Chapter 7 - THE LAST PAGE
Luca slowly opened the ledger to the very end.
The handwriting here was erratic, rushed.
As Luca read it, the color completely drained from his face.
He looked at my mother. “Is this true?”
My mother nodded, crying softly. “I tried to protect both of you. The Bellinis didn’t just want your father’s money. They wanted to wipe out the entire bloodline. Your mother knew Vanessa’s father was planning to assassinate her next.”
I stood up, holding Leo behind my legs.
“What does it say?” I asked, my voice barely a croak.
Luca looked at me.
“My mother didn’t just hide Daniel,” he said softly. “She hid the true ownership of the Moretti estate. She transferred everything into a blind trust the day before she was killed.”
He turned the book around so I could see the ink.
“She left the estate to the one person who risked their life to save her children. To the woman who gave up her own future to raise Daniel.”
He pointed to my mother.
“Sarah, you own the Moretti estate. You have for twenty years.”
The room started to spin.
My mother, a retired housekeeper struggling to pay a $900 rent, was a billionaire.
“I didn’t want the money,” my mother sobbed. “I just wanted to keep Daniel safe. If I claimed the estate, the Bellinis would have found us. They would have killed Daniel. And they would have killed Emily.”
Everything clicked into place.
Vanessa hadn’t just wanted to marry Luca for his current wealth. She needed the ledger to find the blind trust and destroy it before the estate legally passed out of Luca’s hands and into ours.
She knew we were the rightful owners.
Suddenly, my mother’s cheap flip phone rang on the kitchen counter.
It was a restricted number.
Daniel stepped forward and answered it, putting it on speaker.
A chilling, raspy voice echoed through the small kitchen.
“Did you really think getting my daughter arrested would stop me, Luca?”
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It was Victor Bellini. Vanessa’s father.
“I have men outside the apartment building right now,” Victor said coldly. “Bring the ledger down, or we burn the building with the maid’s kid inside.”
