Chapter 2 – THE ROSARY FOUND INSIDE THE FIANCÉE’S PURSE

Vanessa’s face lost every drop of color. She looked like a ghost standing in her expensive red silk gown.

“That’s a lie!” Vanessa shrieked, her voice pitching so high it cracked. She pointed a trembling finger at me. “She’s lying, Luca! The maid is trying to frame me because I threatened to fire her! I have never seen that rosary in my life!”

Luca looked at the heavy silver beads resting in my shaking palm. Then, he looked at his fiancée.

The chilling calm he had maintained since the dinner began was finally beginning to fracture.

“That rosary belonged to my mother,” Luca said, his voice thick with raw emotion. “She gave it to Sofia the day before she died. Sofia never took it off. Not even to shower.”

Vanessa took a step backward, bumping into the edge of the dining table. “Luca, please. You can’t believe this girl over the woman you’re going to marry.”

“Where did you find it, Hannah?” Luca demanded, ignoring Vanessa entirely.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. I thought of my mother, recovering from surgery across town, completely dependent on the paycheck I brought home. By speaking up, I was destroying my only source of income. But looking at the tears running down Rosa’s wrinkled cheeks, I knew I couldn’t stay quiet.

“Yesterday afternoon, sir,” I began, my voice trembling but clear. “After Sofia and the little boy left with Matteo, Mrs. Bellini ordered me to clean the downstairs guest room where they had been waiting.”

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to look directly at Vanessa.

“But when I opened the door, Mrs. Bellini was already inside,” I continued. “She was tearing the cushions off the sofa. She looked frantic. I watched her find that silver rosary wedged between the couch cushions. She looked at it, smiled, and dropped it into her black leather purse.”

“You spying little rat,” Vanessa hissed, lunging toward me.

Before she could take two steps, Marco, the massive head of security, stepped out from the shadows and grabbed Vanessa by the upper arm, stopping her dead in her tracks.

“Don’t touch her,” Luca warned, his voice vibrating with lethal intent.

Luca walked slowly toward Vanessa. He stopped inches from her face.

“My sister never took that rosary off,” Luca repeated softly. “If it was wedged in the sofa cushions, it means she fought back when someone grabbed her. And if you hid it… it means you knew.”

Matteo stepped forward, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “Luca, think about this. Why would Vanessa hurt Sofia? They barely know each other.”

“Because Sofia wasn’t coming to see me about you, Matteo,” Luca realized, the devastating truth dawning on his face. “She was coming to warn me about Vanessa.”

Vanessa let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. “Warn you about what? That I love you?”

“Rosa,” Luca said, turning to the elderly nanny. “Yesterday. What exactly did Sofia say about Vanessa before she was taken away?”

Rosa wiped her eyes with a tissue. “Sofia was crying, sweetheart. She said she had been trying to call your private phone for six months, but her calls kept getting blocked. She said she finally hired a private investigator in Boston to find out why you were ignoring her.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “I never received a single call.”

“I know,” Rosa wept. “The investigator discovered that someone had hacked your personal phone records, Luca. Someone had been intercepting your emails and redirecting your calls. Sofia found out who paid the investigator to bury the file.”

Rosa pointed a shaking finger directly at Vanessa.

“It was her family,” Rosa whispered. “The Bellini family has been isolating you for a year, Luca. They wanted to make sure you had no family left to protect you when the wedding papers were signed.”

The dining room went dead silent.

Vanessa wasn’t marrying Luca out of love. She was marrying him for a hostile takeover of the Moretti empire, and she had spent the last year systematically cutting off anyone who could expose her.

“You intercepted her calls,” Luca said, staring at his fiancée with utter disgust. “And when Sofia showed up yesterday to expose you, you had Matteo drag her away.”

Matteo’s face tightened. “I didn’t hurt her, Luca. I swear to God. I just drove her to a hotel.”

“Which hotel?” Luca roared, the sudden explosion of volume making everyone in the room jump.

Matteo swallowed hard. “The Grand Plaza. Under the name Smith.”

Luca turned to Marco. “Send a team to the Grand Plaza. Now.”

Marco nodded and pulled out his radio, stepping out into the hallway to issue the orders.

For ten agonizing minutes, nobody moved. The heavy tension in the room was suffocating. I stood near Rosa, holding the old woman’s trembling hand, praying the little boy with brown hair was safe.

Finally, Marco stepped back into the dining room. His face was grim.

“Boss,” Marco said heavily. “The team checked the Grand Plaza. There is no reservation under Smith. The front desk hasn’t seen anyone matching Sofia or the boy’s description.”

Matteo’s eyes widened in genuine panic. “That’s impossible! I dropped them off there myself! I gave her a thousand dollars in cash!”

“You’re lying,” Luca snarled, grabbing his adopted brother by the collar of his expensive suit and slamming him against the mahogany wall paneling. “Where is my sister?!”

“I’m not lying!” Matteo gasped, struggling against Luca’s iron grip. “I swear on my life, Luca! I dropped them off! I didn’t want any part of Vanessa’s plan to hurt them!”

Luca froze. He slowly turned his head to look at Vanessa.

Vanessa wasn’t panicking anymore.

A slow, wicked smile spread across her beautiful face. She smoothed down the front of her red silk dress and looked at Matteo with absolute contempt.

“You always were a coward, Matteo,” Vanessa sneered.

She opened her small evening bag—the same bag where she had hidden her own diamond bracelet earlier—and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper.

She threw it onto the dining table.

“You’re right, Luca,” Vanessa smiled coldly. “Matteo didn’t hurt them. Because after he dropped them off at the hotel, I had my men pick them up.”

I looked down at the piece of paper on the table.

It was a train ticket receipt.

But it wasn’t for a passenger train. It was a receipt for a private freight car heading toward the abandoned shipping yards.

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