Chapter 3 - THE ROSARY IN HIS POCKET
The dining room was so quiet I could hear the rain tapping against the massive arched windows.
The man sitting beside Vanessa’s father didn't move. His name was Victor. He was introduced as a silent partner in the Bellini family’s shipping business. He wore an expensive gray suit, but his eyes were entirely cold.
“Luca, this is absurd,” Victor finally said, his voice smooth but tense. “Your mother is clearly unwell. The dementia is progressing just as Vanessa warned us it would.”
Teresa didn't flinch.
She stood taller, leaning slightly on my arm for support.
“I do not have dementia,” Teresa said, her voice ringing clearly across the crystal and fine china. “I remember the smell of your cologne. I remember the mud on your shoes. And I remember what you took from my husband’s bedside table.”
Luca stepped toward Victor.
The sheer, suffocating power radiating from the Moretti boss was terrifying.
“What did you take, Victor?” Luca asked softly.
Victor stood up, adjusting his silk tie.
“I won't be interrogated at a dinner party by a confused old woman and a maid,” Victor sneered. He looked at Vanessa’s father. “Richard, we’re leaving.”
“Nobody is leaving,” Luca said.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
The two massive security guards stationed by the mahogany double doors immediately crossed their arms and blocked the exit.
Vanessa panicked.
She ran to Luca, grabbing his lapels.
“Darling, please! Victor is a respected businessman. You’re humiliating my family over a hallucination!”
Luca looked down at her hands, then slowly peeled them off his chest.
“My father died of a sudden heart attack,” Luca said, his eyes never leaving Victor. “His doctor said there were no warning signs. The only thing missing from his room was his wooden rosary.”
My breath caught.
A rosary.
Teresa had talked about that rosary for months. She told me her late husband, Antonio, carved it himself when he was a young man in Italy. He never slept without it on his nightstand.
“He didn't just take the rosary,” Teresa whispered, her voice trembling with decades of suppressed grief. “He took what was inside the hollow cross.”
Victor’s calm demeanor finally cracked. A single bead of sweat formed on his temple.
“He’s lying,” Vanessa shouted, her voice shrill. “Luca, this is a setup!”
I looked closely at Victor as he backed away from the table.
His suit jacket flared open slightly.
Something was dangling from the inside breast pocket.
A dark, polished wooden bead on a worn string.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
Everyone turned to me.
I pointed a shaking finger at Victor’s coat.
“He has the rosary.”
Victor’s hand shot to his chest, but he wasn't fast enough.
Luca closed the distance between them in two massive strides.
He didn't throw a punch. He grabbed Victor by the lapels of his expensive suit and slammed him against the dining room wall with bone-shattering force.
Crystal glasses rattled on the table.
Guests screamed and scrambled backward.
Luca reached into Victor’s pocket and pulled it out.
The dark, hand-carved wooden rosary.
Teresa let out a broken sob, burying her face in her hands.
“My Antonio,” she wept.
Luca stared at the wooden beads in his hand. His knuckles turned white.
He looked at Victor, his eyes pitch black.
“You were in my father's room,” Luca whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. “He didn't have a heart attack. You killed him.”
“No!” Victor choked out, struggling against Luca’s iron grip. “I didn't touch him! I swear on my life, Luca! I just went to retrieve the documents!”
“What documents?” Luca roared, pinning him harder against the silk wallpaper.
Vanessa let out a terrified cry.
“Victor, don't!” she screamed.
But Victor was suffocating.
“The shipping contracts!” Victor gasped. “Your father found out the Bellinis were bankrupt! He was going to cut Vanessa’s father out of the syndicate! I just went to get the proof he hid inside the hollow cross of the rosary!”
The entire room froze.
I looked at Vanessa.
Her beautiful, arrogant face was completely drained of color.
The answer was finally clear. The Bellini family wasn't wealthy. They were broke, desperate, and leaching off the Moretti empire. Vanessa hadn't isolated Teresa out of cruelty; she’d done it out of pure, unadulterated fear that the old woman would remember the truth before the wedding secured her financial future.
But the relief of the answer only opened a terrifying new question.
If Victor didn't kill Antonio Moretti... why did he die the exact same night Victor was in his room?
“If you didn't kill him,” Luca said, pressing his forearm against Victor’s throat, “why was he dead when my mother found him an hour later?”
Victor’s eyes widened in sheer panic.
He looked at Vanessa.
“Tell him!” Victor wheezed. “Tell him who else was in the house that night!”
Vanessa shook her head frantically, stepping backward until her spine hit the dining table.
“I don't know!” she cried. “I wasn't there!”
Before Luca could force the truth out of her, the heavy mahogany doors of the dining room crashed open.
The two security guards were shoved aside.
Standing in the doorway, drenched in rain, was a woman who looked exactly like Luca.
Sofia Moretti.
She was breathing heavily, holding a crumpled piece of paper in her hand.
Her eyes darted around the chaotic room until they landed on Luca.
“Let him go, Luca,” Sofia panted, stepping into the room.
Luca didn't release Victor.
“Sofia. What are you doing here?”
Sofia walked directly toward her brother.
She didn't look angry. She looked absolutely terrified.
“Because Vanessa didn't just hide Mom's cane to keep her quiet,” Sofia said, her voice shaking violently. “She hid it to stop Mom from finding what she put in my son's bedroom.”
She held up the crumpled piece of paper.
It was a child's drawing. A crude sketch of a house on fire.
May you like
But drawn over the flames in thick, adult handwriting was a single sentence.
“If you speak to Luca, the boy burns.”
