Chapter 1 – The First Class Ticket To Geneva

The silence in the dining room was absolute.

Forty guests stared at the woman in the center of the room.

Camille’s face lost all its color.

She looked at Anthony, her mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out.

Luca didn’t yell.

He didn’t raise his hands.

He simply stood up slowly, keeping his eyes locked on the woman he was supposed to marry in three weeks.

“You pushed him.”

His voice was a dangerous whisper. It carried perfectly across the marble floor.

“Luca, no!” Camille gasped, finally finding her voice. “He’s confused! The stroke, the medications—Dr. Evans said hallucinations were possible!”

Anthony’s good hand gripped his son’s sleeve.

“Not… confused,” the old man rasped. “Remember… everything.”

I stood frozen near the staircase.

My heart was hammering against my ribs.

For seven months, this family had mourned Anthony’s accident. They had hired specialists, built ramps, and changed their entire lives.

And the woman sleeping in Luca’s bed was the one who had caused it.

“You told me you found him at the bottom of the stairs,” Luca said.

He took one step toward her.

“You said he tripped on the carpet.”

“He did!” Camille cried, backing away. She looked at the guests, silently begging someone to intervene. “He tripped! Daniel tried to catch him, but he was too heavy!”

Luca stopped.

“So now Daniel was there?”

Camille froze.

She had just caught herself in her own lie.

Five minutes ago, she claimed Daniel had merely “stopped by” today. She had never once mentioned her brother being present on the night of the accident.

“I… I misspoke,” she stammered.

“No, you didn’t.”

Luca turned to his head of security, a massive man named Marcus who was already moving toward the doors.

“Lock the gates,” Luca ordered. “Nobody leaves. Find Daniel.”

“Luca, please!” Camille sobbed, stepping forward and reaching for his chest. “Don’t do this in front of everyone! Let’s go to the study. Let’s talk about this privately.”

Luca looked down at her hands.

Then he looked at her face.

“Get your hands off me.”

She flinched as if he had struck her.

“You pushed a seventy-four-year-old man down a flight of concrete stairs,” Luca said, his voice stripped of all emotion. “And then you spent seven months pretending to be his savior. Feeding him. Wheeling him around. Playing the devoted daughter-in-law.”

He looked at the brakeless wheelchair.

“And tonight, you tried to finish the job and blame it on a maid.”

“I didn’t!” she screamed. “Daniel did the brakes! I didn’t know!”

She slapped a hand over her mouth.

The room gasped.

She had just thrown her own brother to the wolves.

Luca tilted his head.

“Daniel removed the brakes?”

“Yes!” Camille cried, tears ruining her perfect makeup. “He’s been out of control, Luca! He owes money. He thought if Anthony was… out of the way, you would finalize the trust fund transfers sooner. I tried to stop him!”

It was a desperate, pathetic lie.

And Luca knew it.

“If you were trying to stop him, Camille, why is your passport in your evening bag?”

She stopped breathing.

Luca held out his hand.

“Give me the bag.”

She clutched her silver designer clutch to her chest. “It’s just a purse, Luca.”

“Give it to me, or Marcus will take it from you.”

Shaking uncontrollably, Camille handed it over.

Luca opened it.

He pulled out her blue passport.

Then, he pulled out a crisp, heavy paper envelope.

He opened the flap and slid out a ticket.

“First class,” Luca read aloud, his eyes burning into hers. “Departing O’Hare for Geneva. Tonight at eleven-thirty.”

My stomach turned.

She wasn’t planning a wedding.

She was planning an escape.

Luca held up the ticket for the entire room to see.

“You were going to kill my father tonight, frame Natalie, and be on a plane to Switzerland before the police even took her statement.”

Camille dropped to her knees, sobbing violently.

“Daniel made me buy it! He said we had to leave!”

But Luca wasn’t looking at her anymore.

His eyes had dropped to something else inside her open purse.

He reached inside and pulled out a delicate, braided silver bracelet.

My blood ran completely cold.

It had a tiny silver sunflower charm.

“Where did you get this?” Luca asked her.

But Camille wasn’t looking at the bracelet. She was staring at me.

With a sickening, triumphant smile through her tears.

I didn’t wait for her to answer.

I recognized that sunflower. I had bought it for my nineteen-year-old sister, Maya, when she graduated high school.

Maya never took it off.

“Where is my sister?” I screamed.

TITLE: The Bracelet In The Silver Purse

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