Chapter 3 - BLOOD BENEATH THE MARBLE
The Moretti mansion contained twelve bedrooms, three kitchens, a chapel, two libraries, a wine cellar large enough to supply a restaurant, and seven rooms that did not appear on the architectural plans.
Alessandro knew all of them.
Or believed he did.
By midnight, he discovered an eighth.
Gabriel found it while following security footage of the two men who had seized Rosa.
They had dragged her through the lower service corridor toward the old laundry rooms.
Then the cameras ended.
One guard emerged eleven minutes later.
The other did not.
“Who are they?” Alessandro asked.
Gabriel enlarged the footage.
“Carlo Ventresca and Peter Neri.”
Alessandro knew both.
Carlo had worked estate security for nine years.
Peter’s father had served Alessandro’s father.
“Who assigned them tonight?”
Gabriel checked the roster.
“Luca.”
Alessandro said nothing.
Lily sat on a leather chair inside the security room wrapped in Gabriel’s suit jacket. Someone had found her missing shoe. She refused to put it on.
Her eyes stayed on Alessandro.
Mama?
He signed back.
Finding.
Lily hugged Hopper tighter.
Gabriel turned toward the wall of monitors.
“We searched the lower floor.”
“Search it again.”
“We did.”
“Then break walls.”
Gabriel understood the order literally.
Ten minutes later, a maintenance supervisor found old plumbing records indicating a sealed storage space behind the wine cellar.
The wall was not solid.
It concealed a door covered in matching stone.
Alessandro reached it first.
Gabriel stopped him.
“Let my men go in.”
“No.”
“Boss.”
“She trusted me to find her mother.”
Gabriel looked toward Lily, who had been left upstairs with Rachel Kim, the mansion’s nurse.
Then he stepped aside.
Alessandro opened the concealed door.
The smell hit him immediately.
Dust.
Bleach.
Blood.
Rosa sat on the floor against a concrete wall, wrists bound in front of her.
Her lip was split.
One side of her face had already begun swelling.
Peter Neri lay unconscious several feet away.
Carlo stood over him holding a pistol.
When Alessandro entered, Carlo turned.
His face collapsed.
“Boss.”
Alessandro’s gaze moved from Carlo to Rosa.
“What happened?”
Carlo lowered the gun.
“She fought.”
Rosa stared at Alessandro.
Fear and fury burned together in her eyes.
Carlo took one step forward.
“Boss, she heard something she wasn’t supposed to hear.”
“She’s deaf?”
Carlo blinked.
“No.”
Alessandro’s voice grew colder.
“Then explain why she’s tied to my wall.”
Carlo swallowed.
“Luca said she was stealing.”
Rosa jerked forward.
“That’s a lie.”
Alessandro did not look away from Carlo.
“What did she steal?”
“Jewelry.”
“Where is it?”
Carlo hesitated.
“We hadn’t searched her yet.”
“So you kidnapped an employee, brought her into a hidden room, struck her, and planned to search her later?”
Carlo’s breathing changed.
Peter groaned on the ground.
Rosa lifted her bound wrists.
“He tried to make me sign something.”
Alessandro looked at her.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I refused.”
“Where is it?”
Rosa pointed toward the floor.
A folded document lay near Peter.
Gabriel picked it up.
He read the first paragraph.
His face darkened.
“What?”
Gabriel handed it to Alessandro.
The document was a confession.
Rosa Delgado admitted stealing a diamond bracelet belonging to Vivian Duca.
She admitted threatening Vivian when confronted.
She admitted attempting to extort money from members of the household.
The signature line was blank.
Alessandro looked at Carlo.
“Who wrote this?”
Carlo’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Alessandro took one step closer.
“Choose your next answer carefully.”
Carlo finally whispered, “Luca.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
Alessandro crouched and cut the bindings around her wrists with a folding knife.
She pulled away reflexively.
He stopped.
“You’re safe.”
Her laugh came out bitter.
“In this house?”
The words landed.
Alessandro lowered his hand.
“You’re right.”
Rosa looked at him.
“My daughter.”
“She’s safe.”
“Where?”
“Security room.”
Rosa tried to stand.
Her knees buckled.
Alessandro caught her.
“Don’t.”
“Take me to Lily.”
“You’re hurt.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know.”
That made her look at him.
“I promised her I would find you.”
Rosa stared.
“She talked to you?”
“In sign.”
Something changed in her face.
“You understand ASL?”
“Enough.”
“Why?”
