Chapter 15
Chapter 15
THEME: FONT SIZE: 18px“Where did you find this?”
“Inside an old cookbook.”
“Anything else?”
A letter.
She handed it over. The handwriting was cramped and hurried, and it belonged to Giovani Romano.
Allesia. If you ever find this, I failed to keep a promise.
Bianca Moretti discovered money disappearing through companies controlled by men close to her husband. She believed Lorenzo Bellini was protecting someone. She asked me to make a copy of the accounts. I did.
After she died, I became afraid. I gave the original evidence back to the Moretti family and kept one copy where nobody would look.
The letter ended there.
Dante turned the page over. Nothing.
“Where nobody would look,” he said.
Alessia nodded.
“Any idea?”
“No.”
Dante studied the kitchen. Old cabinets, boxes, photographs.
Then Alessia looked at him.
“My father hated your family,” she said. “I told you that.”
“Yes.”
“What if he didn’t?”
Dante frowned. “What?”
“What if that’s just what he wanted us to believe?” She looked at the letter. “He told my mother never to contact anyone named Moretti. I thought it was hatred. Maybe it was protection.”
The same realization passed between them, and neither of them said it out loud: someone had killed Bianca. Someone had frightened Giovani Romano into silence. And eleven years later, someone had opened Bianca’s hidden safe and taken the red folder.
Dante’s phone rang.
Matteo.
“Talk.”
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Bellini’s gone.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“How?”
“Guest wing window. Camera loop.”
“Find him.”
“Already moving.”
Dante ended the call.
Alessia understood. “He ran.”
“Yes.”
“Then he did it.”
“Maybe.”
She frowned. “You still aren’t sure.”
“Running proves fear,” Dante said. “Not guilt.”
“Sometimes they’re the same.”
“Sometimes they aren’t.”
A sound came from the hallway.
Dante moved instantly. He stepped between Alessia and the door, and she noticed, and something about the way he did it — without thinking, without hesitating — stayed with her longer than it should have.
The sound came again. A floorboard.
Then a knock.
Three slow taps.
Dante reached beneath his jacket but did not draw anything.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Another knock.
Alessia whispered. “Nobody knows I’m here.”
Dante looked at her. “Someone does.”
He opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
May you like
On the floor sat a red envelope.
He picked it up carefully, by the corner, and turned it over. Inside was a key — small, old, brass — and a folded note.
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