Chapter 3 - What His Mother Sewed Beneath the Blue Flowers

Luca took his mother’s dress into the study himself.

Nobody was allowed to touch it.

Not Vanessa.

Not Arturo Bellini.

Not even the security team.

Only me.

I stood beside the enormous walnut desk while Luca placed the gown carefully across a leather sofa.

Isabella Moretti arrived twelve minutes later.

She was Luca’s younger sister.

Thirty-one.

Dark hair.

Soft brown eyes.

And six months away from the wedding their mother had saved the dress for.

When she saw the torn hem, she stopped in the doorway.

“No.”

Luca walked toward her.

“Bella—”

“No.”

Her voice broke.

She touched the lace.

Then she looked at Vanessa.

“What did you do?”

Vanessa folded her arms around herself.

“I made a terrible mistake.”

Isabella laughed once.

There was no humor in it.

“A mistake is spilling wine on a dress.”

She pointed toward the missing lace.

“You cut our mother apart.”

Arturo Bellini stepped forward.

“That is enough.”

Luca’s security immediately moved between him and Isabella.

Arturo’s face darkened.

“This is becoming theatrical.”

Luca looked at him.

“You are free to leave the room.”

Arturo glanced toward the front hall.

“But not the property?”

“Not with anything that belongs to my family.”

I looked down at the blue flower.

“I need very small scissors,” I said.

Isabella turned to me.

“You know how to open it without damaging the embroidery?”

“I think so.”

“My mother was a seamstress,” I explained. “She taught me how hidden pockets were sewn into formal gowns.”

Luca sent someone for a sewing kit.

My hands were shaking when it arrived.

I used the smallest blade to lift three stitches from the back of the neckline.

The flower loosened.

Something metallic slid against the satin.

A tiny brass key dropped into my palm.

Nobody spoke.

The key was old.

One side was engraved with the number 317.

Luca stared at it.

“Locker?”

Arturo Bellini suddenly looked toward the door.

Marco noticed.

“So you recognize it.”

“I recognize nothing.”

Vanessa covered her face.

“Dad.”

“Be quiet.”

Luca took the key from my hand.

“Vanessa. Where is the letter?”

She looked at her father.

He gave her a warning glance.

That was the wrong thing to do.

She saw it.

So did Luca.

Vanessa walked to a chair and sat down.

“I found it three weeks ago.”

“Where?”

“In the cedar chest. Under the dress.”

“What did it say?”

She rubbed her hands together.

“It was from your mother to you.”

Luca went very still.

“I opened it because I saw my father’s name through the paper.”

Isabella whispered, “You opened a letter our dead mother wrote to Luca?”

Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears.

“I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds exactly like what you did.”

Vanessa looked at Luca.

“The letter said that if you ever found the little wooden box, you were supposed to take the brass key from the dress and go to a private vault at First Lakeshore Bank.”

Arturo’s face changed.

Only for a second.

But I saw it.

Fear.

Real fear.

Luca did too.

“What is in the vault?”

“I don’t know,” Vanessa said.

Arturo laughed sharply.

“There is no vault.”

Vanessa turned toward him.

“You told me there was nothing left.”

“Because there is nothing.”

“You made me destroy her things!”

The room went silent.

Arturo stared at his daughter.

Vanessa stood.

“You said if Luca found the papers before our wedding, everything would be ruined.”

Luca’s voice was almost a whisper.

“What would be ruined?”

Vanessa began crying.

“The merger.”

Isabella looked confused.

“What merger?”

Luca did not.

His eyes remained on Arturo.

Moretti Holdings had been negotiating a private acquisition of Bellini Logistics for months.

The wedding had made the deal look like a union between two old Chicago families.

At least that was what the newspapers said.

Vanessa continued.

“My father said your mother had hidden documents that made it look like Bellini Logistics owed money to the Moretti family.”

Arturo stepped toward her.

“Vanessa.”

“No.”

She shook her head.

“You told me they were fake.”

“They are.”

“Then why did you tell me to burn them?”

Arturo stopped.

Luca looked at Marco.

“Find the wooden box.”

Marco left immediately.

For the next twenty minutes, nobody spoke much.

The engagement guests were escorted into the ballroom and offered transportation home.

The photographers were asked to surrender copies of anything they had photographed after the argument began.

Vanessa sat near the fireplace.

Arturo stood by the window.

Isabella held her mother’s dress.

I stayed beside her.

Then Marco returned.

He was carrying a dark wooden box with a brass clasp.

Vanessa stood so quickly her chair scraped across the floor.

“Where was it?”

“In the delivery truck.”

The driver had hidden it beneath the passenger seat after Vanessa told him to destroy it separately.

Marco placed the box on Luca’s desk.

It was locked.

Luca held up the tiny brass key.

Number 317.

He inserted it into the box.

It did not fit.

Arturo smiled.

“Wrong key.”

Luca ignored him.

He opened the box by breaking the old brass clasp.

Inside were four envelopes.

A photograph.

A small black notebook.

And a bank card with one handwritten number.

317.

Isabella picked up the photograph.

It showed their mother standing outside First Lakeshore Bank.

Beside her was a younger Arturo Bellini.

And Luca’s late uncle Carlo.

On the back, Sofia Moretti had written six words.

THEY THINK I DON’T KNOW.

Luca opened the first envelope.

His mother’s handwriting filled three pages.

He read the first line.

Then stopped.

His face changed completely.

Isabella touched his arm.

“What does it say?”

He handed her the page.

I watched her read.

Her lips parted.

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Then she looked at Arturo Bellini.

“My mother says you stole from me.”