Alessandro looked away for the first time.
“My sister was deaf.”
Rosa said nothing.
He stood.
“Gabriel, get Rosa upstairs. Quiet route.”
Rosa grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He looked down.
“What?”
“They will know I’m alive.”
“Good.”
“No.”
Her grip tightened.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
Rosa looked at Carlo.
“Luca didn’t only ask them to make me confess.”
Carlo’s face changed.
Alessandro caught it.
“What else?”
Rosa spoke before Carlo could.
“He said if I didn’t sign, they were supposed to make my disappearance look like I left voluntarily.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“And the kid?”
Rosa looked sick.
“They said Lily would be sent somewhere.”
Alessandro went completely still.
“Where?”
Rosa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Carlo stepped backward.
“Boss, I never agreed to hurt the child.”
Alessandro turned toward him.
“You agreed to take her mother.”
“I had orders.”
“From Luca.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know everything.”
Alessandro closed the distance.
“You know enough.”
Carlo’s knees weakened.
“Luca said the maid saw something that could destroy the family.”
“What?”
Carlo looked at Rosa.
Then Alessandro.
“A relationship.”
Alessandro almost laughed.
“Vivian and Luca?”
Carlo swallowed.
“Yes.”
“That destroys a marriage arrangement. It does not explain attempted murder.”
Carlo’s face emptied.
Alessandro saw it.
“There’s more.”
Carlo said nothing.
Alessandro’s voice dropped.
“What else did Luca say?”
Carlo whispered, “He said if you survived tonight, everything was finished.”
Rosa turned.
“Survived?”
Alessandro looked at her.
For the first time, she noticed the crystal glass was gone.
Her eyes narrowed.
“What happened?”
“Lily stopped me from drinking poisoned wine.”
Rosa’s face drained.
“My daughter?”
“She saw Vivian put something into my glass.”
Rosa covered her mouth.
Alessandro continued questioning Carlo.
“Who supplied the poison?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who planned it?”
“Luca and Vivian.”
“Anyone else?”
Carlo hesitated.
That hesitation saved his life and endangered someone else’s.
“Your uncle.”
Alessandro’s expression changed.
“Matteo?”
Carlo nodded.
“The three of them have been meeting for months.”
Alessandro’s uncle Matteo Moretti had helped raise him after his father died.
He had taught Alessandro how to shoot.
How to recognize a lie.
How to never drink from a glass he had left unattended.
The irony was almost insulting.
Gabriel cursed quietly.
Alessandro looked at Rosa.
“You saw Vivian and Luca together.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Matteo?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything?”
Rosa thought.
“Vivian said Miguel’s name.”
Everything stopped.
“What?”
“My husband.”
“You’re sure?”
Rosa stared at him.
“I haven’t heard anyone in this house say my husband’s name in eighteen months.”
Alessandro stepped closer.
“What exactly did you hear?”
“They were in your study yesterday afternoon. I was polishing outside. Vivian said, ‘The Delgado problem should have stayed buried with Miguel.’”
Alessandro’s blood went cold.
Rosa continued.
“I thought maybe I imagined it.”
“You didn’t.”
“You know what happened to him?”
“No.”
But Alessandro knew something worse.
Miguel Delgado had died on a construction project owned by Moretti Development.
The accident report had crossed Alessandro’s desk.
Routine fatality.
Worker entered an unsafe area.
Family compensated.
Case closed.
Except Alessandro had never reviewed the original investigation himself.
Luca had.
Rosa read his face.
“You know something.”
“I know the company was mine.”
Her eyes filled with fury.
“Your company told me my husband fell.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“By who?”
Alessandro already knew.
He looked toward Carlo.
Carlo looked at the floor.
“Luca handled the file.”
Rosa stared.
The room seemed to shrink around them.
Eighteen months of grief.
A closed coffin.
A daughter growing up without her father.
A settlement signed because Rosa had believed she had no power.
Alessandro turned toward Gabriel.
“Pull every file on Miguel Delgado.”
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
“All internal records?”
“All of them.”
“And Luca?”
Alessandro looked at the hidden room.
Then at Rosa’s bruised face.
“Let him believe the plan worked.”
Rosa stared.
“What are you going to do?”
Alessandro’s eyes became cold again.
“The same thing they tried to do to me.”
She frowned.
“Poison them?”
“No.”
He looked toward the mansion above them, where hundreds of guests still believed they were celebrating an engagement.
May you like
“I’m going to let them drink their own lie until they choke on it.”
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