🐾 The Maid Who Saved Bruno and Exposed His Fiancée’s Cruelest Lie

Chapter 08 - The Funeral Money

Morning came gray and mean.

No one slept.

Luca sent my mother to a hotel suite under guard, though she argued until her breath ran short. Bruno went with her because he refused to leave the quilt. Daniel took the ledger to be copied, photographed, and locked in three separate places I was not allowed to know about.

At six-thirty, I sat in Luca's kitchen with a cup of coffee I had not touched.

The big house was waking around us. Staff moved more quietly than usual. News of Vanessa's disappearance had already traveled through the walls.

Houses like that have veins.

Secrets move through them faster than blood.

Luca entered wearing a fresh black suit, his hair still damp from a shower, his face carrying the exhaustion of a man who had discovered too many betrayals to sort them neatly.

He stopped when he saw me.

"You should be with your mother."

"She told me to come back."

"Why?"

"Because she said if I hid from the truth now, I'd spend my life doing it."

Luca sat across from me.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Then I said the thing between us.

"Did your father pay for my father's funeral?"

He looked tired.

Not evasive.

That mattered, though I didn't want it to.

"I don't know."

"But you think it's possible."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because my father has spent fifty years turning guilt into checks."

I looked at my hands.

The knuckles were raw from clenching them all night.

"My father was not an easy man. He drank. He shouted. Sometimes he disappeared for days. But when I was little, before things got bad, he used to make pancakes shaped like animals. He cried at commercials. He carried groceries for old ladies in our building."

My voice broke despite my efforts.

"My mother told me gambling ruined him. Now I find out some rich man's secret did."

Luca did not defend Salvatore.

He did not offer me polished words about complicated times or hard choices.

He just said, "I am sorry."

That almost undid me.

"Don't say that unless you mean to do something with it."

His eyes lifted.

"I do."

Daniel entered before I could answer.

"Boss. We pulled traffic cameras. Paolo drove Vanessa to a private airfield outside Aurora. Plane never left. She switched cars there. Driver unknown."

"Destination?"

"We're working on it. But something else came up."

He set a folder on the table.

"The funeral home that handled Mr. Collins' arrangements received payment from a shell company. Garden Gate Holdings. Same phrase in Isabella's ledger."

I closed my eyes.

There it was.

Proof has weight.

People think it brings relief because uncertainty ends. It doesn't. It simply removes the last soft place where hope had been hiding.

Luca opened the folder.

"Date?"

"Two days after Patrick Collins died."

"Cause of death?"

Daniel hesitated.

I looked up.

"Say it."

"Car accident," he said. "Single vehicle. Wet road. No witnesses. Police report says alcohol was involved."

I remembered that night in fragments.

My mother's scream.

A neighbor's arms around me.

Rain on the windows.

I had been twelve.

"He had been sober for nine months," I said.

Nobody answered.

Luca turned another page.

"The officer who signed the report."

Daniel nodded. "Retired. Living in Florida. We have someone going to speak with him."

"No," Luca said. "I go."

Daniel looked startled. "Boss, Vanessa gave you until ten."

"Then she expects me to stay here."

"Exactly."

"So I won't."

He looked at me.

"Emma, I need to ask you something. You can say no."

After a night of commands, the question startled me.

"What?"

"Vanessa wants a public statement from you. We are going to give her one. Not the one she wants."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we let her think she still controls the story. We announce the wedding is postponed due to a family matter. You do not sign anything. You do not speak to anyone. But I will need you visible. Safe. Calm. Not hidden away like someone guilty."

"You want to use me."

The words were quiet.

Daniel looked down.

Luca did not flinch.

"Yes."

His honesty angered me more than a lie would have, then somehow less.

"For what?"

"To make Vanessa come closer. She hates that I believed you. She hates that Bruno survived. She hates that your mother has the ledger. If she thinks you are becoming important, she will make a mistake."

I stared at him.

"And if the mistake is hurting me?"

"Then she will have to go through me first."

"Men always say that after women have already been hurt."

His face tightened.

The kitchen went silent.

I stood.

"I am grateful you saved Bruno. I am grateful you sent men to protect my mother. But I need you to understand something, Mr. Moretti. I have spent my whole life being useful to people with more power than me. Useful daughters don't complain. Useful workers take double shifts. Useful poor girls keep rich women's secrets because rent is due."

My voice shook, but I kept going.

"I won't be useful bait."

Luca rose slowly.

"Then tell me what you will be."

The question caught me.

Nobody had ever asked it that way.

Not what I needed. Not what I could do. Not whether I would please them.

What I would be.

I looked at the folder containing my father's death.

"I will be present," I said. "I will not lie. I will not sign anything. I will not hide. And if Vanessa comes for me, I get to decide how to answer."

Luca nodded once.

"Agreed."

"And my mother stays out of it."

"As much as possible."

"No. Entirely."

His jaw moved.

"Emma—"

"That is my condition."

He studied me for a long moment.

Then said, "Done."

Daniel's phone buzzed.

He read the screen and went still.

"Boss. Vanessa just posted."

He turned the phone toward Luca.

There she was on social media, perfect hair, soft makeup, red dress replaced by a cream blouse. She looked wounded. Noble. Beautifully betrayed.

The caption read:

With a heavy heart, I ask for privacy as Luca and I handle a painful domestic situation involving a disturbed employee and a beloved family pet. Please pray for everyone involved, especially those struggling with instability.

Below it was a photograph.

Me.

Cropped from security footage, my face pale, hair falling loose, eyes wet.

Under the photo, Vanessa had written one more sentence.

Sometimes kindness toward staff is mistaken for permission.

My stomach turned.

Daniel swore.

Luca's face went cold.

But I was staring at the comment already climbing to the top.

A verified account.

The Bellini Foundation.

We stand with Vanessa.