The Letter With No Date
Chapter 02 - The Letter With No Date
The library smelled of leather, cedar, and the faint trace of cigar smoke that had settled into the walls during Luca’s father’s lifetime. Emma helped Rosa into a chair near the fire, then stood by the door, unsure whether she was permitted to remain. In the Moretti house, permission mattered more than kindness.
Luca entered a minute later and shut the door himself. He had removed his jacket, but the black shirt beneath it made him look no less formidable. He held his temper so carefully that the effort showed in his jaw.
“Rosa,” he said. “I was told you left Chicago in 1998 and never contacted us again.”
“I was told you refused every letter I sent.”
“I never saw a letter.”
“I know that now.”
He looked at her hands. They were thin, spotted with age, and folded together so tightly the knuckles had blanched. “Who told you I didn’t want to see you?”
“Your aunt, Isabella. She said you blamed me for what happened to your father.”
Luca’s expression changed. Isabella Moretti had died six years earlier, after a stroke that left her unable to speak. For the last decade of her life, she had managed the family’s charitable foundation and remained the keeper of every old grievance. Luca had trusted her because she had helped raise him after his mother died.
“My aunt said you were unstable,” he replied. “She said you had become obsessed with my father.”
Rosa closed her eyes. “I was his sister.”
The words seemed to make the room smaller. Luca sat down slowly. “My father had a sister?”
“Two, actually. I was the younger one. Your father and I were close until he married your mother. After that, Isabella decided I was a bad influence. She said I encouraged him to question the family business.”
“Why have I never heard of you?”
“Because she erased me.”
Emma watched Luca absorb the answer. He did not look at Rosa as if he believed her, but he no longer looked at her as if she were a stranger. It was a start.
Rosa asked for the envelope. Emma handed it over, and the old woman placed it on the desk without opening it. “Your father gave this to me two days before he disappeared. He told me to keep it until you were old enough to understand what he had done.”
“My father died in a boating accident.”
“That is what they told you.”
Luca rose and walked to the window. Beyond the glass, the garden lay dark beneath the October sky. “There were police reports. A funeral. A body.”
“There was a closed casket,” Rosa said gently. “And a family eager to move on.”
He turned back. “Are you saying my father is alive?”
“I don’t know. I’m saying the story was never as simple as they made it sound.”
Rosa explained that Daniel Moretti had been preparing to leave the family business after discovering that his older brother had used the shipping company to move money through shell accounts. Daniel wanted to take Luca and his mother away from Chicago. He had arranged to meet Rosa at a small hotel near the lake. He never arrived. The next morning, the family announced he had drowned.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Luca asked.
“I did. They said the boat was found empty and the current was strong. They told me to be grateful the family had spared me a public scandal.” Her voice cracked. “Then Isabella came to my apartment and said if I spoke again, you would be the one who suffered.”
Luca’s hands curled at his sides. “She threatened a child?”
“She threatened a motherless child who was about to lose the only parent he had left.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Emma could almost see the old memories rearranging themselves: the funeral, the family’s silence, the years of being told that grief should be private and questions should be left alone.
“Open it,” he said.
Rosa broke the seal. Inside lay a sheet of paper, a photograph, and a small brass key. The letter had no date, only a greeting written in Daniel’s distinctive slanted hand.
Luciano, if this reaches you, then someone has finally become tired of keeping the truth from you. I am sorry it took so long. Do not trust the version of our family history that ends with my funeral. There are two ledgers, one real and one prepared for the authorities. The real one was hidden where your mother used to keep her roses. Find it before Isabella’s people do.
The photograph showed Daniel standing beside a young woman in a blue coat. The woman was Rosa, much younger, with the same steady eyes. Behind them stood a man whose face had been scratched away.
Luca picked up the brass key. “Where did he hide the ledger?”
“I don’t know. Your mother’s roses were at the old lake house. Isabella sold it after your father’s funeral.”
“Who bought it?”
Rosa looked toward the door. “Vanessa’s father.”
Luca stared at the letter again. “Why would Vanessa know about this?”
“I don’t know. But when I arrived tonight, she saw the envelope and went white. That tells me she knows more than she has admitted.”
Emma felt the familiar urge to step back into the role of invisible servant. This was family business, and families like the Morettis had a way of turning everyone nearby into a casualty. But Rosa had trusted her enough to enter that ballroom, and Luca had asked her to stay.
“I heard Miss Bellini in the pantry this afternoon,” Emma said. “She was speaking to a man on the phone. She said, ‘The old woman must not reach him before the papers are signed.’”
Luca’s eyes moved to her. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Because I didn’t know what it meant. And because people who tell the truth in this house often don’t keep their jobs.”
For a moment, he considered her not as a maid, but as a person who had made a choice at some cost to herself.
“You’ll keep your job,” he said. “And from now on, you tell me everything you hear.”
A knock sounded. Marco, Luca’s security chief, entered without waiting. “Sir, someone tried to get into the old records room. We caught him at the service stairs, but he escaped through the kitchen.”
“What did he take?”
“Nothing we can confirm.” Marco glanced at the envelope. “But the man was employed by Bellini Holdings.”
Luca looked at the brass key, then at the photograph. The man whose face had been scratched away seemed suddenly less like a stranger and more like a warning.
Rosa reached for Luca’s hand. “There’s one more thing. Your father said if anyone came asking for the ledger, I should remember the name they used before they became a Moretti.”
“What name?”
Rosa swallowed.
“Bellini.”
May you like
Luca looked toward the closed door, where the sounds of the engagement dinner were slowly returning. Vanessa was still out there, smiling for the guests.
And now he knew that her family had been standing inside his for far longer than he had ever imagined.
