Chapter 5 – THE MASTER OF LIES

The voice echoed through the pitch-black hallway, cold and ancient.

Marcus Bellini.

I froze at the bottom of the servant’s staircase, pressing my back flat against the wall. The darkness was suffocating. The only light came from the faint glow of the city streetlamps filtering through the shattered stained-glass windows at the front of the house.

“My daughter is crying in the back of an ambulance, Emma,” Bellini’s voice drifted through the dark. “She has third-degree burns on her chest because a housemaid decided to play hero.”

I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move a muscle.

“I have men sweeping the upper floors right now,” he continued, his heavy footsteps clicking slowly against the marble foyer. “They will find Luca. They will find the boy. But I told them to save you for me.”

My fingers tightened around Luca’s cell phone. I had to get to the study. It was just down the hall, three doors to the left.

I took off my shoes, leaving them on the bottom step. In my stocking feet, I crept along the wall, feeling my way through the dark.

“Did Luca tell you why I’m here?” Bellini asked. “Did he tell you I killed his precious Caroline?”

I reached the first door. A guest bathroom.

“He’s a fool, Emma. A sentimental fool. He thinks this is about revenge for a broken heart.” Bellini laughed softly. “This is about business. The Moretti syndicate has been weak for years because Luca refuses to traffic in certain… commodities.”

I reached the second door. The library.

“I needed him out of the way,” Bellini said, his voice closer now. “But I couldn’t just shoot him. The families would go to war. I needed him to give up his empire willingly. And what breaks a man faster than losing the women he loves?”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

The women he loves. Plural.

I reached the third door. The study.

The door was slightly ajar. I slipped inside, closing it silently behind me.

The study was pitch black, but I knew the layout perfectly. I dusted it every Tuesday.

I crawled under the massive mahogany desk and felt my way up the wall behind it until my fingers brushed the heavy gilded frame of the landscape painting.

I pulled it down. It hit the carpet with a soft thud.

Behind it was the cold steel of a wall safe.

I pressed my ear to the keypad and typed the numbers Luca had given me. His wedding anniversary. 0-9-2-2.

The safe beeped quietly, and the heavy door clicked open.

I reached inside.

My fingers brushed against a thick, leather-bound book. The ledger.

I pulled it out, along with a thick manila envelope sitting beneath it.

I opened Luca’s phone. The screen cast a bright, glaring light into the dark room. I quickly turned the brightness down, but it was enough to see.

I opened the ledger. Page after page of names, dates, and offshore account routing numbers. Governors. Judges. Police chiefs.

This was it. The weapon that would destroy the Bellini family.

I opened the camera app and started taking clear, focused pictures of the pages.

Click. Click. Click.

My heart was racing so fast it physically hurt my chest.

Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the study burst open.

The beam of a high-powered flashlight swept across the room, illuminating the desk, the painting on the floor, and me.

“Found her,” a rough voice said.

Before I could move, two large men grabbed me by the arms, dragging me brutally to my feet. The ledger fell from my lap, scattering across the carpet.

The phone slipped from my sweaty fingers, landing face down.

“Bring her out,” a third voice commanded.

They dragged me out of the study and threw me onto the marble floor of the foyer.

The emergency backup lights flickered on, casting a dim, eerie glow over the destroyed mansion.

Standing over me, leaning on a silver-headed cane, was Marcus Bellini.

He was in his late sixties, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, looking completely untouched by the violence around him.

“Emma Sullivan,” he said, looking down at me with mild disgust. “You have caused me a great deal of inconvenience tonight.”

I pushed myself up onto my knees. “You’re going to prison.”

Bellini smiled. “Am I? Because right now, I’m standing in a dead man’s house, looking at a dead maid.”

He gestured to one of his men. “Go to the study. Get the ledger.”

The man nodded and walked down the hall.

Bellini looked back at me. “You fought very hard for a man who pays you fifteen dollars an hour. Why?”

“Because he’s a good father,” I spat. “And you’re a monster.”

Bellini chuckled. “A good father? Luca Moretti is a killer. Just like me. In fact, he’s the reason your mother is sitting in a wheelchair.”

I froze.

“What?”

Bellini leaned heavily on his cane, savoring my confusion.

“Did he never tell you, Emma? About the hit-and-run four years ago? The drunk driver who shattered your mother’s hip and left her for dead?”

My throat went dry. “The police never caught the driver.”

“Because the driver was Luca’s younger brother, Marco,” Bellini said smoothly. “Marco got drunk at a club, ran a red light, and destroyed your mother’s life. Luca covered it up. He bribed the cops, hid the car, and sent Marco to Europe.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“You’re lying,” I whispered.

“Am I?” Bellini asked. “Why do you think Luca hired you, Emma? Out of the goodness of his heart? He hired you out of guilt. He pays your salary to keep you close, to make sure you never dig into the accident.”

Tears blurred my vision. The man I had just risked my life for. The man I thought was honorable. He had protected the person who ruined my mother.

The thug returned from the study, holding the ledger and the manila envelope.

“Got it, boss. And I found this envelope in the safe, too.”

Bellini took the envelope. He opened it and pulled out a stack of photographs.

He glanced at them, and his cruel smile widened.

He tossed the photos onto the marble floor in front of me.

“Look at them, Emma. Look at the man you almost died to protect.”

I looked down.

The photographs showed a wrecked silver sports car. And standing next to it, handing a thick envelope of cash to a police officer, was Luca Moretti.

“He played you,” Bellini said softly. “He used your poverty to buy your loyalty.”

My entire world shattered.

Every late night I worked. Every dollar I sent home. It was all built on a lie.

“Now,” Bellini said, drawing a small pistol from his coat pocket and pointing it at my head. “Tell me exactly where he is hiding upstairs, and I will let you walk out that front door. You can go home to your mother.”

I stared at the photographs.

Then I looked up at the stairs.

If I told him, Luca would die. But Luca had destroyed my family. He deserved to pay.

“Well, Emma?” Bellini asked, pulling back the hammer of the gun. “Where is he?”

I took a deep breath.

And I made the hardest choice of my life.

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