[COMPLETED] I Served His Engagement Dinner While Hiding What His Fiancée Had Done

Vanessa recovered first.

“That proves nothing.”

Daniel lowered his phone.

“It proves someone used your brother’s old security code to place a call from Luca’s private study.”

“Nico hasn’t worked here in months.”

“Eight months,” Daniel said.

“Exactly.”

Vittorio Bellini looked at Luca. “My son had legitimate access when your companies shared technical staff during the network upgrade. Old credentials remain in systems all the time.”

Daniel’s expression hardened at the insult hidden inside the explanation.

“Not in mine.”

“Apparently in yours.”

Luca raised one hand before Daniel could answer.

“Where is Nico?”

Vanessa folded her arms.

“I don’t know.”

Her father looked at her.

It was a small glance, but I saw it.

So did Luca.

“You called him tonight,” Luca said.

Vanessa’s chin lifted. “He’s my brother.”

“At what time?”

“I don’t memorize my calls.”

Daniel checked his screen.

“Eight twelve. Eight twenty-four. Nine forty-one.”

Vanessa stared at him.

He gave a humorless smile.

“You’re using my home network.”

Vittorio stepped between them verbally before the room could turn uglier.

“Enough. If you believe a crime occurred, call the police. Otherwise, we are not going to stand here while your head of security interrogates my daughter.”

Luca looked at him.

“I already called them.”

The room changed.

Not because anyone shouted.

Because Vanessa stopped pretending she was merely offended.

Her hand tightened around the back of a chair.

“You called the police on me?”

“I reported forged documents, unauthorized use of my name, and an attempt to have my dog euthanized.”

“You reported your fiancée.”

“I reported what happened.”

For the first time, I understood why Luca could frighten people without raising his voice. He did not give Vanessa the emotional battle she wanted. He kept returning to facts.

Vittorio’s attorney stood.

“My clients will not answer further questions without counsel.”

“Fine.”

“We’ll also expect your household staff to preserve all records and refrain from defamatory statements.”

Luca glanced at me.

“Emma speaks for herself.”

The attorney looked surprised.

So was I.

Vittorio touched Vanessa’s arm.

“We’re leaving.”

Luca did not stop them.

At the doorway, Vanessa turned back.

Her eyes found me.

“You think he’s protecting you.”

I felt every person in the room waiting.

Vanessa smiled without warmth.

“He protects whatever makes him feel needed. Ask the last woman who confused that with love.”

Luca’s face went blank.

I did not know who she meant.

I did not ask.

Vanessa left with her father and attorney.

Daniel waited until the front door closed downstairs.

“Boss, we should freeze every credential connected to the Bellinis.”

“Do it.”

“And I want Nico found.”

“Find him. Don’t bring him here. Give his location to the police.”

Daniel nodded and left.

The room became very quiet.

I suddenly felt exhausted enough to fall asleep standing.

Luca looked at my shoulder.

“You need to go home.”

“So do you.”

“I live here.”

“That seems unfair.”

His mouth moved slightly.

Then he looked toward the empty doorway Vanessa had used.

“She was right about one thing.”

I should have known better than to ask.

“What?”

“I have made the mistake of thinking protection is the same as care.”

The words were not an invitation, so I did not step through them.

Instead, I picked up my handbag from the side table.

“I’m not asking you to protect me.”

“I know.”

“I’m asking you not to let her lie about me.”

“That I can do.”

“No.” I met his eyes. “You can tell the truth. That’s different.”

He held my gaze.

Then nodded.

“You’re right.”

It was nearly two in the morning when Daniel drove me to my mother’s apartment.

The reporter was gone.

My mother opened the door before I finished knocking.

She wore a robe over her nightgown and had the hospital bracelet still looped around one wrist because she had forgotten to cut it off.

Her face changed when she saw my bandage.

“What happened?”

I stepped inside.

For the next forty minutes, I told her almost everything.

I left out the part where I thought Bruno might die because saying it aloud made my chest tighten.

I left out Vanessa’s comment about Luca protecting women because he needed to feel needed.

And I left out the way Luca had looked when Bruno moved his tail.

Those details belonged somewhere else.

My mother listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she said, “You’re quitting.”

I blinked.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I need the job.”

“You needed the job yesterday.”

“I still need rent tomorrow.”

She pointed at my shoulder.

“No job that requires you to bleed through dinner is paying enough.”

I laughed despite myself.

“That isn’t normally in the job description.”

“Emma.”

“I’m not quitting tonight.”

“Why?”

Because Vanessa had tried to silence me.

Because Mrs. Carter and Daniel had believed me.

Because Bruno would come home to the estate and I wanted to see him walk through the door.

None of those were good financial reasons.

