Chapter 3 - The Box at the Vacation House

Luca's former wife returned his call just after eight the following morning. I wasn't present for the conversation. Mrs. Carter later told me Luca had asked Daniel to arrange a quiet meeting with his attorney, and by lunchtime Luca himself explained the part that concerned my safety. His former wife was prepared to talk, but she wanted no visitors at her home and no contact through Vanessa's office.

Her name was Elena Ferraro. She had kept her own surname after the divorce and worked as an architect. Luca told me this because he'd asked whether I recognized her in any photographs beyond the one I'd brought him. I didn't. I knew only the woman in the cream-colored coat and the reason Vanessa wanted her deceived.

"Did you tell her about me?" I asked.

"I told her someone in the house was injured after overhearing a conversation about her. I didn't give her details you hadn't agreed to share."

It mattered that he'd asked. He needed Elena to understand the danger, but I didn't want my face, my name, or my employment discussed by people who barely knew me. After the previous night, the difference between being protected and being handled without permission felt important.

Luca met Elena that afternoon in the conference room of a small law office downtown. Daniel accompanied him only as far as the reception area. Luca's attorney, Jonah Price, joined them because Elena had insisted that anything relating to old family property should be documented carefully. She arrived carrying a narrow blue leather portfolio, not the photograph Mercer had taken of her outside the restaurant.

"You sounded worried on the phone," she told Luca. "Now I know why."

Elena explained that their vacation home had been largely undisturbed since the divorce. They had finally agreed last Tuesday to put it up for sale. After their restaurant meeting, she had begun sorting the ownership papers and stored belongings that would have to be addressed before the closing. Among the old records was a blue portfolio she'd once placed with the house documents during their marriage. It had belonged to Luca's late father, Vittorio Moretti.

Luca recognized the cover. He remembered his father using it for private business correspondence, but he had assumed it had been removed with the rest of Vittorio's archives after his death six years earlier. Elena had retained the box because it was stored among documents she was responsible for keeping with the jointly owned property. Neither of them had looked at its contents during the years they avoided the house.

"I found it when I checked the storage inventory," Elena said. "I didn't know what was inside when we met last Tuesday. I opened it afterward, because I needed to know whether any of those papers belonged in the sale."

She laid the portfolio on the table but kept her hand over it. Inside were several old correspondence sheets and a signed financing agreement involving a Bellini company. The original document was accompanied by a schedule of payments and an attached security acknowledgment. Elena had not brought the entire contents into public view. She had reviewed them with her own lawyer after recognizing the Bellini name.

"Vittorio advanced money to Bellini Development years ago," she said. "The document says part of the obligation was secured against revenue from a waterfront warehouse lease. I don't know whether the debt was eventually paid. But the original agreement doesn't belong in a box at our vacation house. It should have been accounted for in the Moretti records."

Luca didn't pretend to understand every provision at a glance. He remembered his father helping troubled business partners, but after Vittorio's death the family holding company's accounts had shown the Bellini obligation as settled. Luca had never personally handled the original agreement. Jonah asked Elena to keep the document protected while he compared it with the company's archived records. A signed note could establish an obligation; it could not by itself prove that nothing had been repaid.

"How did Vanessa know you had this?" Luca asked.

"I don't know that she did," Elena replied. "But someone contacted the property manager last week asking about the contents of an old archive box. The manager told me because I'm still on the ownership records."

That matched Daniel's inventory request. Elena showed Jonah a forwarded copy from the manager. It bore the same date as the request Daniel had recovered. Luca began to understand why Vanessa had ordered photographs of last Tuesday's restaurant meeting. She may have seen the meeting as an opportunity to make Elena's cooperation look like a betrayal or a renewed romance, while discouraging her from returning anything connected with the Moretti family.

Elena's expression changed when Luca explained the lie Mercer had been instructed to tell her. "An affair with Vanessa for five years?" she repeated. "That would mean you were involved with her while we were still married."

"We weren't," Luca said. "The story isn't true."

"I know there was no five-year affair," Elena answered. "But whoever planned that accusation wanted me angry enough to stop speaking to you."

For a moment, neither said anything. Their marriage had ended for reasons Luca did not volunteer, and Elena did not ask to revisit them. They had become capable of discussing the vacation house without reopening those injuries. Vanessa's plan depended on destroying even that limited trust.

Jonah asked about the chain of custody for the portfolio. Elena could show when the box had been listed among the property's stored items and when she had retrieved it after their recent meeting. She hadn't photographed every page before consulting counsel, but her lawyer had made a dated inventory and placed the originals in secure storage. Jonah arranged for the two legal offices to exchange certified copies and verify the old signatures and payment history independently.

Back at the mansion, I learned only what Luca felt he could share. He said Elena had found an old business document among the vacation home's records and that the Bellini name appeared on it. He did not show me figures or ask me to draw conclusions about finances I knew nothing about. Instead, he asked whether Vanessa had said anything about a warehouse, an old debt, or a signature while I was in the guest room.

"No," I answered. "She kept saying the photographs mattered. She said it would be too late if your former wife called you first."

That was the phrase Luca needed. I remembered it now because Vanessa had sounded impatient, not frightened, when she said it. She wasn't merely collecting photographs for jealousy. She had been trying to control the timing of a conversation between two people.

Daniel returned that evening with an appointment calendar from the mansion office. Vanessa had arranged a business dinner for the following Monday with representatives of Bellini Development. The meeting was connected with a waterfront hotel venture Luca had been considering for several months. It had previously been described as preliminary. Now the calendar showed a signing session, with a packet of documents already sent for review.

Luca called Jonah and asked him to retrieve the full packet, including attachments that had been circulated through Vanessa's office. If an old Bellini obligation remained unresolved, he wanted to know whether any proposed signature could affect it. Jonah agreed to review the papers before Luca attended the meeting.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

I watched Luca end the call from the doorway. He looked tired, but the uncertainty in his expression had changed. The story had begun with a photograph of him leaving a restaurant. Now there was an old document in a blue portfolio, a concealed archive request, and a signing date that Vanessa appeared eager to keep. Luca had not yet established whether they were connected.

By evening, Jonah called with one question. Among the documents for Monday's meeting was a release of historical claims. Why, he wanted to know, was that clause appearing in paperwork for a new hotel venture?