Chapter 3 - The Key Inside the False Belly

Marcello closed the dressing-room door.

The music from the ballroom became a distant vibration beneath the floor.

Bianca remained near the doorway.

“Open the dress,” Marcello said.

Her face hardened.

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re pregnant, prove that Lily misunderstood what she saw.”

Francesca immediately stepped between them.

“No. Not like that.”

Marcello looked at his sister.

She was right.

Bianca’s body was not evidence he had the right to demand in a locked room.

So he changed the question.

“Call your doctor.”

Bianca crossed her arms.

“At nine o’clock at night?”

“You told me he was attending the gala.”

Silence.

Marcello remembered the invitation himself.

Dr. Aldo Caruso had been seated at Table Seven.

Bianca looked toward the door.

That was answer enough.

Marcello called his security chief.

“Find Dr. Caruso. Quietly.”

Bianca’s composure cracked.

“This is humiliating.”

“No,” Marcello said. “Humiliating is discovering that a three-year-old may know more about my child than I do.”

Francesca examined the silicone belly without lifting it.

“There’s stitching here.”

Along the inner lining was a narrow hand-sewn pocket.

It was empty.

Lily leaned against her mother’s leg.

“The key was in there.”

Marcello asked, “What did it look like?”

“Gold.”

“Big or small?”

“Small.”

“Anything on it?”

Lily thought very hard.

Then she drew a shape in the air with one finger.

“Like a little crown.”

Marcello went still.

There were hundreds of keys in the Moretti estate.

Only four carried the old Moretti crown.

Three were kept in a secure cabinet.

The fourth opened the private family archive on the west side of the second floor.

The archive contained no jewels.

No cash.

Nothing a normal thief would want.

It contained contracts.

Trust documents.

Original ownership records.

Sealed wills.

And files that could change control of the Moretti companies overnight.

Marcello walked out of the dressing room.

Bianca followed him.

“Where are you going?”

He did not answer.

At the end of the west corridor, the old archive door stood behind a carved walnut panel.

Marcello pressed his thumb to the modern scanner.

The light flashed green.

Then he saw something that should not have been possible.

The mechanical lock beneath the scanner was already turned.

Someone had used the old crown key.

Marcello opened the door.

Rows of dark shelves disappeared into the temperature-controlled room.

Nothing looked disturbed.

That was worse.

A careless thief would have left a mess.

Someone who knew exactly what they wanted would leave almost nothing.

Marcello crossed to the fireproof cabinet containing succession records.

The cabinet was closed.

He entered the code.

Inside were six folders.

One space was empty.

His breathing slowed.

Francesca arrived behind him.

“What’s missing?”

Marcello stared at the empty slot.

“A draft agreement.”

“What agreement?”

“The one Victor prepared for tonight.”

Victor Santoro was the family attorney.

He had spent two weeks preparing a revised succession document because Bianca was supposedly pregnant.

If Marcello had signed it after announcing their engagement, a large block of family voting shares would eventually be placed into a custodial structure for his first child.

Francesca understood immediately.

“Whoever took it knew it existed.”

“Yes.”

Bianca appeared in the doorway.

“I didn’t take anything.”

Marcello looked at her stomach.

Then at the empty slot.

“Where is the key?”

“I don’t have a key.”

Lily tugged Francesca’s sleeve.

“She does.”

Bianca’s eyes snapped toward her.

Lily pointed at Bianca’s silver evening bag.

“She put it in there.”

Bianca grabbed the bag before anyone else could.

Too fast.

Marcello’s security chief entered the corridor at that exact moment.

His expression was grim.

“Dr. Caruso isn’t at Table Seven.”

“Where is he?”

“He left the estate seventeen minutes ago.”

Marcello turned to Bianca.

Her face had lost its color.

Then the security chief added one more thing.

“And nineteen seconds of upstairs camera footage were deleted.”

Marcello looked toward the ceiling camera above the archive.

“By whom?”

The security chief hesitated.

“An administrator account.”

Marcello knew exactly how many people had that level of access.

Three.

Himself.

His security chief.

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And the family attorney.

Victor Santoro.