Bianca Moretti Came Home With a Red Folder
Chapter 07 - Bianca Moretti Came Home With a Red Folder
Bianca Moretti was sixty-seven and did not look like a woman who had spent nine years hiding.
She looked like a woman who had spent nine years deciding exactly when to return.
Silver hair cut at the jaw.
Cream coat.
No visible jewelry except a gold wedding band she still wore on her right hand.
Roman stopped in the hospital residence doorway.
“Mother.”
Bianca looked at him.
“Roman.”
No embrace.
Sadi suddenly felt intrusive.
Then Bianca looked at her.
“And you must be Sadi.”
“You know me.”
“I know of you.”
“For how long?”
“Since you were seventeen.”
Sadi glanced at Teresa.
Her mother looked down.
Roman closed the door.
“You’ve been speaking to Teresa.”
“Yes.”
“For nine years.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe you wanted nothing to do with Chicago.”
“I wanted nothing to do with your father.”
“He died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“You did not come to his funeral.”
“No.”
“Why come now?”
Bianca placed a red leather folder on the table.
“Because Luca is repeating him.”
Roman’s face changed.
“Repeating what?”
“Believing fear can be managed with paperwork.”
Sadi almost laughed.
The family had a theme.
Bianca opened the folder.
Original disposal permits.
Laboratory results.
Photographs of drums buried beneath Warehouse Twelve.
Emails printed before emails became things people thought to delete.
Sadi leaned closer.
“This proves Bellini Disposal falsified records.”
“Yes.”
“And Vittorio knew.”
“Yes.”
Roman looked at his mother.
“When?”
“Seven years before the fire.”
His face hardened.
“So he let it continue.”
“Yes.”
Bianca did not soften the word.
“Why?”
“Money.”
Roman looked away.
There was something almost childlike about disappointment when the parent was already dead.
Bianca continued.
“Your father believed cleanup would collapse Moretti Logistics. He believed the city would seize properties. He believed hundreds would lose jobs.”
Sadi said quietly, “Reasons.”
Bianca looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Not permission.”
A small smile.
“Carlo taught you well.”
Sadi’s chest tightened.
“He was my stepfather.”
“He was more than that.”
Sadi frowned.
Bianca immediately clarified.
“Not by blood.”
Roman looked almost amused.
Bianca gave him a sharp glance.
“I know how stories sound.”
Sadi appreciated her.
“Carlo was Vittorio’s internal accountant,” Bianca continued. “The one person who refused to treat family loyalty as an accounting category.”
Teresa smiled through tears.
“That sounds like him.”
Roman touched one page.
“Why did you leave?”
Bianca looked at her son.
“Because of the fire.”
“You thought Father caused it.”
“At first.”
“And then?”
“Gabriel told me Arthur locked the doors.”
“You hid Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“Father knew?”
“Yes.”
“You and he worked together after you left?”
“Once.”
Roman laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in this family cooperates better after pretending to hate each other.”
Bianca ignored that.
“Your father gave Teresa the money because Carlo had saved enough evidence to destroy all of them.”
“Why not release it?”
“Because Carlo was dead. Gabriel was hunted. Sadi was seventeen. Teresa had a sick child.”
Sadi frowned.
“I wasn’t sick.”
“No.”
Bianca looked at Teresa.
Her mother closed her eyes.
Sadi’s pulse changed.
“What?”
Teresa whispered, “You were being watched.”
“By Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he sent a photograph.”
Teresa opened her handbag.
Old envelope.
Old photograph.
Sadi at seventeen, walking out of high school.
On the back:
THE KEY.
No signature.
Sadi stared.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were a child.”
“I stopped being one.”
“I know.”
The apology in Teresa’s face was real.
It did not repair nine years.
Sadi looked at Bianca.
“So Vittorio paid us to stay quiet.”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
Bianca’s eyes moved to Roman.
“To keep you alive.”
Roman frowned.
“How does Sadi’s silence keep me alive?”
Bianca opened the final section of the folder.
A letter.
Vittorio’s handwriting.
Roman recognized it.
Bianca handed it to him.
He read silently.
Then sat down.
Sadi waited.
“What?”
Roman did not answer.
Bianca did.
“Luca was supposed to inherit the family’s criminal operations.”
Sadi looked at Roman.
“And Roman?”
“The legitimate companies.”
“That seems almost civilized.”
“It was not.”
Bianca’s mouth tightened.
“Luca believed Roman was stealing his future. He began using Bellini Disposal profits to build his own network.”
Roman looked up.
“Father knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Long enough.”
“Why didn’t he remove Luca?”
“Because Luca knew about the dumping.”
Blackmail.
Family style.
Bianca continued.
“Carlo discovered Luca was not only paying inspectors. He was paying men to follow Roman.”
Roman’s face changed.
Sadi remembered Arthur trying to transfer federal liability to him.
Not just business.
Inheritance.
“Luca wanted Roman blamed for everything.”
“Yes.”
“The fire evidence could prove Roman’s signature was only vendor authorization.”
“Yes.”
“So keeping Carlo’s key hidden protected Roman from Luca destroying the evidence.”
“Partly.”
Sadi hated that word now.
“What is the other part?”
Bianca looked at Roman.
“Vittorio made a second set of books.”
Roman froze.
“Where?”
“With Carlo.”
“The locker?”
“No.”
Bianca looked toward Teresa.
Teresa slowly shook her head.
“I don’t have them.”
“I know.”
“Then who?”
Bianca’s eyes returned to Sadi.
“Carlo gave them to someone he trusted more than any Moretti.”
Sadi frowned.
“Who?”
“Your law professor.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Professor Harlan?”
Bianca nodded.
Professor David Harlan.
Contracts.
Second year.
The man who had encouraged Sadi to stay in law school when Teresa’s first surgery nearly made her quit.
The man who later arranged an emergency scholarship.
Sadi felt cold.
“My scholarship.”
Bianca looked at Teresa.
Teresa whispered, “Carlo asked David to look after you if anything happened.”
Sadi stared.
“Professor Harlan knew Carlo.”
“Yes.”
“For years?”
“Yes.”
“And he has the second books.”
Bianca’s expression darkened.
“He had them.”
Roman caught the distinction.
“Had?”
Bianca nodded.
“David Harlan died yesterday.”
Sadi stopped breathing.
Professor Harlan had been sixty-three.
Healthy the last time she saw him two years earlier.
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
Roman looked at his mother.
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
May you like
Bianca closed the red folder.
“And this morning, his office was emptied before the university opened.”
