Bellini Blood
Chapter 07 - Bellini Blood
Vanessa sat in Luca’s study at midnight with her red gown pooled around her like spilled wine.
By then the mansion had changed its breathing. Guests were gone. Flowers sagged in their vases. Somewhere downstairs, staff whispered while clearing plates from a dinner no one would remember for the food.
Sophie was asleep in Teresa’s suite with the cracked photograph beside her pillow.
I should have been dismissed.
Instead, Luca had asked me to remain.
“Because Sophie trusts you,” he said.
He did not thank me. Not exactly. Men like Luca learned gratitude after learning command, and the order sometimes confused them. But there was something in his voice I had not heard before.
Need.
Vanessa sat across from him, no longer pretending confidence. Marco stood near the door. Teresa sat by the window, hands folded over the top of her cane. I stood beside the bookshelf, feeling like a spoon accidentally left at a trial.
Luca placed Elena’s blue notebook on the desk.
“What did my wife know about your family?”
Vanessa did not look at the notebook.
“You should ask your aunt.”
Teresa’s brows lifted. “Careful, dear.”
Vanessa’s laugh was thin. “Don’t sit there like a saint. You knew the Bellinis and the Morettis had old blood between them.”
Luca looked at Teresa.
The old woman sighed.
“There was trouble before you were born.”
“What trouble?”
“Your father and Carlo Bellini built business together. Then Carlo betrayed him.”
Vanessa smiled bitterly. “That is the Moretti version.”
Teresa ignored her. “Money vanished. A witness vanished. Your father nearly went to prison for a crime Carlo arranged.”
“And yet I’m engaged to his daughter?” Luca asked.
“Because Carlo became useful again,” Teresa said. “And because you believed business could bury history.”
Vanessa leaned forward.
“My father wanted peace.”
“Your father wanted access,” Teresa said.
Luca opened the notebook and read the line again.
Keep Sophie away from Bellini blood.
“Elena wrote this five weeks before she died.”
Vanessa’s face tightened. “Elena was anxious near the end.”
“My wife was poisoned,” Luca said.
The words stunned the room.
Not because we knew they were true.
Because he said them like he had finally admitted what part of him had believed all along.
Vanessa shook her head. “No. She was ill.”
“That’s what the doctors said.”
“Then believe the doctors.”
“I did.” He looked down at the notebook. “Because believing otherwise meant I failed her.”
No one interrupted him.
Luca turned another page.
“Elena wrote about dizziness, bruising, confusion. She wrote that someone switched her herbal tea. She wrote that she told me, and I said stress can make the body cruel.”
His hand stilled on the paper.
“I said that to her.”
The room seemed to contract.
Teresa closed her eyes.
I understood then that guilt had been sitting at that desk long before Vanessa arrived.
Luca looked up.
“Did your father have anything to do with my wife’s death?”
Vanessa’s answer came too quickly.
“No.”
“Did you?”
Her eyes filled. “No.”
“Then why threaten my child tonight?”
“I didn’t threaten her.”
“Your phone did.”
“My father sent that message because he panicked.”
“About what?”
She looked at the notebook.
“About what Elena might have left behind.”
Teresa leaned forward. “What did she leave?”
Vanessa’s mouth trembled.
And for the first time, I saw something real under all that polish.
Fear.
“My father believes Elena kept copies of his old ledgers.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“What ledgers?”
“Payments. Shipments. Names.”
“Related to my businesses?”
“To both families.”
Teresa whispered, “Lord preserve us.”
Vanessa looked directly at Luca.
“If those ledgers exist, my father goes to prison. Your men go to prison. Half your legitimate companies collapse under investigation.”
Luca did not blink.
“And Sophie?”
Vanessa looked away.
He rose.
“And Sophie?”
“My father thought Elena hid them for Sophie.”
“Why?”
“As insurance.”
“Against whom?”
Vanessa finally met his eyes.
“Against you.”
The room went still.
Luca did not move, but something in his face went so cold I felt it from across the study.
Vanessa spoke faster now.
“Elena didn’t trust what your grief would make you. She thought if she died, you might let the family bury the truth to protect the empire. So she hid proof somewhere only Sophie could lead you when she was old enough.”
Teresa said, “That child is ten.”
“And my father is impatient.” Vanessa swallowed. “He thought if Sophie were sent away, we could search Elena’s things without her noticing what was missing.”
Luca’s hand closed on the desk.
I thought of Sophie’s dinner plate. The rules. The green room. The boarding school.
Not cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
A search disguised as discipline.
Then Marco’s radio crackled.
A guard’s voice came through.
“Boss, we have movement at the east gate.”
Luca turned.
The radio hissed again.
“Three vehicles. Bellini plates.”
Vanessa stood so quickly her chair struck the rug.
“You have to let me talk to him.”
Luca looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because if my father came here tonight…” Her voice broke. “He didn’t come for me.”
May you like
A boom sounded from somewhere outside the house.
Then every light in the mansion went out.
