Becca lifted her tray.
“I’d be delighted to leave.”
“No,” Valentino said.
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
Valentino unfolded the strip again.
“Explain it.”
“I can’t explain the thoughts of a woman who was terrified, medicated and barely sleeping.”
Valentino stepped forward.
Becca felt the room tighten around him.
“Choose your next sentence carefully.”
Adrian’s eyes flashed.
“She thought someone inside your organization was watching her.”
Valentino stopped.
That was new.
“You never told me.”
“She begged me not to.”
A terrible laugh left Valentino.
“My wife believed somebody was watching her, and my best friend decided I didn’t need to know?”
“She believed you were the reason.”
That landed.
Even Becca felt it.
The girls watched their father.
Valentino’s face became unreadable.
Adrian continued more quietly.
“Elena thought your security had become suffocating. She said every driver reported to you. Every guard reported to you. Every credit card purchase appeared on somebody’s desk. She wanted breathing room.”
“So she trusted you.”
“For a while.”
“For a while?”
Adrian looked at the paper.
“Then she stopped trusting everyone.”
Becca studied him.
His explanation made sense.
That was the problem.
People rarely looked guilty when they were telling lies built around truths.
Valentino turned to Marco.
“My house. Now.”
Adrian frowned.
“For what?”
“Elena’s coat.”
“You just said it was destroyed.”
“My daughter says otherwise.”
Within twenty minutes, the private room had become irrelevant.
Valentino left through the service entrance with his daughters.
Becca expected never to see him again.
Instead, Marco opened the rear door of the second SUV.
“Ms. Angelo.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“Mr. Duca wants you with the girls.”
“I have a shift.”
Philippe appeared behind her.
“You’re fired.”
Becca turned.
“What?”
“You abandoned your section, challenged a private guest and created a disturbance.”
“I created—”
Valentino’s voice came from the car.
“How much does she make here?”
Philippe froze.
“Mr. Duca, I—”
“How much?”
Philippe named the amount.
Valentino looked at Becca.
“I’ll cover tonight.”
She bristled.
“I don’t need charity.”
“No. You need your job.”
He looked at Philippe.
“She still has it tomorrow.”
Philippe swallowed.
“Yes, sir.”
Becca should have hated the interference.
Instead she climbed into the SUV because three little girls had taken her hands.
The Duca residence stood behind stone walls north of the city.
Becca expected something cold.
It was.
But not in the way she imagined.
The house was enormous, yet photographs covered the central hallway.
Elena laughing barefoot beside a pool.
Valentino holding newborn triplets with terror written across his face.
Three babies sleeping on his chest.
A family that had once looked ordinary despite everything surrounding them.
Mia stopped beneath one photograph.
Her mother wore a cream wool coat.
“Coat,” she whispered.
Valentino followed her gaze.
“That one?”
She nodded.
Marco frowned.
“Sir, Mrs. Duca wore that coat the afternoon before the crash. The police inventory listed it among damaged personal effects.”
Valentino’s gaze sharpened.
“Who signed the inventory?”
Marco hesitated.
“Mr. Vale.”
No one spoke.
They went upstairs.
Elena’s dressing room had been preserved.
Not like a shrine.
More like a room no one had possessed the courage to change.
Valentino remained in the doorway.
Becca realized he had probably not entered in years.
Mia walked directly to a cedar cabinet.
Locked.
Valentino opened it with a key from the dressing table.
Inside hung formal dresses.
Nothing else.
Mia stared.
Then began crying.
Quietly.
“No coat.”
Becca knelt.
“Did Mama put it here?”
The child shook her head.
Gia pointed downward.
“Under.”
The cabinet stood flush against the wall.
Becca ran her fingers along the base.
One strip of cedar moved.
A shallow compartment slid forward.
Inside lay the cream coat.
Valentino sat down hard on a bench.
For two years, he had believed it destroyed.
Mia touched the sleeve.
“Mama hide.”
Valentino looked at his daughters.
“You were here?”
Three nods.
“When?”
Lila held up two fingers.
Becca’s heart sank.
Two years ago.
Before the crash.
Valentino searched the pockets.
Nothing.
Then Becca noticed one cuff was heavier.
The lining had been stitched by hand.
Valentino carefully opened the seam.
A photograph slid into his palm.
Elena stood outside a warehouse beside Adrian Vale.
But she was not frightened of him.
She was handing him an envelope.
On the back, Elena had written:
HE AGREED TO HELP.
Valentino stared.
Becca did too.
The warning in the bracelet had said not to trust Snake.
Yet the hidden photograph suggested Elena had been working with Adrian.
“What if Snake isn’t Adrian?” Becca said.
Valentino looked at the gray shoes in his memory.
“Girls?”
He placed the photograph on the bench.
“Is Uncle Adrian Snake?”
Gia stared at Adrian’s picture.
Then shook her head.
Valentino’s breath caught.
“Then why were you scared of him tonight?”
Mia touched the shoes visible at the bottom of the photograph.
Gray leather.
Black stripe.
“Shoes.”
“His shoes scare you?”
“Yes.”
“But he isn’t Snake?”
Gia shook her head again.
A reversal so complete passed across Valentino’s face that Becca almost felt sorry for him.
They had accused the wrong man.
Or at least accused him of the wrong thing.
Becca examined the coat.
A small brass coat-check ticket remained caught beneath the inner label.
Number 317.
Stamped with a name:
THE BELVEDERE HOTEL.
Valentino stared at it.
“That hotel closed three years ago.”
“Maybe Elena went there before it closed.”
“No.”
He turned the ticket over.
A date had been written by hand.
Three days before Elena’s death.
Becca frowned.
“But you said the hotel had already closed.”
“It had.”
Valentino pulled out his phone, then stopped.
No mysterious calls.
No desperate guessing.
He simply looked toward Marco.
“Who owned the Belvedere when it closed?”
Marco’s expression changed.
“I’ll check.”
He returned ten minutes later carrying a tablet.
“Sir.”
Valentino read the property record.
His face hardened.
The Belvedere had not belonged to Adrian.
It belonged to Duca Holdings.
More specifically, one internal division.
Security logistics.
The division had been supervised by a man Valentino trusted almost as much as Adrian.
His late wife’s older brother.
Thomas Bellandi.
“Uncle Tommy,” Lila whispered.
Valentino looked at her.
She pointed at the triangle logo on the coat-check ticket.
Then she formed a small shape with her hands.
A snake.
May you like
And said a name none of them expected.
“Tommy Snake.”
