Chapter 10 - [THE BRIDE’S LAST CONFESSION]
Luca stared at the envelope.
“Vanessa slipped this into my pocket the night of the dinner?”
“Before she ran to the train station,” I said.
“She must have dropped it in your jacket when she took off her ring.”
Luca broke the seal.
He pulled out a single sheet of hotel stationery.
As he read it, the peaceful resolution we had just found began to crack.
“What does it say?” I asked, a knot forming in my stomach.
Luca’s voice was tight.
“‘Luca. If you are reading this, I am probably gone. Either my father killed me, or I ran. But there is one last thing Carlo lied about.’”
Luca stopped reading.
He looked up at me.
“Go on,” I urged.
“‘Carlo didn't just blackmail me into marrying you to get the ports,’” Luca read.
“‘He forced the marriage because of what is hidden under the floorboards in the old carriage house. If the syndicate council ever finds it, they won’t just kill Carlo. They will kill you, too. Burn the carriage house, Luca. Burn it to the ground.’”
The carriage house.
It was an old, abandoned stone building at the far edge of the estate grounds. It hadn't been used in fifty years. We weren't even allowed to clean it.
“Why would Carlo hide something there?” I asked.
“Because it’s the only building on the property that isn't wired with security cameras,” Luca said.
He dropped the letter on the desk.
He didn't grab a gun this time.
He grabbed a heavy flashlight from the drawer.
“Come with me,” he said.
We left the burning trash can in the study and walked out the back doors.
The sun had set. The estate grounds were plunged into deep, quiet darkness.
The only sound was our footsteps crunching on the gravel path.
We reached the carriage house.
The wooden doors were rotting, held shut by a rusted padlock.
Luca didn't bother finding a key.
He picked up a heavy river stone from the garden and smashed the padlock twice.
It broke open.
He pulled the heavy doors apart.
The smell of dust, mildew, and old motor oil hit us instantly.
Luca clicked on the flashlight.
The beam swept across old horse stalls, rusted farming equipment, and piles of rotting canvas.
“She said under the floorboards,” Luca murmured.
We walked to the center of the room.
The floor was made of thick, rough-hewn oak planks.
Luca crouched down, shining the light along the seams.
“Here,” he said.
One of the planks had deep scratch marks around the edges, as if it had been pried up repeatedly.
Luca dug his fingers into the gap and pulled.
The wood groaned, then snapped upward.
He moved his flashlight over the dark hole beneath the floor.
I gasped.
It wasn't drugs.
It wasn't money.
It was a steel lockbox.
But resting on top of the lockbox was a child’s backpack.
It was bright yellow, covered in cartoon stickers.
It looked no more than a few years old.
Luca reached down and pulled the backpack out.
He unzipped it.
Inside was a coloring book, a small stuffed bear, and a birth certificate.
Luca opened the folded paper.
He shined the light on the name.
Leo Bellini.
Mother: Vanessa Bellini.
The air left my lungs.
“Vanessa has a child?” I whispered.
Luca stared at the paper.
“She was seventeen when her sister died. She was twenty when she had this baby.”
He looked at the father’s name on the birth certificate.
The space was blank.
But below the birth certificate was a small stack of photographs.
Luca pulled them out.
They were pictures of a little boy, maybe four years old. Dark hair. Bright blue eyes.
He was playing in a park.
And in the background of every single photo... standing behind a tree, watching the boy... was Carlo Moretti.
Answer one.
Open two.
Carlo didn't blackmail Vanessa over her father’s diary.
He blackmailed her over her son.
“He took her baby,” I realized, feeling sick to my stomach.
“Carlo kidnapped her son to force her to marry you.”
Luca dropped the photos.
He reached into the hole and grabbed the steel lockbox.
It wasn't locked.
He flipped the lid open.
Inside were hundreds of financial transfer receipts.
Millions of dollars.
Moved from the Moretti syndicate accounts into a private offshore trust.
“Carlo was stealing from the syndicate,” Luca said, his voice deadly quiet.
“He was skimming millions. He used Vanessa to cover his tracks. He was going to pin the stolen money on her family once we were married.”
“Where is the boy, Luca?” I asked.
“If Carlo is going to New York... where is the child?”
Before Luca could answer, a shadow moved in the corner of the carriage house.
“He’s safe,” a rough voice said.
Luca whipped the flashlight toward the stalls.
Stepping out of the darkness was Matteo.
Luca’s head of security.
The man who was supposed to be driving Carlo to New York.
Matteo was holding a silenced pistol.
May you like
And it was pointed directly at us.
TITLE: THE GUARD DOG'S BITE
