Chapter 4 - The Laundering
Olivia stared at the blood-stained flight receipt, her entire body shaking.
"Zurich?" she whispered, the word barely making it past her lips. "He never mentioned Switzerland. He told me he was going to the restaurant to finalize the quarterly taxes. He kissed my forehead, told me he loved me, and said he’d be back by midnight."
"He was protecting you," Eleanor cried softly, rocking the sleeping baby. "He didn't want you to know how dangerous it had become."
Luca turned his terrifying gaze back to Vanessa.
She was backed into the corner of the dressing room, trembling so violently her red dress shook like a flame.
"What was he running from, Vanessa?" Luca asked.
"I don't know!" she screamed.
Luca stepped forward, gripping the silver watch so tightly his knuckles cracked. "He booked a private charter flight in the middle of the night. He hid the receipt inside his watch and handed it to your brother as he lay dying. What did Matthew find?"
"He was stealing!" Vanessa cried again. "He found money missing from the restaurant's accounts, and he tried to pin it on Adrian!"
"Matthew never stole a dime in his life," Eleanor spat, her maternal fury finally breaking through her grief. "My son worked seventy hours a week to build that restaurant!"
"Vanessa," Luca said, his voice dropping an octave. "You are running out of time to tell me the truth. If I have to ask Adrian myself, I won't ask him nicely."
Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut. "Adrian was using the restaurant," she sobbed. "He was running extra money through the books. Falsifying the inventory to clean cash."
Olivia gasped. "Money laundering? In Matthew's restaurant?"
"Adrian needed a clean front!" Vanessa pleaded, looking at Luca. "He was trying to expand the family business, Luca. You know how hard it is to get legitimate bank loans."
Luca stood perfectly still. "Whose money was he cleaning?"
Vanessa froze. She looked down at the floor, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Vanessa," Luca said. "Whose money?"
"It wasn't ours," she whispered.
"Look at me."
She looked up, tears streaming down her perfectly contoured face.
"It was yours, Luca," she confessed, her voice breaking. "Adrian was skimming from your family's construction firms. He was stealing from the Morettis, and laundering it through Matthew’s restaurant so you wouldn't trace it back to him."
The hallway went dead silent.
My breath caught in my throat. I pressed my back against the wall, trying to make myself invisible. Adrian Bellini hadn't just betrayed his business partner. He had stolen from the head of the Chicago mafia.
"Matthew found out," Olivia realized, her voice hollow with horror. "He did the quarterly taxes. He saw the numbers didn't match. He found out Adrian was stealing from my brother."
"Matthew confronted him that night," Vanessa admitted, weeping uncontrollably now. "Adrian called me in a panic. He said Matthew was going to tell you, Luca. If Matthew told you, Adrian was a dead man."
Luca didn't shout. He didn't explode.
He just looked at the woman he was supposed to marry in three days.
"So you decided to stop him," Luca said softly.
"No!" Vanessa shrieked. "I just told Adrian to scare him! To take his accounting laptops, to threaten him! I didn't know the truck was going to hit him! It was an accident!"
"An accident?" Eleanor stepped forward, her eyes blazing. "My son’s car was run off an overpass by a commercial transport truck! The police said the driver fell asleep at the wheel!"
"He did!" Vanessa cried.
Luca looked down at the flight receipt.
Then he looked at me. "Claire."
I jumped. "Yes, sir."
"Go downstairs. Tell Marco to lock the front gates. Nobody leaves this estate. Nobody."
"Yes, sir," I whispered.
I turned and ran down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I reached the bottom floor and found Marco standing by the front doors. I relayed the message. He immediately tapped his earpiece, barking orders in Italian.
The heavy steel gates of the driveway slammed shut.
But as I turned back toward the dining room to clean up the abandoned dinner, the front doorbell chimed.
It was a sharp, cheerful sound that felt entirely wrong in the heavy, terrifying atmosphere of the house.
Marco frowned. He glanced at the security monitor.
His face hardened.
He looked at me. "Go back upstairs, Claire. Now."
But before I could move, the front doors swung open. Marco hadn't locked the deadbolt yet.
A man walked into the foyer.
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He was wearing a sharp, tailored navy suit. His dark hair was slicked back, and he was carrying a beautifully wrapped silver gift box. He looked around the empty foyer, a bright, charismatic smile on his face.
"Hello, Marco," Adrian Bellini said cheerfully. "Sorry I'm late to the dinner. Traffic on the Kennedy was a nightmare."
