Chapter 7 – THE SAFE IN THE STUDY

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Sir?”

“My father kept a private safe in his study,” Luca explained, gesturing down the long hallway. “He told me never to open it until the Bellini threat was handled. I think it’s time.”

He looked at the guests still lingering in the foyer.

“Daniel,” Luca called out. “Escort our guests to the ballroom. Serve the vintage champagne. The engagement is off, but we have justice to celebrate.”

As the guests filed away, murmuring in shock and awe, Luca led me, Sophie, and Teresa down the quiet, dimly lit corridor toward the master study.

The room smelled of old leather, cigars, and polished wood.

Luca walked behind the massive mahogany desk. He pressed a hidden button beneath the lip of the desk, and a heavy oil painting on the wall swung open, revealing a steel wall safe.

He quickly punched in a six-digit code.

The heavy door clicked and hissed open.

I held Sophie’s hand tightly. My heart was racing again. What else could possibly be hidden in this house?

Luca reached inside and pulled out a thick, sealed manila envelope.

He looked at the writing on the front.

His expression softened. He walked around the desk and handed the envelope directly to me.

“This has your name on it, Claire,” Luca said softly.

I took the envelope. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped it.

Across the front, in Don Moretti’s elegant handwriting, it read:

To Claire Bennett. For the future Mark died to protect.

I carefully broke the wax seal on the back.

I reached inside and pulled out a stack of documents.

The first was a legal contract.

I read the bold print at the top. My breath caught in my throat.

“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, looking up at Luca in shock. “This… this is a deed.”

“My father didn’t just put fifty thousand dollars into a frozen trust account for Sophie,” Luca explained quietly. “He knew that money might be tied up in litigation if Bellini ever found out. So he used his own personal funds to purchase something else for you.”

I looked back down at the paper.

It was the deed to a three-bedroom, brick house in a beautiful, quiet suburb on the North Side of Chicago.

And it was paid in full. Free and clear. In my name.

“Mom?” Sophie asked, leaning over my arm to look at the paper. “Is that a house?”

I couldn’t speak. I just nodded, tears spilling onto the legal document.

For eleven years, we had lived in a cramped, drafty, one-bedroom apartment above a noisy laundromat. I had slept on a pull-out couch so Sophie could have the bedroom.

“My father wanted you to have a safe place to raise her,” Luca said. “He secured the deed in a blind trust eight years ago. The taxes are prepaid for the next twenty years.”

I covered my mouth, sobbing uncontrollably.

Teresa stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me.

“You suffered so much, Claire,” Teresa whispered into my ear. “Let us take care of you now. You are family.”

But as I cried against Teresa’s shoulder, Sophie reached into the manila envelope again.

“Mom,” Sophie said softly. “There’s something else in here.”

I pulled back, wiping my eyes.

Sophie pulled out a smaller, white envelope.

Unlike the manila folder, this one wasn’t addressed in Don Moretti’s handwriting.

It was addressed in messy, familiar, block letters.

The handwriting I used to see on the grocery lists stuck to our refrigerator. The handwriting I used to see on the little love notes left on my pillow.

Mark’s handwriting.