“I don’t know yet.”

My mother studied me.

“Then don’t confuse unfinished business with obligation.”

I slept on her sofa for three hours.

At seven, my phone rang.

It was Mrs. Carter.

“Bruno is coming home at ten.”

I sat upright.

“Is he all right?”

“The clinic says he can recover here if someone monitors him.”

“I’ll come.”

“Emma, you’re off duty.”

“I know.”

A pause.

Then Mrs. Carter said, “Come as a guest.”

I almost told her I did not think the Moretti estate had a category for guests who owned one good dress and knew where the silver polish was kept.

Instead, I showered and borrowed my mother’s pale blue sweater because it covered the bandage without pulling.

When I arrived, the front drive was crowded with vehicles.

Two police cars.

Daniel’s SUV.

A television van parked across the street.

And Vanessa’s white convertible, still sitting near the garage.

She had left in her father’s car.

Her things had not.

Inside, the mansion felt different.

The flowers from the engagement dinner remained everywhere, but staff were removing place cards and champagne glasses as if dismantling a stage after a failed performance.

Mrs. Carter met me near the kitchen.

“You look tired.”

“So do you.”

“I have seniority. Mine is distinguished.”

She handed me coffee.

I smiled.

Then I heard a commotion at the front entrance.

Bruno came home on a padded sling between Luca and a veterinary technician.

He was awake but groggy, his paws touching the marble for only a few seconds at a time.

I set down my coffee and went to him.

“Hey, old man.”

His cloudy eyes found me.

His tail moved.

The staff around us became very quiet.

Bruno leaned his head against my knee.

I crouched carefully.

“You caused a lot of trouble.”

Luca stood on the other side of him.

“No,” he said. “He revealed it.”

The veterinarian had ordered Bruno to rest in familiar surroundings, so we carried him to Luca’s study and settled him beside the fireplace.

The framed photograph of Luca’s mother had been returned from the kennel. Someone placed it on the bookshelf where Bruno could see it.

For nearly an hour, the house was peaceful.

Then Daniel entered.

He shut the study door behind him.

“We found Nico.”

Luca stood.

“Where?”

“At a hotel near O’Hare.”

“Did police speak to him?”

“They’re on the way.”

Daniel looked at me, uncertain.

Luca said, “Emma stays if she wants.”

I stayed.

Daniel continued.

“Nico’s car was recorded entering the estate service road yesterday at 7:56 p.m.”

I frowned.

“I never saw him.”

“He didn’t come through the house. He parked near the maintenance building.”

Luca’s voice went cold. “Who let him in?”

“His old vehicle tag still opened the outer service gate.”

Daniel looked furious with himself now.

“Between that and the old access code, I have two failures to explain.”

“Later,” Luca said. “What did Nico do?”

“We don’t know yet. But the camera outage started thirty-five minutes after he arrived.”

My mind returned to the west hall.

Vanessa leaving Luca’s study.

The call to the clinic.

The missing forty-seven minutes of video.

“Nico disabled the cameras,” I said.

“Maybe,” Daniel answered. “But that’s not the part you need to hear.”

He placed a tablet on the desk.

A still image showed Nico at a gas station convenience store at 7:42 the previous night.

He was buying cigarettes.

Beside him stood a woman in a black beaded cocktail dress.

I recognized her immediately.

“Celia Warren.”

The wedding publicist.

The same woman who had sent photographs from the dinner to a reporter and described me as obsessed with Luca.

Luca looked at the timestamp.

“She was at dinner.”

“So was Nico, apparently,” Daniel said, “just not inside the house.”

I tried to reconstruct the evening.

“Celia had stepped out shortly before the guests sat down.”

Mrs. Carter, who had entered silently with Bruno’s medication, nodded.

“She said she had a call with a florist.”

Daniel swiped to the next image.

Celia was outside the store, passing something small to Nico through the open passenger window of his car.

A rectangular black object.

Luca leaned closer.

“Is that one of our access fobs?”

“That’s what I think.”

Daniel’s anger had gone cold now.

“If Celia gave him a temporary staff fob, he could enter the maintenance corridor without using his old credential. He still would have needed knowledge of the camera system.”

“He had that,” Luca said.

“And she had access to the guest schedule,” I added. “She knew when everyone would be at dinner.”

Daniel looked at me.

“Yes.”

The picture did not prove who had called the clinic.

It did not prove who had disabled the cameras.

But it connected the person who had spread the story about me to the person whose old code had been used in Luca’s study.

That was no longer gossip.

It was coordination.

Luca looked toward the fire where Bruno slept with his blue blanket tucked under his chin.

Then he turned back to Daniel.

“Find out what Celia was paid for besides the wedding.”