Chapter 5 - The Man Listening From Outside
Luca crushed the transmitter beneath his shoe.
Then immediately regretted it.
He should have preserved it.
Anger had moved first.
Vanessa stared at the broken device.
“He was listening.”
“Yes.”
Emma looked toward the stairs.
“Could there be more?”
Luca turned to Daniel when he arrived ten minutes later.
“There will be.”
Security swept the mansion.
Three devices.
Wine cellar.
Library.
Guest office.
All recent.
All professionally placed.
One was inside a flower arrangement delivered that morning.
Vanessa’s engagement flowers.
Luca stared at the florist invoice.
“Who ordered these?”
Vanessa whispered:
“My mother.”
He looked at her.
“Did she know?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
Daniel approached.
“We found Nicholas’s car.”
“Where?”
“Parking garage on Clark.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“Inside.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Luca asked:
“Cameras?”
“Two men walked him out.”
“Faces?”
“One clear.”
Daniel handed over his phone.
Luca looked.
Marco DeLuca.
Fifty-one.
Gray suit.
No hurry.
No mask.
A man who wanted to be recognized.
Then Daniel swiped.
Second man.
Vanessa stopped breathing.
Luca looked at her.
“You know him.”
She whispered:
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My father’s chief of staff.”
Luca frowned.
“Robert Bellini’s?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Vanessa looked sick.
Luca understood before she did.
“This is not your brother’s debt.”
“What?”
“Not anymore.”
He showed her the photograph.
“DeLuca is working with your father.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why is your father’s man escorting Nicholas?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma stood quietly near the cellar wall.
Nobody had asked her to leave.
She noticed what everyone else was too close to see.
The auction inventory.
The private broker.
The rush.
The guest list.
The listening devices.
She looked at Vanessa.
“Did your father know you borrowed from DeLuca?”
Vanessa turned.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Emma hesitated.
Then:
“What if he does?”
Luca looked at her.
Emma continued.
“What if the debt was how they got close to you?”
Silence.
Vanessa stared.
Luca’s expression changed.
He picked up the photographs again.
Nicholas outside the Imperial.
Nicholas with DeLuca.
Nicholas in the parking garage.
Then one detail.
A timestamp.
The first photograph was not from last year.
It was from eighteen months earlier.
Before Vanessa claimed Nicholas borrowed anything.
Luca held it up.
“Your brother knew DeLuca before the debt.”
Vanessa whispered:
“He told me they met through gambling.”
“Maybe.”
Luca looked at Daniel.
“Pull Nicholas’s financials.”
Vanessa immediately said:
“No.”
Luca turned.
“He’s your brother.”
“Yes.”
“And he may be part of this.”
“No.”
“Vanessa.”
“He wouldn’t.”
Luca’s voice softened.
“You said the same thing about yourself twenty minutes ago.”
She stared.
That hurt.
Because it was true.
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
Then at Luca.
“We found a transfer.”
“To whom?”
Daniel hesitated.
“From Nicholas Bellini.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
“Recipient?”
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“Marco DeLuca.”
“When?”
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