Chapter 2 - THE PLANE TICKET
Nobody moved to help her.
Victoria stepped backward, her designer heels clicking frantically against the hardwood floor.
She pulled her expensive leather handbag tight against her chest.
“You have no right,” she hissed.
Her voice cracked.
The sophisticated, untouchable woman from five minutes ago was gone.
Now, she just looked like a cornered animal.
Alessandro didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.
He simply looked at the two men standing by the dining room doors.
Rocco, his head of security, stepped forward. A man built like a concrete wall.
“Miss Bellini,” Rocco said, holding out his massive hand. “The bag.”
“Alessandro, please,” Victoria pleaded, her eyes darting around the table.
Forty wealthy guests watched her in absolute, terrified silence.
They were witnessing the end of a dynasty.
Alessandro remained standing. His dark eyes were empty of any affection he might have once held for her.
“If you make Rocco take it from you,” Alessandro said quietly, “you will not leave this room walking.”
Victoria swallowed hard.
Her hands shook violently as she slowly extended the bag.
Rocco took it.
He didn’t hand it to Alessandro. He unclasped the gold latch and turned the bag upside down over the pristine white tablecloth.
Everything spilled out.
A gold compact mirror. A tube of red lipstick. A set of keys.
And two other things.
A heavy, blue envelope.
And a small rectangular piece of cardstock.
Alessandro reached for the cardstock first. He turned it over.
It was a plane ticket.
First-class. One way.
From Boston to Geneva.
The flight was scheduled to depart at two o’clock in the morning.
Tonight.
“You were leaving,” Alessandro said. It wasn’t a question.
Victoria’s face was the color of chalk.
Answer One: Victoria was never planning to marry him. The wedding was a cover for her escape.
But why tonight?
Alessandro picked up the blue envelope.
He opened it, pulling out a stack of folded documents.
I watched his eyes scan the pages.
The silence in the room was so thick it felt like I was choking.
Sofia squeezed my hand. Her small fingers were cold. I squeezed back, keeping her tucked slightly behind my apron.
Alessandro’s jaw tightened. A vein pulsed near his temple.
“Shipping manifests,” Alessandro read aloud. “Security codes for the southern ports. Bank routing numbers for my offshore accounts.”
He dropped the papers onto the spilled lipstick.
“You were selling me to the highest bidder.”
Guests gasped. A few men at the table instinctively reached for their suit jackets.
Victoria shook her head, tears spilling over her mascara.
“I had to,” she sobbed. “He made me do it.”
Alessandro ignored her excuse. He looked down at the pile of belongings on the table.
And that was when I saw it.
Hidden beneath the blue envelope was a small, faded photograph.
It didn’t belong in a rich woman’s purse. It was old. The edges were frayed.
Alessandro pushed the envelope aside and picked up the photograph.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then, slowly, he turned his head and looked directly at me.
“Clara,” he said.
My breath caught. “Yes, sir.”
He held the photograph out.
“Do you know who this is?”
I hesitated. I let go of Sofia’s hand and stepped closer to the table.
I looked at the small, glossy square.
My heart slammed against my ribs. The air left my lungs.
It was a picture of a woman standing in front of a modest brick house. She was wearing a yellow sundress, smiling warmly at the camera.
She looked exactly like me.
Because she was my mother.
My mother, who had died ten years ago in what the police called a tragic hit-and-run accident.
“That’s my mother,” I whispered.
The entire room seemed to lean forward.
Open One: Why did the fiancée of a mafia boss have a ten-year-old photograph of a maid’s dead mother in her escape bag?
Alessandro turned to Victoria.
“Explain,” he demanded.
Victoria wiped her face, her eyes flashing with a sudden, vicious cruelty.
She looked at me. Not with fear anymore. But with triumph.
“Did you really think it was a coincidence, Clara?” Victoria laughed, a bitter, ugly sound. “Did you think you just got lucky finding a job at this estate when you were desperate for money?”
I stepped back. “What are you talking about?”
Reversal: Victoria hadn’t ignored me because I was a maid. She had known exactly who I was the entire time.
“Your mother worked for my family,” Victoria sneered. “She was a nurse. She took care of my grandfather. And she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”
I shook my head. “My mother worked at a hospital. She didn’t know you.”
“She knew enough to get herself run off the road,” Victoria snapped.
My vision blurred. Ten years of grief and unanswered questions suddenly crashed down on me.
“You killed her,” I choked out.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Victoria defended quickly. “But my family did. And when you started asking questions around the old neighborhood last year, we needed to keep an eye on you.”
She pointed a manicured finger at me.
“I brought you into this house, Clara. I convinced the agency to place you here. So I could watch you.”
Alessandro stepped between us, shielding me from her gaze.
“Take her to the basement,” Alessandro ordered Rocco. “She doesn’t leave this property.”
Rocco grabbed Victoria by the arm.
She struggled, her heels scraping the floor.
“You think you’ve won, Clara?” Victoria screamed as Rocco dragged her toward the door.
I stood frozen.
“You think you saved your family tonight?” she yelled, her voice echoing through the massive dining hall.
May you like
Rocco pulled her into the hallway, but her final words sliced through the air like a knife.
“Your father isn’t dying of a natural illness, Clara! We’ve been poisoning his water supply for six months!”
